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Microsoft Goes Head-to-Head With IBM
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece on Microsoft's latest announcements that it is going after large-business computing, a realm that IBM currently has a stronghold on." From the article: "In both cases, the company has fashioned 'enterprise' versions of the products with additional security and collaboration-enabling features for sale to large businesses. Microsoft has spent $20 billion over the past three years on these upgrades, and Ballmer says it will spend $500 million over the next year marketing them to corporations. 'We're unlocking the next wave of growth for Microsoft,' Ballmer predicted during a press conference after his speech." We've previously discussed Microsoft's plans for IBM.
Ok, they threw $20 billion at it and will throw another $500 million at it. But what it is is a mature market, wherein customers have grown weary of the old business model of turning over buckets of money for software and support. Many big buyers are moving along on old, unsupported versions of Office, which they are loathe to upgrade for no reason other than to buy a pile of features they're not convinced they need. Usually the push for upgrades comes from some brash executive who thinks by the seat of his/her pants that it's about time they got into the 21st century (whatever the hell that is really supposed to mean) just before they, themselves pack it in and move along to their next rung up the ladder (with a new line for their resumee: Modernized infrastructure)
While I was a bit of an IBM hater, back in the 80's, for the attitude their sales people conveyed, I do believe IBM is now a far better company, much wiser and behind the winning hand -- Open Source. Their time in the trenches will serve them well as a the cocky crew from Redmond attempt to strut in like they own the house.
Considering Microsoft's track record, particularly in the press with all the vulnerabilites, I think they've got a tough sell. Some will be low-hanging fruit, easy to pluck, but others will be much harder to reach. It will be interesting to see how much further.
Personally, I'm already advising our shop to dump Microsoft. We simply can't afford them anymore.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
$20 Billion bozo. With a "B". $20 billion, $500 million.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
IBM backed the "Netscape" antitrust case the government won against Microsoft in the 1990s. That decision didn't protect consumers from Microsoft's monopoly abuse so well, but it did protect IBM's Lotus/Notes product line from Outlook/Exchange taking over the Internet. Let's see how well either of them fare, without a Republican government to protect Microsoft and with a real competition between them keeping them too busy to crush the smaller players entering the groupware market, especially on Linux servers. Interoperability is the most likely winner in a multilateral vendor competition.
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make install -not war
Any sympathy I might have had towards IBM in this confrontation vanished upon reaching the word "Lotus". Save me, Microsoft!!!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
For servers, Windows is a poor system (it is for desktops too, but that is another thing). Most server application / services install themselves everywhere in the system and updates things in the OS/Windows folder (this is particularly true for Microsofts own products). For this reason, if you want stable operations you put just one, or a few server products on each server. Combining development/test/production on the same machine is impossible. This is partly a Windows problem - partly a problem about how applications are built for Windows - both things are equally bad. Who wants to VMWare everything just to not have thousands of servers more or less doing nothing but hosting an OS and a single service?
Not exactly. It just requires one that's "good enough for the task", that more technicians have been trained on, and that has enough mindshare for Whoever's In Charge to jump at it.
Microsoft's strategy has never been to be the best, or even to "not suck". They fight for hearts and minds.
Remember the line from Pirates of Silicon Valley?
Jobs: "We have better stuff!"
Gates: "It doesn't matter."
From the article: Microsoft argues that by integrating those user-oriented software packages thoroughly with back-end programs for data storage, communications, and business-process management, it puts companies' ordinary employees, rather than the geeks, at the center of the computing world. "Our innovations facilitate the power of people" in businesses, he said.
It's true that MS is taking a completely different approach from IBM. MS espouses off-the-shelf software products (theirs of course) glued together by the customer's own employees. IBM espouses an army of consultants armed with a collection of applications and CDs packed full of open source, writing your company's custom business software.
Now which approach do you think will win? What does history tell us? Personally, I think things in computerdom always trend towards off-the-shelf standardization. the reasons for this are obvious. There is someone to call when there's a problem. The cost typically drops as volumes are high. And the learning curve is lower because people already are familiar with the building blocks. I can't think of any examples where customization is a longterm solution to a problem. This is why I think MS has a good chance of success here.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
To be honest, I can't be the only person who thinks that this sort of functionality is useless and distracting.
When I want to work with some file that I nominally deal with using a given application, I want to work in the familiar interface of that application. I don't want to screw around with some embedded-editing crap, especially when I need to have the full application installed anyway.
Likewise, being able to 'edit' files in an email is a horrible misfeature, because it encourages very lazy thinking about where data is stored. Where's the lastest copy of my presentation -- in an email? Is it the copy in my home directory? What about the copy on my keychain drive?
And, of course, none of this will be 'industry standard', so it will follow Microsoft's usual practice of nearly mandating an all-Microsoft shop...
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Not to pick, but being Unix-centric is not necessary. IBM's biggest systems run variations of the (old,proven,legacy,venerable) Z/OS http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/ , and their iSeries (formerly AS/400) run i5/OS, http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/soft ware/os/i5os.html/ the successor to OS/400, neither of which is remotely unix-ish. I'll admit that they can run Unix, that the RS/6000s under AIX or Linux/PPC are unicies, or that at least virtual machines running under the primary OS can run Unix, but Unix-compatibility per-se isn't what Microsoft needs to compete against IBM.
What they need to compete is the high level of handholding, the extensive uptimes, and the absolute reliability and throughput of those IBM OSes. Microsoft will probably make inroads into the small-business market, and the edges of the corporation, but it's going to take more than just new software to displace IBM from the truly big-iron apps. Personally, I think that Sun, HP, and RedHat should be more concerned, as this will threaten the midrange server market.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Businesses are like people. Each one is unique and different, each one has specific needs, has specific goals, and the route through life is a little bit different for each one. On one hand, it makes sense for Microsoft to go after the big money that exists in the enterprise market; there is a lot of money to be made there. On the other hand when you go to an enterprise and offer them something, they won't usually take it straight off of the rack, they will want it tailored to meet their specific needs. Companies like IBM and Oracle seem to understand this far better than I expect a company like Microsoft will.
I'm not saying that I am against Microsoft entering the market, competition is usually good. What I am saying is that I think Microsoft will have to learn a lesson or two in order to actually compete. They won't be able to get away with delivering a product out of the box and then providing only a minimal level of support for it. Microsoft will have to play ball like the other big boys and learn to accept some of their rules. I expect that there will be some resistance to this from their end but, they will end up between a rock and a hardplace on the this because their enterprise level customers will simply demand it or look elsewhere.
Microsoft is a software company. IBM is a hardware/service company that happens to sell some software.
Microsoft thinks they understand the "business enterprise" computer market, but it's just the bottom, low-end stuff compared to IBM.
And don't even bother comparing Microsoft customer "service" to IBM customer service, there's just no comparison.
The biggest story on Microsoft is how they have lost the server market.
Microsoft has had, for over ten years, a monopoly on the desktop. A generation has grown up thinking that Microsoft is synonymous with computing. Microsoft also has billions and billions of dollars to spend on research and advertising. With all of its name recognition and money, Microsoft has not been able to build a serious name for itself in the server market.
This is the type of statement that will generate a lot of comments on both sides: Unix people who say that any version of Windows couldn't be considered seriously at all for a server, and Windows people who will point out XP and Windows Server are now stable and secure enough for mainstream usage.
But the fact still remains, that if you check out netcraft, Microsoft products seem to place a far third behind commercial Unixes and Linux. For a company with Microsoft's name recognition and research resources to not be a dominant player in the server market after 30 years of business and over ten years of market dominance is a staggering fact in itself.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.