Unleashing the New Microsoft Attack Dog
In the past Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer made all the crazy, arrogant and totally entertaining comments about competitors. With Gates mostly out of the picture, it has fallen on Ballmer to riff on rivals. But his time is limited, so this critical load is now seemingly shared with Kevin Turner, Microsoft's COO.
At the recent partner conference, Turner teed off on, in alphabetical order, Apple, Cisco, Google, Oracle, Saleforce.com and VMware.
Here are a few highlights, with a touch of commentary:
- On Apple, Turner pointed to a reseller in Latin America who sells Apple gear running Windows 7. For Turner this shows the "importance of having a great OS." I agree, but who really has that great OS? You tell me at [email protected].
- Cisco got bashed for overpriced unified communications tools. I may give this one to Turner as Redmond readers really seem to like Microsoft UC, though you also want close cooperation between Cisco and Redmond.
- On Google, Turner bragged about rescuing Google Apps customers from a substandard set of apps and gave a poke at Google's hypocritical "Do No Evil" motto. I really only trust you, the loyal and non-evil Redmond Report reader, so you tell me how Google Apps stack up at [email protected].
- Oracle was poked with Turner implying that top execs were somehow sleazy, and how Oracle takes poor care of customers of its acquired companies such as Siebel. Your take on Oracle readily accepted at [email protected].
- Salesforce.com is apparently full of hidden costs and isn't that great. It wasn't there to respond.
- Finally, VMware charges too much for large virtualized data centers.
This is fun for a journalist/commentator like me, but is it really healthy? Should Microsoft treat all these companies as competitors or do its best to make them partners? I mean, where has all this Democratic vs. Republican Party bashing gotten us? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/20/2011 at 1:18 PM