VMware Trots Out Upgrade

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/10/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Ballmer Making Patent Noise Again

We're staring to wonder, though, whether Microsoft has any cattle to go with its patent hat (that is, whether Microsoft is all hat and no cattle on this issue, as we'd say in Texas -- all talk and nothing to back it up). And Mary Jo Foley thinks there might be something entirely more sinister behind Ballmer's latest eruption.

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/10/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Will Microsoft Join in the Big-Money BI Buyouts?

OK, so we weren't the only -- or probably even the first -- wannabe pundit to predict an SAP buyout of the company known in France as BO. But, almost six years later, here we are. SAP is snapping up Business Objects for almost $7 billion in the largest acquisition in the German enterprise resource planning vendor's history. The financial markets haven't liked the huge deal so far, but from a technology perspective, it just makes so much sense.

SAP, after all, automates all sorts of back-end functions -- manufacturing, human resources, accounting, supply chain, you name it -- for most of the world's biggest companies. And the whole point of business intelligence is to give executives at those big companies easy access to back-end data that they can use for all sorts of forecasting and planning purposes. Business Objects provides that access as well as any independent vendor out there, with Cognos also very much a major player. SAP has never had an especially friendly front-end application, so Business Objects will help the German giant's powerful software communicate better with its users.

Oracle, SAP's main challenger in the ERP space, has spent wildly in recent years, including dropping more than $3 billion on Hyperion, a Business Objects competitor, this year. So SAP is finally getting into the act on the acquisition side after seemingly having failed to develop its own BI technology.

The question now is whether Microsoft, an emerging player in the BI space (and in the ERP space, as well, with its Dynamics line), will swallow a BI player of its own (hello, Cognos) or continue to build technology from the small acquisitions its has made in the space into its offering. At almost $7 billion, the asking price for a big BI firm is high, but Microsoft has the money to spend. And we know that Redmond will spend it if it's serious about jumping head-first into a market; just look at the $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive that has launched Microsoft as an advertising agency.

There are other questions that arise from SAP's deal, too, such as how the buyout will affect SAP's tenuous cooperation with Redmond on the Duet product, which uses Microsoft technology to do some of what SAP will now presumably want BO's wares to do.

Plus, there's a quandary for partners: How is an SAP festooned with a useful BI tool going to affect the sales pitch for Dynamics, which revolves in part around integration of tools, ease of use and the familiarity of the Microsoft interface? Sure, Dynamics will still have some advantages over SAP in terms of native integration with the Microsoft stack and a lower intimidation factor (not to mention cost, in many cases) for SMBs, but SAP making a serious BI move does complicate things a bit for Dynamics partners.

Will Microsoft respond to SAP's BI play with a big acquisition or with further internal development? If we had to offer a prediction, we'd go for the latter -- and, hey, we've been right before.

How does SAP's purchase of BO affect your Dynamics business? What do you make of the acquisition? Let me know at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/09/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Reader Feedback Friday: Vista

Anyway, regarding our post about XP hanging on a little longer, we actually got a little Vista love in return...sort of. Diane says:

"With minimal experience, I love Vista, but the market isn't ready for a system that only works with all the bells and whistles on the latest hardware. We do love nurturing every last bit of performance from our dinosaurs. And it's not that the public or corporatations are not willing to adopt it -- they just don't have enough time or incentive to upgrade all the hardware or be 'bothered.'

"Am I bothered? Only one of my five PCs meets the standards for running Vista Ultimate, and frankly I see no reason to upgrade them at this time. As for Office 2007, until somebody actually knows how to design a SharePoint Server, the big plus of Groove will become just as muddied. A few years ago, I used SharePoint very effectively as an application information repository. Since then, I have not seen or heard of an implementation that was time-saving rather than another quagmire of useless searches.

"As for IE7, well, most of us are afraid -- very afraid! How many e-mails from major companies have you had telling you their site would not work with IE7? Beyond that, the interface is relatively unfamiliar. I do like it, but still find it frustrating and don't understand all of the new 'features.' And I am supposed to convince people of its technical benefits?"

Diane, we're with you on IE7. Well, actually, we're not -- we use Firefox at home and IE6 at work. But we hear you.

For his part, Alistair, who writes from the U.K., joins the chorus of folks saying that Vista's struggles have been more about third parties than about the operating system itself.

"We've been running Vista in the IT deptartment from December '06, and it has been fine after some initial tweaks (mainly badly written drivers). We're running all our legacy apps on it, and it has been way more stable than XP Pro. Uptime was 60 days with no problems -- updates forced reboots.

"I can't help feeling that one whole lot of the issue is caused by manufacturers shipping shoddy drivers and IT not taking the time to really get to know the OS. It is actually good -- it just needs a bit more work than XP.

"Incidentally, I also think that a lot of the supposed shortfalls that are getting whinged [that's "whined" here in the States -- LP] about by business are the result of security measures that the industry has been asking Microsoft to address for years."

Very possibly true, Alistair, especially the bit about shoddy drivers. It's amazing that this still seems to be a problem with Vista going on being a year old.

Have any more thoughts about Vista? Send them my way at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/05/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Reader Feedback Friday: Microsoft and the EU

William is all for placating the EU...and then letting the free market take hold:

"Why doesn't Microsoft just give in to the EU and provide them with their requested stripped-down product? In the meantime, let our free enterprise system do its job. If Microsoft gives the EU a choice between the full-blown Microsoft product or a stripped-down version -- which, by the way, should cost more in order to customize the software to meet [the EU's] needs -- we all would see just how far the EU would really take this issue. Isn't that what free enterprise is all about?"

It is, William. Too bad free enterprise isn't such a popular concept across the pond.

Dan, on the other hand, takes issue, if briefly, with our contention that the EU wants to knock an American company down a few pegs:

"No country is more guilty of screwing successful foreign companies than the U.S."

Maybe, Dan...but do two wrongs make a right?

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/05/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Microsoft-Google Slugfest Continues

"We purchased Jellyfish.com," Microsoft search and advertising platform group vice president Alex Gounares said in a written reply to an AFP inquiry.

Wow, AFP, thanks for keeping things in perspective for us! We might never have understood what was happening if you hadn't quoted Gounares directly. Anyway, the more interesting story about the industry's hottest rivalry concerns Microsoft backing off of its antitrust stance regarding the Google-DoubleClick deal. Again, we quote from the story linked, this time from Reuters:

"The question is not for Microsoft to have specific views (on this deal)...As in all markets, it is for the regulator to see if the competition is right," Jean-Philippe Courtois, head of Microsoft International, told journalists in Paris.

Last week, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said Google's deal would make the Web search company "the overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of advertising" and it would be "bad for consumers."

Well, never mind, then! Perhaps Microsoft has decided to keep its mouth shut on antitrust issues given last month's unfavorable ruling from a European Court. Or maybe Courtois was just being courteous -- which, if we remember correctly, is what his name means in French.

On the Google side of the fight, the new princes of Silicon Valley are beefing up their corporate e-mail offering. The fight goes on.

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/04/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Mini-Microsoft Bounced From Facebook

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/04/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Monsieur Ballmer in Paris

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/04/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Redmond Launches Anti-Piracy Effort for ISVs

And that's not all that Microsoft's doing on the anti-piracy front this week. Yesterday, it announced the Get Genuine Windows Agreement (GGWA), which allows a one-time chance for businesses to get their Windows XP boxes in compliance -- or else.

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/03/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Adobe Firing Salvos at Redmond

And if going after Microsoft Word wasn't enough, Adobe's also teaming with business intelligence heavyweight Business Objects in another effort to provide competition to Office.

Posted by Lee Pender on 10/02/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Big Day for Windows Releases

And, without even trying to make a transition, we'll tell you that Dell is introducing servers for business intelligence with the SQL Server database preconfigured.

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/25/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments

Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 Set for Houston

Posted by Lee Pender on 09/25/2007 at 1:21 PM0 comments