The big German ERP titan has teamed with Sybase to launch a
not uninteresting operation to allow users to access ERP data on mobile devices.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/12/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
We're cleaning out the reader e-mail cupboard this week, so let's get started.
On Microsoft's apparent return to its roots in 2009, we got a comment from longtime friend of RCP Ken Thoreson, who now has his very own, very good blog on RCPmag.com. Anyway, here's what Ken had to say:
"Absolutely the right spot to be. What made Microsoft was excellent execution...something that has been lacking in many aspects of their day-to-day operations."
Ken, we'll count you as more familiar with the daily grind at Microsoft than we are, but we couldn't agree more with your point. It's time for Redmond to stop scatter shooting and start aiming at the targets that made it so rich: Windows and the enterprise. Vista should serve as a warning -- a lack of focus can come back to bite even the most powerful company. Some ex-Wall Street firms and a couple of automakers might have something to say about that. In retrospect, of course.
On Windows 7 possibly arriving in September (and possibly cleaning up Vista's mess), a few users sound pretty excited. Tyler reports:
"I just wanted to comment that for business, I know I'm not going to make the jump to Windows 7 on all the company computers. In fact, we are still using Windows XP. However, for personal uses, I have used the beta of Windows 7 and find it to be a much better environment than Windows Vista. Just like Vista, I still have problems with some hardware, like the built-in EVDO modem in my laptop; however, I'm sure that Verizon will fix this once 7 is released. I think that for myself I would purchase Windows 7 Ultimate once it hits the shelf. As for the company I work for, I think any upgrades in OS are a few years out."
We like the positive review of 7, Tyler, but your company is going to be on XP for an awfully long time if upgrades are a few years out. Microsoft and a partner or two might like that process to speed up a little bit. But on the other hand, XP will probably work just as well a few years from now as it does today. So we see where you're coming from.
Norm seems pretty psyched, as well:
"I just installed Windows [7, we're guessing --LP] on a test machine. Old HP tc1100 tablet. Then removed Windows, old files. Looks like I now have a new tablet! When Vista came out, I could not install it on this machine. What an improvement 7 is. I'm an ISV and will test my ClickOnce code written with Visual Studio on this machine. Looks like I will be giving Microsoft a big 'THANK YOU.'"
Great news, Norm. And we're sure that Microsoft will respond with a friendly, "You're welcome! And thanks for hyping Windows 7."
Arthur, however, is taking a more cautious approach to the magnificent 7:
"I am currently in the market for two new computers but will not buy any that comes loaded with Vista. Windows 7...I'll wait and see!"
Fair enough, Arthur. Maybe you won't have to wait too much longer.
One more topic, this time business intelligence and Microsoft's contribution to it, with which Barry is, uh, less than impressed:
"The real problem with Microsoft BI is the immaturity of its products. We made the transition at [organization redacted, just in case --LP] last year from Cognos to MS. Our productivity plummeted due to the tools not having key capabilities found in mature BI tools. Visualizations are much more difficult because of the 'you can always write C# to fill in the gaps' mentality of MS tools. Excel doesn't cut it for the kinds of advanced visualizations we need and SQL Server Reporting Services is like using stone knives and flint axes to build a Saturn V rocket. What Microsoft still doesn't get is that BI is not just financial, not just a bunch of tools, and not for IT shops to build. Self-service data analysis is just not possible with the MS tools -- even the new ones in SQL Server 2008. They need about a decade of maturity to catch up to the likes of Cognos or the other mature BI suites."
Yeesh. Not sounding so good there, Microsoft BI. It's true that companies like Business Objects, Cognos and Hyperion had a big head start on Microsoft in BI (and basically invented the category), and if Barry's experience is any indication, Microsoft is still miles behind its now-acquired competitors. Should Redmond be rethinking not snatching up BO or Cognos? Maybe.
We're always open to whatever you have to say about whatever you read here. Or other stuff -- whatever strikes you when you're at your keyboard. Send your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/12/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Musings for the mobile-minded from Jeff Schwartz.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/12/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
The corporate vice president for Windows product management opens up on the new browser
here.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/11/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
It is with great regret that, after three consecutive years of covering the event live, your editor is not at Convergence this year. It is with even greater regret that missing Convergence 2009 means missing a trip to New Orleans, one of your editor's favorite cities and a place where he'd happily help rebuild the local economy by spending 1105 Media's money.
But alas, priorities have changed, and RCPU will be covering the annual Dynamics show from Framingham, Mass., this year. It's not the worst place a person could be, but it's also not the home of jambalaya, Dixie Beer -- sadly, apparently brewed in Wisconsin post-Katrina -- Dixieland jazz and just generally rolling the good times.
Priorities have changed for Dynamics and Dynamics partners, too. This year's show won't see a slew of big product launches, although Microsoft has released new versions of the AX and NAV suites within the last year. Instead, as Dynamics chief Kirill Tatarinov told Redmond magazine (and your editor) not long ago, Convergence New Orleans will be -- and now is -- all about hanging on in a tough economy.
Thus far, the chin-up approach is working, said Doug Kennedy, vice president of Microsoft Dynamics partners, in a phone conversation with RCPU this week, presumably between bites of red beans and rice.
"It's not a sense of panic," Kennedy said of the buzz at the show. "It's a sense that we're all in the same situation, but nobody is really walking around here with doom and gloom. The best way to describe it is [partners] are all optimistic."
And they're still a bit confused, in some cases. Although most partners and customers seem to have their heads around Microsoft's four-suite ERP strategy, Kennedy told us that he had Chris Caren, general manager of product management and marketing for Microsoft Dynamics, go ahead and explain the four-pronged approach again in a partner briefing on Monday. Seasoned partners get it, Kennedy said, but some newer partners still need educating.
"It's clear for those partners that were committed to these product lines," Kennedy said. "We're continuing to support the investments we've made and the customers have made and the partners have made."
In other words, Microsoft's sticking with the four-suite thing, just as company officials have said for at least a couple of years now that it would. Yes, it's a bit confusing. Yes, it can send mixed signals to the market. But it's also the only way Microsoft can move forward with Dynamics ERP without cannibalizing those partners and customers that have bought into, say, GP, and want to stick with it. So we'd all better get used to it.
And it's really not that tough a strategy to explain, said Josh Richards, marketing specialist for Merit Solutions, a GP and, more recently, AX partner located in Wheaton, Ill. It's just a matter of spelling things out to customers up front.
"We do still see prospects coming in unsure of what they need but thinking that they're going in for Microsoft Dynamics and not even knowing that it's an option to go for AX, GP, SL, whatever," Richards said. "There is still confusion, but the way we've been marketing, the inquiries are always AX, GP inquiries. We make it clear that we're not a shop for SL or NAV."
But enough about the four horsemen of Dynamics, which will just keep riding on. What Microsoft would really want us to write about -- and it's worth mentioning -- is something called Unleash Your Potential. That's a software tool that partners can use in customers' shops to go through the company, role by role or even person by person, to determine which functionality the company needs, and, in the case of current Dynamics customers, whether the company is getting everything out of the system it can.
"At the very end, it spits out a business solutions roadmap," Richards said. "It's not how are you using your system, but what could your system do. It's an in-depth view of their complete system."
And it works, especially at a time when Microsoft is encouraging partners to sell into their current customer bases with upgrades and add-ons -- and to move customers who are using really old versions of Dynamics suites up to speed. Richards, who is also not at Convergence but was watching from his office in Minneapolis as snow fell, said Unleash Your Potential helped his company tap into a customer base it had been neglecting.
"There was a lot of lost opportunity within our customer base," Richards said. "We weren't really proactive around those opportunities. It's great to get into the customers you haven't seen in a while. For every $1 we've spent [on Unleash Your Potential], we've gotten $18 out of it."
In other Convergence notes, Kennedy said Microsoft is still encouraging partners to think vertically, which has been a Microsoft mantra for a while. He also said that he has noticed a lot of acquisitions in the partner community, with smaller firms more willing to sell out in a shaky economy than they were when, say, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was kicking around at 14,000.
Kennedy also said that he'd been fielding lots of questions from Dynamics partners about whether Microsoft would take more of a direct sales approach in a flagging economy, a move he said vendors have made in tough times before. His answer was both unsurprising and encouraging for partners: "We are absolutely supporting an indirect model," he said.
Priorities might change, but Microsoft's channel-based sales model still hasn't. And partners should be happy about that, even if they're not carousing on Bourbon Street this week.
Have any thoughts you'd like to send from New Orleans? Send them to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/11/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Interesting stuff bouncing around this week about
changes Microsoft is planning on making to the Partner Program. Apparently, the program is going to be less about technology and more about business planning, less generic and more specific in its certifications, and less Microsoft-focused and more customer-centric. Decipher
this chart from the company at your own risk.
For instance, apparently generic Gold Certified Partner status will give way to something closer to Gold Certified Partner status in a particular area of technology of business expertise. We like what we hear so far, and Microsoft promises that the transition will be painless. In fact, it has even named the new plans Evolution, not Revolution. Stay tuned.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/11/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
The late
Patsy Cline would probably have loved Windows 7. Or, at least, she might have related to it. In her tragically brief career (and life), Patsy was famous for falling to pieces, and, in a sense, that's what Windows 7 will do.
OK, so maybe falling to pieces isn't the perfect metaphor, but Windows 7 will have a modular nature that will allow users to turn off all sorts of features and applications...including Internet Explorer. Now, that last bit is interesting, as everybody is noting this week, because Microsoft has famously said for years that IE was the one "piece" that Microsoft couldn't let "fall off" of Windows.
You might remember a certain antitrust lawsuit here in the U.S. and some (ongoing) trouble with the European Union...and if you think back hard enough, you might even remember Netscape, the browser (and company) that was probably the most victimized by Microsoft's bundling of IE into Windows. Well, Microsoft -- a convicted monopolist, after all -- has managed to disassociate IE from Windows, or at least let users mostly remove it if they so choose.
That's the news here, but it's not the part of the story that we like best. What we like is the fact that users will be able to easily trim down Windows 7 as they please. We say "easily" because it has long been possible to make Windows leaner, but it hasn't always been obvious just how to do that. (Actually, it was pretty obvious in Vista -- for the brave few who bothered to migrate to it.) We also like the fact that Windows 7 will be, apparently, a lot less of a resource hog than Vista. Now, if Microsoft and third parties can just get the driver situation sorted...
Windows 7, already garnering mostly good reviews, is looking thinner, more adaptable and generally more user-friendly than Vista. That has to be good news for everybody, from partners, who will want customers to upgrade to the new OS, to users, who will either want a reason to move off of XP or an escape from the nightmare that is Vista, to Microsoft, which badly needs to regain some goodwill on the OS front.
It's a lot to ask of Windows 7 to placate antitrust regulators, assuage users' fury over Vista and generally get the Windows franchise back on track, but it appears that Microsoft is trying to do all of those things with this operating system. We suspect that Patsy Cline would have been "Crazy" for this OS if she'd been able to see it (or a personal computer at all). We'll see whether users and partners react the same way.
We're always open to what you have to say about Windows 7. Sound off at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/10/2009 at 1:22 PM3 comments
There were whispers in some corners that the company that owns RCPU was crazy to start a virtualization magazine,
Virtualization Review, not long ago. Well, we're looking a lot less crazy now with studies like
Forrester's latest, which shows that virtualization is very well-established in the enterprise as well as among SMBs. VMware's leading the way, of course, in terms of hypervisor market share, but Microsoft is in the leader's rear-view mirror.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/10/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments
Kirill Tatarinov took some time to
talk Convergence with
Redmond magazine for the March issue, while
The Seattle Times cranked out a
pretty interesting profile of the head of Microsoft's Dynamics business, who, it turns out, is a ski racer in his spare time.
Posted by Lee Pender on 03/10/2009 at 1:22 PM0 comments