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Where Microsoft chooses to compete.
In the past, Microsoft has considered at least partnering with SAP. The idea is to concentrate on SMB's, but sell a range of technologies to large enterprises without trying to take over completely.

That means Microsoft has to interoperate.

You ask (rhetorically):

How the heck do they think they can do that without adopting open source w3c recommendations and other schemas? They rewrite all that stuff and it makes integration impossible with non-Microsoft technologies now.
EoQ

Mr. Ballmer answers:

Number two, you can buy all of this, none of this, or pieces of this. We like to show it in its best form. But can you plug a Nokia phone into it? Of course you can. You'll find while we think the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts, if there other things you want to connect to, we actually connect to more things than anyone else. People want us to always be more interoperable. I think there's great interoperability in what we have.
EoQ

The other piece of his argument is that even though Microsoft products are not so elaborate, for some people and functions being elaborate is not necessary.

Quoting Mr. Ballmer:

And number three, a lot of what we're talking about here is investing in a way that lets you save on something else. If you have a high-end document management system, what we have here for a lot of people is more than enough.
EoQ

That's an argument that has been used by open source advocates about less elaborate products competing with Microsoft.

And just because organizations expressly or implicitly hostile to Microsoft develop rules they call "standards" doesn't mean Microsoft has to accept them. Microsoft can think the company's approach adds value. The ODx argument may be inserted here.


On your point about the connection between business and IT, the CNet article saying CIOs are desperately looking for people with combined business and IT backgrounds shows a recognition that IT is no longer an island. Customer acceptance within the organization is now essential.

And Mr. Ballmer's "air cover" discussion shows that at least some IT sections are enlisting Microsoft in a campaign to show that people really are being helped by IT. That's the opposite of antagonism.


I'll also mention that for all its enlisting of open source, IBM is said by Mr. Ballmer to losing ground in certain areas of software use. If IBM is using software as a way to sell its goods that replace in-house IT functionality, as Mr. Ballmer implicitly claims, then that's good new for IT sections.
Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 03/19/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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What do you think?

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