SAP, Microsoft draw battle lines

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SAP is done for.

We've been here before. Microsoft owns Windows, and
Windows owns the corporate desktop. That means nobody
can compete.

Nobody.

Consider this quote: "Spund said that for the most part, the
latest deal came down to one factor: money. Microsoft's
products were cheaper."

Gee. If I had $50 billion in the bank I bet I could sell stuff
cheaper too. How can SAP possibly compete? Microsoft
could afford to give their products away if they had to, just
like they gave away Internet Explorer when they decided
that was the best way to "cut off [Netscape's] air supply."

What a lot of people don't know is that while they were
giving away their browser, they were using equally
aggressive tactics to unseat Netscape on the server side.
After Netscape did the heavy lifting of convincing Fortune
500 companies that they could do business on the Web,
Microsoft would waltz in and say, "we can do it for less!"
And they could make that statement without even knowing
what their agreement with Netscape was, because they
were under orders not to take "no" for an answer, and told
that money was no object. In other words, they could go as
low as necessary, because Microsoft could absorb it. All
they need to do is raise the price of Windows and Office
and stick it to their existing customers to get those
contracts.

Think about it. Esselte is paying 10 million. What's that in
the grand scheme of things? Let's see now. 10 million goes
into 50 billion.... Yeah, they could afford to give a few
companies a free ride if they have to. Odds are they won't
even have to though. They have a lot of other dirty tricks
up their sleeves, like tweaking Windows so SAP's software
doesn't work right, spreading FUD. We've seen this all
before.

SAP had better pray that OSS makes some major inroads
into corporate IT fast, or they're history.

Posted by: Immanuel Tranz-Mischen   Posted on: 12/10/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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