Microsoft Plants Web Service Seeds in New Server Farm
Somebody -- this time,
Fortune magazine -- has trotted out the old
Microsoft-is-becoming-IBM
line again, suggesting that Google is rapidly making Redmond look like a
dinosaur (or a chicken,
depending
on your views on evolution).
While it's true that Google
is running rings around its more elderly competitor in the search business,
and that Steve Ballmer and friends don't always seem entirely sure of what to
do with this new-fangled
Software as a Service thing, at least the aging heavyweight in Redmond isn't
standing still in the face of its younger challengers. (Microsoft did recently
offer
to help ISVs with their SaaS apps, though).
Witness this week's opening of the company's
largest server farm yet, a massive complex spanning the size of seven soccer
fields that will hold the geek gear that will provide the back-end for all sorts
of Web-based services, from (according to the article linked) Xbox Live to Dynamics
CRM Live. (One would hope that there would be little chance of mixing those
two applications up, thereby sending the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles game
to befuddled sales reps and throwing order-tracking capabilities to frustrated
gamers. But we digress.)
There's another massive center in the works near San Antonio that will cost
Redmond a half-a-billion dollars. Actually, that's approximately the same amount
of money that Microsoft
spent to advertise Vista. Let's hope the data center turns out to be a better
investment.
Whatever Microsoft's ultimate SaaS strategy is, it's clear that the company
is spending some serious money to implement it. Whether it can execute on successfully
providing "live," non-packaged applications is another question --
one we won't be able to answer until we see the crops these new server farms
yield.
We're still happily taking your thoughts on Microsoft's SaaS strategy. Keep
sending 'em our way at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on April 18, 2007