In old-school video games -- and, we gather, in most new ones -- there are
levels of play. You get past one, and your reward is a whole 'nother one, as
we'd say back in Texas, that's even more difficult to conquer. There's not much
time for celebration moving up the ladder of success. Well, that's what business
is like these days for Salesforce.com, in case you were wondering just where
this was going. (We're not gamers here at RCPU, but your editor did spend a
few months working for a company that makes video games.)
Salesforce.com, of course, has been highly successful and a darling
of the trade press. As a vendor of hosted customer relationship management
applications, Salesforce.com has conquered the first few levels of the software
(or "no software," in Salesforce.com's case) industry. Great. Now,
things get harder.
They get harder because, as we've known for a while, the big players in the
software industry -- namely Microsoft -- are waking up to software as a service
and prepping hosted offerings that will compete
with Salesforce.com's impressive CRM wares. And we all know what usually
happens in this case. The innovator, or the metaphorical rabbit in the market
race, either gets consumed (bought) or chewed up and spit out (kicked to the
curb, Netscape-style) by bigger competitors.
Salesforce.com's CEO Marc Benioff knows all this and, at this point at least,
he doesn't seem to be aiming for the Holy Grail of acquisition and the good
life as a wealthy pseudo-exec. No, admirably, he seems to want more -- to keep
conquering the levels of the game until Salesforce.com becomes more than just
a hit upstart.
At his company's show this week, Benioff positioned Salesforce.com not just
as a niche hosted-CRM competitor but as a company offering a whole
development platform -- boldly named Force.com -- for hosted applications.
As far as we (or anybody else) can tell, nobody has tried the development-platform-for-hosted-apps
approach before. And consider Benioff's quote in the BusinessWeek
article linked here:
"We're a platform company, not just an applications company. We have a
vision for the future of an industry."
Those don't sound like the words of a guy who's ready to sell out or quit on
his vision. That's good -- because too many innovators now want nothing but
the big payout that acquisition by a mega-company brings. And while we have
nothing at all against the normal course of industry consolidation, we do understand
that acquisition can (although it doesn't always) stunt or even snuff out innovation
within companies doing some really interesting stuff. Just look what Salesforce.com's
success has brought forth -- a hosted CRM application from Microsoft that, if
they know how to handle it, could be a boon for partners. It often takes a mouse
to make the elephant jump, and the quickened pace of innovation that results
is good for partners, users and the industry as a whole.
Now, whether Benioff and his charges can conquer the next level of the game
-- the one in which Microsoft and SAP enter the picture (the "Bosses"
of the level, perhaps) -- is another issue altogether. But we're glad to see
that he's still playing, and we'll be looking over his shoulder as Salesforce.com
takes on all comers.
What's your take on the impact of SaaS? Are your clients showing interest in
hosted applications? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on September 19, 20070 comments
It's hugely popular in the
retail
channel, anyway.
And speaking of productivity suites (dig that smooth transition), Jim not only
read Tuesday's entire newsletter entry on Google
and Capgemini, he took the time to write us about it:
"Like you, I think Capgemini's backing of Google's office suite will
just cause Microsoft to create lighter-weight and less-expensive versions
of Office, so what would be the point of moving to Google? Plus, there is
so much Microsoft Office documentation, books, training, online forums that
OpenOffice, Star Office and Google's suite just don't have. Then because Microsoft
wisely designed Office products so that one could extend them via VBA or compiled
add-ons, millions of businesses have custom code that can be reused in MS
Office, even in lighter-weight, less expensive versions. I know from experience
OpenOffice, Star Office cannot make use of compiled Office add-ons nor of
non-compiled add-ons, nor can they correctly work with VBA (macros) except
very simple ones. Google's office suite won't work with any existing Office
custom coding. In addition, with Microsoft's building of many data centers
around the world, applications like SoftGrid and more, you can expect Microsoft
will be offering an excellent Office product as SaaS. Competition makes good
things happen and only makes Microsoft create better products, which is what
we are seeing."
Jim, we're right there with you, and thanks for taking the time to write.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 13, 20071 comments
It was inevitable, really. Sun Microsystems finally acknowledged, fully and
completely, the power of Microsoft this week. Three years after making peace
with Microsoft, pocketing a nice little package of cash and opening up to interoperability
with Redmond, Sun has become a Microsoft OEM. The former rivals announced this
week that Sun will begin building x64 serves
with
Windows Server 2003 software installed at the factory.
And so ends, once and for all, the Sun rebellion, that determined but quixotic
quest to compete with Microsoft and Windows straight up. The rebellion's been
quiet for a while, of course -- it effectively ended in 2004 when Microsoft
paid Sun almost $2 billion to settle an antitrust quarrel and Sun opened its
products to Microsoft technology. It got even weaker, arguably, when Sun threw
its Solaris operating system and Java technology into the open source universe.
Now, though, Sun's just another company shipping servers that run Windows. It
had to
happen some time.
Well, except that, as the first story linked notes, Sun is still a big player
in the server market, checking in behind IBM and HP. So for Microsoft partners,
this week's agreement could open a fairly large new window (oops -- that ended
up a pun) of opportunity. And, generally speaking, it should ease the hassle
of wedging Windows onto a Sun server since the servers will now ship with Windows
installed. Smiles all around, then...right?
Surely only the most ardent followers of the Sun rebellion -- and there couldn't
be many of them left, given that Sun is just recovering from a fairly long and
large financial down period -- are unhappy about this. Well, there also might
be a few partners who've made some money off of installing Windows on Sun servers
who are less than happy, too. But they should be able to adapt to Sun being
a Microsoft OEM pretty easily.
There's an interesting little wrinkle to the deal, too: The two companies are
promising interoperability of their respective OSes with each other's virtualization
offerings -- a sign that Microsoft is backing up some
of its talk about virtualization.
Sun's sensible capitulation looks like good news, then, for the most part.
We'll miss the old rivalry a little bit, though, dormant as it has been the
last few years. At least we'll always have our old highlight reels of Scott
McNealy and Bill Joy taking swipes at Microsoft. Maybe someday, when there's
a technology-industry version of ESPN Classic, those old barbs will find a home.
What opportunities does Sun OEMing Windows open up for you as a partner? Tell
me at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on September 13, 20070 comments
Cuddly, cuddly! What a week for former Microsoft rivals to nuzzle up to Redmond.
Still-new friend Novell is teaming with Microsoft to
open
an interoperability lab in Cambridge, Mass. (perhaps America's smartest
city), and there are
new
customers for the infamous Microsoft-Novell Linux deal, too.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 13, 20070 comments
Just as the weather is cooling down (at least where we are),
VMware
is heating up. We've heard the figure 10,000 bandied about in reference
to the number of attendees at this week's VMworld in San Francisco. We haven't
confirmed that number ourselves, but if it's accurate, it roams in the same
ballpark as Microsoft TechEd and Worldwide Partner Conference numbers. Maybe
even a bigger ballpark. VMworld is big. Let's just say that.
Following on yesterday's raft
of product announcements, VMware soldiered on today, revealing the acquisition
of a Swiss virtual machine management vendor called Dunes -- so named, no
doubt, because Switzerland is known for its...dunes?
Anyway, never to be outdone even at somebody else's show, Microsoft staged
an announcement with Citrix to say...well, not much, as friend of RCP
Mary Jo Foley
notes (the companies will be standardizing on Microsoft's VHD format). But
Microsoft is saying something (more
than one thing, actually), we suppose, and that's what seems to matter most
in Redmond. Nobody at Microsoft wants us to forget that the mothership is very
tuned into virtualization -- despite the fact that it's still way behind VMware
in almost every way possible and doesn't seem to have all
that much of a coherent strategy for how to really break into the market.
For now, virtualization is VMware's world, and Microsoft is just trying to
live in it. And with VMware being part of (don't forget) mega-monster EMC, it's
unlikely that Redmond will be able to bully its way to the front of the market
share line any time soon. But we know that won't stop Microsoft from trying
-- or at least talking about trying.
What's your take on Microsoft's virtualization strategy? Or VMware's, for that
matter? Let me know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on September 12, 20070 comments
On the west side of Paris (France, not Paris, Texas), contained within a sort
of bubble in the city limits, sits
La
Défense, a skyscraper complex that would have all the earmarks of
a city of the future...if we were still living in 1985. Conceived in the 1950s
as a place outside of Paris's more enchanting "quartiers" to stick
vulgar commerce and keep the less charming, more corporate flow of Francs (now
Euros) away from the city's cafés and museums, La Défense is glass
and steel, brick and concrete, business suits and dress shoes. It's more Manhattan
than Paris, except without any of the things that makes Manhattan (New York
City, not Manhattan, Kan.) one of the most exciting places in the world.
If you remember the silly cartoons from the 1960s about what the "city
of the future" would look like, you have some idea of what it's like to
stand in the middle of La Défense. It tries way too hard to be futuristic
and cutting-edge; it sort of comes off as ridiculously overbuilt and under-greened.
It's almost a parody of itself...and yet, it's useful. IBM has a major presence
there, as does Paris-based global consulting juggernaut Capgemini, the latter
of which is the subject of this entry.
Capgemini and Google announced this week that the consulting firm will start
recommending Google's productivity suite -- a competitor to Microsoft Office
-- to its clients. This seems to be the first legitimate competitive blow in
a while (maybe ever) to Office, which enjoys 90-plus
percent market share. After all, Capgemini is a serious firm with a serious
reputation; its recommendation of Google's wares will carry serious weight in
corporate IT departments.
Looking forward, it wouldn't be totally ridiculous to predict that
Google's productivity suite -- with its slim, efficient format and featherweight
price tag -- could be the go-to software of the future for office workers,
especially now that Capgemini is giving it a massive credibility boost. Office
has the major advantages of a near-universal installed base and familiarity
with users (which is never a small factor in IT buying decisions), but it's
also bloated (who actually uses anywhere close to all the features in the suite?)
and expensive compared to what Google and Capgemini are now peddling together.
In fact, Office
is under fire on several fronts; the Capgemini announcement combined with
threats from open document format (ODF) suites like OpenOffice and StarOffice,
mean that Office is in a more precarious position than it's ever been in a decade
or more.
Here, though, we come back to La Défense. The prototypical central business
district of the future, it was built to suck all of the corporate life out of
Paris -- but it didn't. Microsoft's European headquarters are in a much more
charming area of the city, and SAP has stuck with a more quaint Paris-proper
location, as well. Dassault Systémes, France's biggest software company,
and Business Objects, France's other biggest software company (depending on
whom you ask) are both headquartered in somewhat leafier suburbs of Paris, not
in the urban jungle of La Défense.
What we're saying here, with lots of indulgent references to the city where
your editor used to live, is that not everything that looks like the future
ends up being the future. Google's productivity suite, with Capgemini's endorsement,
could very well take a chunk out of Office's market share, but we don't anticipate
hordes of users abandoning Office en masse. If anything, most will probably
choose to remain in Office's old neighborhood, warts and all, rather than flee
to Google's city of the future.
What we do anticipate, though, is that finally (potentially) having a serious
competitor will spur Microsoft to think about releasing lighter, cheaper versions
of Office, along with perhaps a true hosted version -- given that "Office
Live" isn't actually a live version of Office. Partners, then, should follow
Google's progress closely and stay on top of the repercussions that are bound
to come out of Redmond -- because even if they stay in Microsoft's gentrified
old neighborhood, they'll surely have to adapt to the lure of the gleaming new
development across town.
What's your take on Capgemini's backing of Google's productivity suite? Let
me know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on September 11, 20073 comments
Even in the dog days of August, concerned readers took the time to contact
us on a couple of hot topics.
On the first, the infamous
Windows Genuine Advantage, David reports in fine British English:
"I have had problems with WGA on the install side -- firstly when
it was offered up as an update openly and it crashed my main PC. I was able
to restore the system once I'd realised the problem after a couple of hours
and set the update to not bother me again. A year or so later, it came through
as an update disguised as something else, causing the same problem, but due
to the subterfuge it took out the PC for the best part of a day. Eventually
I had to do a driver update to fix the problem and only later discovered the
cause.
"I complained both times to Microsoft and received a feeble response
the first time and nothing the second time! All this trouble to benefit MS
and no one else -- it really annoyed me that this had not been thoroughly
tested and was offered as a critical update. I have since advised all my clients
to be extremely wary of MS updates and never to leave them on automatic."
A wise move, David, and thanks for your e-mail.
And on the dichotomy between Windows Vista
SP1 and XP SP3, Brian, a Kiwi who will surely be supporting the All Blacks
in the Rugby World Cup (which starts tomorrow!), didn't mince words:
"If ever Microsoft offered an insight into its own potential doom,
it is Vista. Will a service pack resolve the issues? Who knows? The major
hurdle is that Vista shut out a lot of software and hardware that many of
us were using, some of it the latest offerings from major companies in their
fields. Drivers were too slow to be available and Vista-friendly upgrades
are not being offered by our favorite packages. From a business perspective,
the cost to own was far too high in a cycle that was too short from the last
major upgrade, which many still have not completed, to XP.
"Why much of this happened comes down to Microsoft's business attitude
of not sharing code with other providers so they can adapt their offering
to work with the new operating system. Trying to eliminate the competition
by writing them out of contention in this manner is fundamentally poor business
when your profit depends on their ability to keep users on your operating
system. Look to some of the examples of good decisions, such as Adobe's to
make it work on the OS of your choice -- Windows, MAC and Linux. Although
the latest version of Photoshop is only very slowly becoming Vista-friendly.
"I work in computing and run my own server-based network at home.
I purchased a cheap laptop so I could get an understanding of Vista. Ended
up dual-booting with XP so I could still work with the software I owned. For
me, the cost of replacing all the software I work with is not viable until
my client base has made a financial decision to upgrade theirs. And remember
who they are going to ask for input into that decision."
Brian, we hear you, and you're not alone.
Any thoughts on anything you've read in RCPU? Shoot them to [email protected].
And have a great weekend.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 07, 20070 comments