What's that? Tech-Ed is going on this week? It would be easy enough to forget, given the decreased attendance (as far as we can tell; there are about 7,000 folks there now, and we seem to remember the show hitting five figures in Boston back in 2006, as well as in 2007) and overall low-key tone of the event.
Anyway, yes, Tech-Ed is in session in sunny Southern California, and Microsoft folks are talking Windows development timelines. More details here.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 13, 20090 comments
RCP Editor in Chief and all-around legend Scott Bekker tipped us off to the latest brand ranking from Millward Brown Optimor, which annually ranks the world's strongest brands. We wrote about the Microsoft brand in RCP the magazine well back in the mists of time (almost three years ago!), in the era when Microsoft was sitting atop Millward Brown's list.
Well, Redmond has slipped a bit since then, and although the experts and Millward Brown think it's strong enough to rank No. 2 this year, one rival still tops it: Google. Ouch. (You can download PDFs of the survey results here.)
Now, the relative "strength" of a brand is a funny thing and, in our view, pretty ephemeral and subjective, but RCP readers say that the strength of the Microsoft brand actually helps them. Just check out the numbers Bekker delivered to RCPU. When asked in December 2008 what impact the Microsoft brand had on their businesses, readers responded thusly:
- The brand is a huge help: 22 percent
- The brand helps: 38 percent
- No effect: 38 percent
- The brand is a hindrance: More than 1 percent
- The brand is a major hindrance: Less than 1 percent
Maybe there's something to this branding stuff, then. We fully expect to see RCPU on next year's list, if you're listening, Millward Brown Optimor.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 13, 20090 comments
We told you yesterday that Microsoft is issuing its first bond offering, but what we didn't speculate on was how Redmond might spend the money it raises. Well, no surprise, somebody else did. The scuttlebutt was that Microsoft might look to buy SAP, the German software vendor and king of the enterprise resource planning mountain. Steve Ballmer moved quickly to...well, to not say much, really, except that the SAP thing is just a rumor.
At this point, of course, it is. And so was the rumor, dismissed many times in many places (including here), that Microsoft would at some point try to buy Yahoo. Well, we all know how that turned out (or didn't turn out, as the case may be). The rumor was true, but the acquisition attempt was unsuccessful.
A Microsoft-SAP hookup, though, is a tasty proposition in some ways and a scary one in others. Aside from the regulatory troubles it could bring (which is why we suspect it'll never happen), the merging of two fairly large companies with dissimilar cultures across an ocean sounds like a beast of a chore for Microsoft, which is currently trying to make users forget Vista by wowing them with Windows 7 and is also endeavoring to stave off the netbook craze that's eating away at Windows profit margins.
Then there's Dynamics, Microsoft's own ERP and CRM offering. What on earth would happen to the four Dynamics ERP suites plus Dynamics CRM if Microsoft snapped up SAP? Would they disappear? That's our guess, actually, given that Dynamics' momentum is slowing a bit and that we're hearing second-hand reports of gloom and doom from Dynamics partners. Then again, gloom and doom aren't exactly in short supply right now.
Or, would Dynamics get folded into SAP's offerings, thereby destroying Microsoft's whole proposition of selling ERP software that's cheaper and easier to implement than what Redmond's bigger competitors offer? And, given SAP's hybrid channel-direct selling model, who would be in line for the lucrative business of selling into the SAP installed base (which is how SAP makes a lot of its revenue), SAP direct-sales folks or Microsoft partners? Or, heaven forbid, both? And what about the notion that Microsoft could buy SAP, continue with Dynamics and compete against itself?
Those are enormous questions not easily answered, and the resolution to them offers the potential for conflict, to say the least. Then again, SAP isn't the ERP leader for nothing. Although we've heard here and there that the company's hosted ERP offering is struggling big time (and we mean big time), SAP still has the lion's share of big corporate ERP accounts. And, the occasional horror story notwithstanding, it does have some great technology that could be a boon for Microsoft's Dynamics channel.
Of course, it's all the stuff of rumors at this point, but with attendance and news at this week's Tech-Ed show both underwhelming, we figure it's OK to speculate a little bit, no matter what Steve Ballmer says.
Send your take on a Microsoft-SAP marriage to [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on May 13, 20094 comments
Well, here's a big surprise. The operating system that's going to make us forget about Vista should be out for the holiday shopping season. Of course, that doesn't mean much to enterprise partners, but it could be a boon for Microsoft. And a healthy Microsoft means a healthy Microsoft channel. And we like that.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 12, 20090 comments
There's a new SDK for this touchy computing model, which users are still getting a feel for. (Insert your own line about hands-on experience.)
Posted by Lee Pender on May 12, 20090 comments
OK, we're not here to argue the EU's contention that Intel and Microsoft are nasty monopolists that must be punished, although we're pretty sure we disagree with the vast majority of it. What we don't understand is why the "competition" folks in Europe have to choose right now to try to cripple a couple of companies that help drive the worldwide economy.
In this economy, is this really the best time to start lightening the wallets of companies that, despite some cuts (at Microsoft, anyway) still employ tens of thousands of people and are (again, in Microsoft's case) actually still hiring? Would forcing these companies to fork a bunch of cash over to the EU really help foster competition and spark the economy? Would it add jobs? We're just not sure how it would, and it seems as though those things should be top priorities right now. (And on top of that, the U.S. is looking at jumping back into the antitrust game in a serious way, too.)
There's a good article about all this in America's best non-Redmond Media Group magazine here.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 12, 20090 comments
Here's another first for Microsoft. Shortly after the company reported its first revenue shortfall, it's now issuing its first bond offering.
Microsoft people say that the company doesn't need the money. In other words, this isn't a desperation move. All Redmond is doing, the folks there say, is taking advantage of the company's good credit rating to offer a bond at a time that makes sense given market conditions.
We're willing to accept that statement, given that Microsoft still has big cash reserves and, despite some recent stumbles, is still a profitable company bringing in loads of revenue. So, there's no panic here for now, but this bond offering is worth monitoring nonetheless.
And it got us to thinking, for some reason, what a "Buy Microsoft Bonds" poster might look like. We at RCPU are fans of the old war bonds posters from World Wars I (see here and here) and II (see here and here). Sure, they were propaganda, but they were made for good causes and included some tremendously arresting designs.
We wanted to mock up a "Buy Microsoft Bonds" poster of our own, but we have few (OK, no) photo-editing skills. So we're hoping that some of you out there will play with the old war bonds posters a bit and come up with some "Buy Microsoft Bonds" propaganda. We'll post the best entries (if we get any) this week or next. Send them, as always, to [email protected]. And have fun!
Posted by Lee Pender on May 12, 20090 comments
First of all, friends, bravo to you. It's fairly rare that your editor actually takes the time to read his own blog posts online (there is just so much to do here -- seriously), so it was a very pleasant surprise to notice this week that the comments sections after a bunch of
these posts have been getting a pretty good workout. Your thoughts e-mailed to
[email protected] are always appreciated, and we promise to get better about running them here, but we also love it when you get some conversations of your own started in the blog entries themselves. So, thanks, and keep up the good work.
Now, as for those e-mails: We've had tons of them lately, and we're way behind on getting them into the newsletter. So you'll be seeing more in the next few weeks, but please do keep contributing and throwing more onto the pile -- like this one, for instance, from Paul, who writes about downgrades from Windows 7 all the way back to XP (most likely, as far as we can tell, in response to this blog entry). Sayeth Paul:
"I do not know what Microsoft considers a downgrade, but if it wants to make it a real possibility, it needs to enlist the help of the OEMs: Dell, HP, etc. I am an independent computer technician. I custom-build my own line of computers and not one of them has had Vista. I have only had one person ask me for Vista. I have had many people ask me to downgrade their name-brand computers from Vista to XP, but it cannot always be done. If the OEM has not released drivers for XP, then you cannot run XP. I had one client who thought I could write drivers for him. I do not even want to think about that insanity, even if I was a programmer. Another hitch in downgrading is that you must purchase XP to do the downgrade. So it would cost one of my customers $150 plus tax for XP and my $90 flat-rate charge for reinstalling the OS. Also, most of the bundled software will not be available for your downgraded computer.
"If they don't want Vista, I would rather give them Linux. They can have Ubuntu Linux for free. If you get the proper version, it comes with free support for its lifetime. Ubuntu comes with OpenOffice, Mozilla Firefox and many other software bits all included with the free OS. I have a friend to whom I gave Ubuntu loaded on a low-end Pentium IV, and he loves it. For the same effort it would take to learn Vista, you can learn an excellent OS such as Ubuntu."
Paul, first off, you've provided us with a wonderful segue to the next e-mail. And as for your comments, we see where you're coming from. We're hoping that Microsoft's cooperation with OEMs on Windows 7 is much, much, much better than it was for Vista. It'll need to be because, as you say, Linux is getting better and providing a more realistic alternative all the time.
Oh, Linux might never have even double-digit market share -- especially in the enterprise -- but as we've seen from the netbook craze, it doesn't take all that much of a dip in Windows revenues to put a dent in Microsoft's finances. In fact, that leads us into our next e-mail (again, thanks for the transition, Paul) from Rob, who addresses the notion of netbooks in the enterprise:
"We are seeing some interest in netbooks, selling only the XP Home ones so far. We have had customers inquire about XP Pro on them, and we've sold a number of Atom-based desktop machines with XP Pro. Once XP goes away and the only reasonable option is a crippled version of Windows 7, I expect to see Linux become MUCH more popular."
Full disclosure here: Your editor's netbook (we won't say which one it is, only that it does run XP) finally arrived and has been magnificent thus far. At a price of about $360 -- and that included shipping and an upgrade to 2GB of memory, which your editor's wife skillfully installed -- what's not to like about the deal? A lot of office workers, maybe most, use a couple of Microsoft Office applications and a browser every day (and maybe Solitaire for the old-school types), and that's about it. Why all the expense, then?
Again, if OpenOffice.org or Google Apps is compatible enough with Microsoft Office, and if Linux is free and fairly stable these days (and if there are enough people who can support it, which might be an important point), why spent hundreds of dollars per PC plus hundreds more in software per user? Without any sort of volume discount, a pretty nifty netbook running Linux available for $250 is a reality today. Eventually, CIOs, CEOs and boards of directors are going to start wondering why their companies spend so much on the technology basics.
We're advocates for the Microsoft channel here at RCPU, and we don't want to see anything take money out of the pockets of Microsoft partners. And while we're far from predicting some sort of netbook-Linux revolution in the enterprise, we can see the model becoming more popular as companies continue to cut costs. A lot of Microsoft's business model simply comes down to convincing people that they really need Windows and Office, preferably the latest versions running on a powerful laptop. Well, do they? It's getting to be a serious question.
That's enough babbling for this week. Thanks to Paul and Rob for their contributions, and to you other folks who have written to us at [email protected], keep an eye out here for your e-mails. And keep popping those comments into the blog entries. We'll try to jump into the conversation now and then.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 07, 20090 comments
Next on the list of Microsoft partners' favorite third-party programs is one from Redmond's still sort of new rival,
VMware.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 07, 20090 comments
Ingram unveiled new
Seismic services at its conference in your editor's hometown of Dallas this week. It's a bit of a rough time for Ingram, as it is for everybody, but the company's most recent financial numbers did manage to beat Wall Street's expectations despite showing a big (but obviously not unexpected)
drop in year-over-year quarterly revenue.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 07, 20090 comments
So, it's going to be possible to run virtual XP inside Windows 7. Neat, huh? Yeah, but only if your system specs allow it -- and
a lot won't, apparently.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 07, 20092 comments
Microsoft partners like some third-party partner programs more than others. One of them is the program at
Lenovo.
Posted by Lee Pender on May 05, 20090 comments