How do you do!
Microsoft plan is a two-edged sword
VNUNet.com - Jun 27, 2006
Microsoft plan is a two-edged sword Microsoft wants its tools to become the interface to other enterprise apps,but will this give the IT giant too much power over customers?Daniel Robinson,. Both Vista – the nextversion of Windows – and Office 2007 are being billed as the biggest releases intheir product categories for at least a decade... Most companies with Windowsdesktop systems will stick with their version of the operating system untiltheir next hardware refresh cycle, but what about Office?Microsoft has been putting a great deal of effort into new collaborationfeatures in Office 2007 to tempt wavering customers. Much of this concernsSharePoint Server 2007, a product that is part of Microsoft’s Office 2007“system”, but which isn’t actually included with any of the Office editions andmust be purchased separately. Microsoft has now unveiled plans to turn Office applications into thefront-end through which staff interact with enterprise applications such ascustomer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP)systems. In some ways this is an attractive proposition. Most companies alreadyrun Office applications, and staff are familiar with its user interface. Bycontrast, many enterprise applications can be difficult to operate. But before taking this route, firms should consider just how dependant theywill be on Microsoft technology.
http://www.vnunet.com/articles/print/2159161
Leadership vacuum for Microsoft biz apps
Register - Jun 30, 2006
Microsoft said in April MBS would become consistently profitable during 2007, yet - since entering business applications with its Great Plains acquisition in 2000 - Microsoft has not been entirely sure what to do with its ERP and CRM assets. Having set out to deliver Project Green, Microsoft is now apparently pushing MBS towards further integration with Office, turning the Office suite into a portal for data that is held in back office systems running Microsoft's business applications. For his part, Ayala - who was also vice president for sales, marketing and services - has been named senior vice president of the new emerging segments market development group, reporting to Microsoft COO Kevin Turner. ® Track this type of story as a.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/30/microsoft_business_applications_leadership/
SugarCRM to unveil commercial portal in July
InfoWorld - Jun 27, 2006
The license is part of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative, a program for sharing source code with customers, partners and governments. February's announcement made waves in the open-source community, "bringing the anti-Microsoft followers out of the woodwork," Oram said, with SugarCRM accused of "being consumed by the dark side. " However, the company also saw the move welcomed by Microsoft users who were keen that SugarCRM software be offered under a Microsoft license, he added. Oram does see some mixed messages from Microsoft on open-source software, including some "unenlightened comments within Microsoft's ranks," as the software giant continues to figure out its stance on the technology.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/06/27/79669_HNsugarcrmportal_1.html
The full promise of VoIP edges nearer
InfoWorld - Jun 22, 2006
The real promise of VoIP, however, lies in the integration of voice directly with data applications. “When you move voice to IP it becomes an application,” says Bob Hafner, managing vice president at Gartner. “We’ve been spending the past 10 years integrating ERP, CRM, and other back-office applications with each other so that information flows through business processes relatively seamlessly. But there’s also the human component, which needs voice in addition to instant messaging and e-mail. ”Take this example. An employee working on a product order notices that the transaction requires approval from higher-ups. He or she clicks a button and the ERP application delivers a buddy list of all the people who have worked on this order, along with real-time presence information indicating their availability by phone and instant messaging... “We believe that by 2010, presence will be embedded in all applications. ”Voice communications are headed toward becoming part of an overall software architecture incorporating voice, Web conferencing, e-mail, and IM. Microsoft’s next version of Live Communications Server incorporates voice and Web conferencing. “The people we talk to are looking for a distributed software architecture that allows for intermingling of Web conferencing with instant messaging and call management rules,” says Zig Serafin, general manager of Microsoft unified communications.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/06/06/22/79158_26FEvoipstratnet_1.html
Microsoft Dives Into Voice Communications
PC World - Jun 26, 2006
The product road map calls for changes to product lines to better integrate voice features with Microsoft's business software. It includes several new capabilities and name changes: Office Communications Server 2007 replaces Live Communications Server and adds presence-based VoIP call management, Web, audio, and videoconferencing to IM features. Microsoft spelled out its plans to integrate e-mail, instant messaging, voice and video into a single platform that stretches across corporate applications and services. The software, hardware and Web conferencing service are part of a family of products around Office 2007, which is slated to ship in November to corporate clients. The company plans to have betas of all the software by the end of 2006. Microsoft made the announcements during a "Unified Communications Day" in San Francisco hosted by Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, Anoop Gupta, corporate vice president of Microsoft's unified communications group, and Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the real-time collaboration product group at Microsoft. Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, a unified communications client for that server, will have a VoIP softphone and Web, audio, and video conferencing... Rather than replacing the corporate phone system or IP PBX, Microsoft is floating a unified communications architecture built on Active Directory and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The company is also moving ahead with efforts to build voice and other communications directly into mainstream applications such as Office, CRM, and supply chain, according to Gartner analyst Bern Elliot. "Microsoft has some failures behind it and recognizes that unified communications is a difficult area," Elliot said. "For now, they're not as much interested in replacing the IP PBX as they are in developing a new way to communicate. Exchange server will ship in late 2006 or early in 2007, according to Microsoft. The other pieces will be available in the second quarter of 2007.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/126249-1/article.html
Microsoft shuffles more executives
CNET News.com - Jun 28, 2006
Also, marketing for Microsoft's unified communications effort, which was. Microsoft said it is still searching for a replacement for MBS head Doug Burgum, who.
http://news.com.com/2100-1022-6089338.html
Red Hat Causes Confusion
Motley Fool - Jun 29, 2006
Softy still has only a rudimentary product in this space, but announced back in April that it would help Linux users use the Microsoft product, in an effort to keep a toehold in the market. Microsoft supporting Linux? I guess the times are changing. Open up to open source with further Foolishness:.
http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2006/mft06062911.htm
Watch Your Back, Microsoft Office
BusinessWeek - Jun 28, 2006
) It's not going to make anyone give up on Microsoft Excel for financial models, big budgets, or fancy presentations, but two things about it were a pleasant surprise: First, it's a free product that includes most of Excel's basic computational abilities, including dozens of math, statistical, financial, and other functions. Second, despite being Web-based, it looks and feels like a desktop application and performs nearly as well. There are some serious limitations. It works only when you're online, and by default, Google spreadsheets are stored on Google servers.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2006/tc20060628_286363.htm?sub=techmaven
Sorting Out the Gates Legacy
BusinessWeek - Jun 22, 2006
He was a primary architect of the PC industry. Yet he'll be remembered as much for bare-knuckle tactics—and an antitrust judgment for anticompetitive behavior—than.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2006/tc20060622_627526.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_more+of+today's+top+stories
It is time for resellers to get to the Point
VNUNet.com - Jun 26, 2006
Today, bar coding seems to be a staple in even the smallest outlets. Applications such as CRM, credit checking, and inventory updating arecommonplace PoS features. And even joined-up integration with back-officesystems such as ERP and material requirement planning is not unusual. Moreover, these days there may even be scope for resellers to make some moneyout of PoS technology. Tony Revis, general manager at PoS hardware manufacturer, Extech Instruments,believes that the PoS market has evolved so far, and that the phrase “point ofsale” has become an anachronism. “Point of sale is an interesting term, but it should perhaps be changed topoint of service,” he said... Hence there is a need for line-busting andself check-out technologies that check customers out at the point of selectionor service, rather than having them pay at centrally located tills. ”There are also the emerging markets for integration and promotional PoStechnologies, and the market outlook is a sunny one. But what part does thechannel play in this?Jacqui Sasserath is product manager at Microsoft Retail Management System,which helps independent retailers track and integrate PoS business processeswith inventory and supplier management. She believes that retail is still verymuch an expanding channel market. “We have seen a number of new entrants in the reseller channel, as well as abroadening of portfolios among existing partners,” she said. “I see it as anarea of fantastic partner opportunity. The retail ERP space is looking like amuch more mature and productive environment for the customer.
http://www.vnunet.com/articles/print/2158972
Toshiba's Battle with Blu-ray
BusinessWeek - Jun 22, 2006
Competing players using the rival Blu-ray format favored by Sony (SNE), Samsung, and others are expected to hit the market soon with prices of $999 or more. “Toshiba wants to get a head start and build an early lead,” Crotty says. This kind of pricing strategy has been tried before, most notably by Microsoft (MSFT), which took a loss on its first Xbox gaming system and later the Xbox 360 (see BusinessWeek. “You don't usually see a manufacturer subsidizing a product like this except in the video game space,” Crotty says. A Toshiba spokesman reached in Boston had no immediate comment.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2006/tc20060622_113255.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_more+of+today's+top+stories
Suite Wars start to rumble
The Age - Jun 30, 2006
But finally the phoney war appears to be over. NetSuite’srecent product event in San Francisco was amusing, sharp in placesand took the fight to the rest of the market. The Suite Wars idea -Star Wars, Suite Wars, you see what they did there? - took potshots at SAP, Microsoft and Salesforce. com, most of which hit theirtargets. There was little or no mention of Oracle of course, which is abit of a flaw in the overall messaging, but inevitable given thefact that Larry Ellison is the majority shareholder inNetSuite. But back to the emerging industry sector itself. NetSuite’sannouncements were interesting in their own right... com made its first acquisition in the shape ofSendia, which takes mobile functionality into the AppExchangecommunity of ISV developed applications. It’s all starting to look like a grown up sector of themarket. Oracle has released another version of Siebel CRM On Demand- which adds further strength to my conviction that the way youspell Fusion is S-I-E-B-E-L. We’re still not clear here at MISTowers exactly what it is that Microsoft and SAP are planning inthe on-demand space, but at least they’ve learned to use thewords - even if every second sentence is "and then you can bring iton-premise". Talking of Ellison, his recent interview with the FinancialTimes was a salutary reminder that whatever good ideas there are inthe software industry, Larry thought of them first. Actuallythat’s slightly unfair, it was less a case that Larry wantedto claim he thought of SaaS first and more that he didn’t wantMarc Benioff getting the credit for it. Maybe next timeWell now there’s a surprise.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/management-focus/suite-wars-start-to-rumble/2007/01/15/1168709660333.html
Goodbye.
