Mark down 2002 as the year Microsoft entered the CRM market. Although the exact shipping date for MS CRM has been typically elusive, officials report it is slated for release to manufacturers by year's end. That event is likely to send marked ripples through the CRM landscape, primarily among midsize and small businesses.
"The solution is designed for the core midmarket," said Holly Holt, senior product manager of MS CRM at Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, explaining that the company is targeting customers with between 50 and 500 employees.
There was a time when AOL was the competitor that Microsoft feared most of all. The online service provider had grabbed an early lead as a trusted Internet brand, and its 1998 acquisition of Netscape - whose Web browser was the runaway market leader at the time - put it in a position to control how users experienced the Web.
AOL failed to capitalize on those advantages, and this week news came that it has finally thrown in the towel on any notion of challenging Microsoft's Web dominance. According to online news site BetaNews, the company has disbanded its "Magic Carpet" team, which was aiming to develop a rival to Microsoft's Passport digital identity service. Along with other cutbacks elsewhere in the organization, this news confirms that AOL no longer represents any meaningful threat to Microsoft's strategic plans.
Microsoft CRM just may make it out in time for the holidays. Solution providers had Release Candidate 1 in hand last Monday and said the final product appears to be on track to ship as promised by year's end. "It could RTM [release to manufacturing] as soon as this week, or next," said one West Coast-based beta tester last week. He and others said the code looks solid and it's unclear whether there will be a second release candidate. A Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed the delivery of Release Candidate 1 and said the goal is to get final code out before the holidays.
DRM is a hot button at Microsoft right now. Digital rights management technology will enable the author or owner of a document, a music file, a game or other digital content to control access rights to that content or even charge for it throughout the distribution process.
With the prototype software, a user can control whether a document recipient can print it, or copy and paste from it, Microsoft sources said. Future iterations could enable the content owner to set a document to self-destruct by a particular date, or prevent it from being viewed unless the user's PC is attached to a specific domain. Such capabilities could address an emerging array of federal regulations mandating how sensitive documents are stored and accessed, solution providers said.
Here's a story that's been so badly misreported by the press that I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't yet issued a rebuttal. The software giant this week said that it will no longer allow PC makers to bundle two different Windows versions on a single PC, a situation that would let customers choose the system they wanted the first time it booted. Instead, PC makers will require customers to choose the correct Windows version at purchase. No big deal, right? Unfortunately, this story has been reported as "Microsoft To Cut Off Dual-Boot Windows Option," which suggests that users will be longer be able to boot two or more Windows versions on the same PC, which is not the case. Incidentally, this is, however, exactly what Apple's doing with its new Macs starting in 2003: Then, the company will prevent customers from booting into legacy Mac OS versions such as Mac OS 9, which I'm sure will artificially help its Mac OS X adoption rate.
Microsoft has completed the acquisition of Vicinity Corp., a Sunnyvale, Calif., provider of location-based technology, in a cash merger valued at about $96 million. Vicinity shareholders voted Dec. 10 to approve the transaction, clearing the way for the change of ownership. The shareholder vote followed a favorable regulatory review.
Vicinity's business will be merged with Microsoft's MapPoint business unit, the companies said. The resulting team will focus on incorporating location-oriented services into programs and services. Such services can allow a cell phone to identify the caller's location or to display a map showing that location.
Nine states that settled their antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft asked on Thursday for more time to decide on a member of an oversight committee. The settling states asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for an extension until Jan. 27, 2003, to nominate the third member of a technical committee that will oversee Microsoft's antitrust compliance.
The U.S. Justice Department, which was also a party to the suit, and Microsoft on Nov. 21 chose Harry Saal and Franklin Fite as their nominees for the technical committee. Last month, Massachusetts and West Virginia decided to appeal Kollar-Kotelly's ruling that rejected any harsher penalties directed at the software maker.
Borland Software shares climbed Thursday as analysts considered whether the software company could be a Microsoft acquisition target. Shares closed up 74 cents, or 6.4 percent, to $12.31, on 1.8 million shares traded. A company representative when asked about the rumored takeover said Borland would not comment on market speculation.
In October, Borland spent $185 million to purchase TogetherSoft, a company which sells an application modeling tool that competes directly with Rational's products. The modeling tools complement Borland's traditional strength in programming languages and visual development tools, including Borland's Java-based JBuilder.
As Sun Microsystems, AOL Time Warner and Oracle struggle with low stock prices, revenue declines and layoffs, the company they all love to hate had a phenomenal year. Microsoft rang up record revenue in its most recent quarter, launched a flashy new video-game service and rolled out the Tablet PC, a pet project of chairman Bill Gates. And while its legal troubles aren't over, the Redmond software powerhouse scored big when a federal judge approved the company's antitrust settlement with the U.S. Justice Department.
Just how long can Microsoft's roll continue? Much of that depends on whether Microsoft can mature, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Kirkland-based Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm. Microsoft needs to outgrow bad habits of missing deadlines for delivering new software and evolve into a leader that can clearly articulate its vision for the future.
When Microsoft released Windows .NET Server 2003 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) in late July 2002, the new operating system was already 100 percent deployed by one critical launch partner: Microsoft.com. Engineers for Microsoft's corporate Web site have been working since late 2001 to help the Windows Server product development team test and confirm the enterprise readiness of Windows .NET Server 2003 in one of the most demanding real-world environments anywhere-the world's busiest corporate Web site.
About 40 million unique users, on average, visit Microsoft.com every month, generating about 800 million total page views. Rolling out Windows .NET Server 2003 so early in such a mission-critical environment ensures that valuable, production-tried feedback can reach the product development team in time for the team to make improvements to Windows .NET Server 2003 before it is released.