Re: MSFT's Office Web Plans
Thread,
Seems like there were two distinct comments out of MSFT recently. One regarding DNA and the other a response to the announcement by Sun Microsystems with regards to StarOffice. I think a lot of investors may have confused the two since they came out so close together.
Anyway, the following article adds a great deal of color to the StarOffice rebuttal. But take it with a grain of salt because it appears there is a lot of speculating on the part of the writer as to what MSFT's true plans are.
And of course we can infer that CTXS may have some part in MSFT's plans, but that would be pure speculation at this time.
MikeM(From Florida)
**************************
Microsoft Will Host Office Over The Net
By Paula Rooney, Computer Reseller News
Microsoft, which is putting the final touches on its server-hosting plan, now is turning its attention to the front-office side of the business.
As part of that, the Redmond, Wash.-based company will host its leading Office productivity suite for online or subscription use, Microsoft president Steve Ballmer said Thursday. The action comes just days after Sun Microsystems unveiled plans to make its newly acquired StarOffice suite available for rental use via its StarPortal site.
Ballmer declined to provide a time table for the start-up date for the service. Sun said it plans to offer early access to StarOffice to ISPs in October, and general availability in the first half of next year.
"We will have a Web-based Office productivity suite," said Ballmer, who also took advantage of Thursday's mid-afternoon conference call announcing Rick Belluzzo's appointment as Consumer and Commerce chief to take a jab at Sun's new product. "We've been competing with StarOffice for years and years and years. Customers care about functionality and compatibility. StarOffice is not very good at either of those," he said.
Privately, Microsoft is fine-tuning a major application hosting service it plans to detail in late October or early November, sources said. Microsoft is chiseling away at a per-user,per-month subscription model that will be "revenue-neutral" for the company and also will please ASPs, which are insisting on three-year subscription commitments to recoup their investments.
Some industry observers said Microsoft is embracing the subscription model very reluctantly as it tries to preserve a major cash cow, Office, which nets more than $3 billion each year.
The company released last spring a major upgrade, Office 2000, which is a large component of its Windows DNS strategy. Office 2000 is designed to link knowledge workers to Microsoft Windows 2000 and a forthcoming BackOffice suite upgrade, which encompasses Microsoft's push into the enterprise applications arena.
One Sun executive said Microsoft had no choice but to match Sun's StarOffice offer because many in the small- to midsize-business segment -- the fastest-growing in the market -- likely will opt to outsource their IT infrastructure and applications.
"The whole future is going on this direction," said Brian Croll, senior director of product marketing at Sun's Software Products and Platforms Division. "If anybody wants to play, you have to go with the service-provider model. All application vendors out there have to look in this direction -- it's inevitable."
techweb.com |
