>>tell me if you would not value MSFT differently from a succesful move into the enterprise arena.
Probably so, Reg. But it's not a foregone conclusion that Microsoft will succeed as you apparently expect. SQL Server is no competitiion to Oracle 7, not to mention Oracle 8, due next summer. Oracle owns the Fortune 1000, and Microsoft needs that scale of customer to be a player.
Customers don't change database vendors without some overriding reason. It's complex, expensive, and these programs are huge, real-time, mission-critical applications. Oracle essentially has an annuity business, that scales from the desktop to the largest mainframes. Microsoft doesn't have a cost/benefit story.
The enterprise is Oracle's turf. That's why Netscape stock stopped going down in early September when Oracle endorsed Netscape One. You may remember my "Midway" post.
By heading into the enterprise Microsoft is running headlong into Oracle, Informix, HP, IBM, Netscape...a heavily-muscled, and extremely well entrenched and innovative crowd...none of whom, with the possible exception of HP, are deal-friendly toward Redmond.
Another concern for Microsoft is the scalability shortcomings of NT Server. Microsoft is working on solving this problem (eg clustering servers, load balancing, etc), but it remains a big disadvantage. |
