Microsoft: Google and VMware Overtake Open Source Threat?
Jul. 13th, 2010 by The VAR Guy
What keeps Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer up at night? A few years ago, the answer likely involved Linux, Red Hat, MySQL and other disruptive open source upstarts. Now fast forward to this year’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC10), and there’s nary a mention of open source here at the event. Why’s that? Three answers: Google, VMware and the cloud. Here’s some perspective from The VAR Guy.
Earlier this evening, The VAR Guy attended a briefing about Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 14, a forthcoming upgrade to Microsoft’s unified communications platform. During a panel discussion, six Microsoft partners essentially dismissed competitive threats from Asterisk — the open source IP PBX. The reason: The partners claim Microsoft’s API (Application Programming Interface) and software development tools for OCS 14 easily beat alternatives in the Asterisk market.
Meanwhile, Microsoft held additional partner meetings down the hall. Key topics for discussion included:
- Competing against VMware and beating vSphere virtualization in the market
- Competing against Google and beating Google Apps in the market
No doubt, new Microsoft Channel Chief Jon Roskill wants partners to compete and succeed in the cloud. Plua, beating Google Apps at all costs seems to be a top priority for Ballmer. And promoting Microsoft Hyper-V against VMware is a key piece of Microsoft’s All In cloud strategy.
Does Ballmer still worry about open source? Certainly yes. But there doesn’t seem to be any signs of open source-related panic here at WPC10. Microsoft’s latest targets for termination are Google Apps and VMware. Long Live Open Source…
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Posted In: Channel Chiefs | Cloud computing | Microsoft | Open Source | Partner Programs | SaaS and Cloud Computing
Tags: Azure vs. Google Apps | BPOS vs. Google Apps | Hyper-V vs vSphere | Microsoft vs Google | Microsoft vs VMware | Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference | wpc10
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Tags: Azure vs. Google Apps | BPOS vs. Google Apps | Hyper-V vs vSphere | Microsoft vs Google | Microsoft vs VMware | Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference | wpc10
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Hi Varguy…after playing with Google Docs and Google Apps for 6 month…I have to admit I jumped on the Google bandwagon to early. Google apps isn’t ready for business. That is the hard truth. Great to the hobbyist or my mom…but not for my small business clients. Falls short in so many areas. Microsoft Web Apps also suffers in areas as well. I just switched back to Microsoft Office after 6 months of playing the field.
Stuart Crawford
ULISTIC Inc.
http://www.ulistic.com
Stuart: Microsoft is on stage right now ripping Apple, Google, VMware, Oracle and other rivals during Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC10). Here are the details.
I’ve tried OpenOffice and Google Docs. But I still come back to Microsoft Office. MS Office meets all my needs. Everything else, I use Ubuntu 10.04 and Linux Mint 9 (bootable USB jump drive). I use Windows 7 at work and home (support friends/family).
>Stuart Crawford Says:
…Great to the hobbyist or my mom…but not for my small business clients. Falls short in so many areas. Microsoft Web Apps also suffers in areas as well. I just switched back to Microsoft Office after 6 months of playing the field.
Just curious, Stuart. Have you tried OpenOffice? I assume you’d already paid for MSO, but long term, OpenOffice could be the better choice. Most of what MSO offers, compatibility (or promise of eventual compatibility) with Google Docs.
So, assuming you’re not paid MS shills, I guess I’d like to ask all the “MS Office is the only thing that does everything I need it to do” folks… Define ‘everything’. Define ‘need’. What role if any does zero cost play in your decision?
OOo does everything I need it to do, but my needs are admittedly minimal.
Stuart Crawford:
“Stuart has served the Calgary business community by providing information technology consulting services as part of the Microsoft, DELL and SonicWALL partner . In 2001, Stuart founded IT Matters, a Microsoft award winning computer and technology partner he served as the Vice President of Business Development for 8 years.”
And he doesn’t like Google apps but prefers MS Office.
As good as MS Office is, OpenOffice can do more, as well, is more affordable, and I have no economic stake is writing that. I especially like the way OOo connects to database backends and allows easy construction of data entry, modifcation and data-aware forms and reports. OOo is great for Joe and Sally Sixpack, SOHO, and even midsize businesses and NPOs. Connected to a backend like PostgreSQL 8.4 or higher the combination becomes a productivity tool useful for larger organizations during an economic time when per-seat licensing costs for proprietary software can cost a business the services of several employees, if not a large part of the company profits.
A consultant should always be working for the best interests of his client, not the corporation whose products he recommends. The Comes-3096 document, written by “Technical Evangelist” creator and former MS employee James Plamondon, is an excellent source of information to learn how Microsoft turns this “consulting/marketing” business on its head.
OpenOffice is pretty good but what effectively replaces Exchange and Outlook? And will it sync with my BlackBerry?
Hi Everyone
I am forced to use OO from time to time…I have a business partner who loves it. For me, being so much on the MS side of the house for many years. OO doesn’t cut the mustard for me. The ribbon bar was a hard thing not to have and I used OO for a few months…simply didn’t work for me. I get it that it works for others…but not mine.
Stuart Crawford
ULISTIC Inc
http://www.ulistic.com
I have been a CPA for 21 years. I have done a fair amount of spreadsheet work over those years with Lotus, Excel and OO Calc. Since 2004 I have have used Calc exclusively. It works!
CPA: Since 2004? Let The VAR Guy know what you’re using in 2014… Our resident blogger looks forward to your 25th anniversary answer and 10-year anniversary since moving to Calc…
-TVG
I suspect Google is more than ready for a fight against Microsoft and has more or less been waiting for a full on confrontation from Ballmer for a long time.
At best Microsoft can keep people off of online office apps but not until they do a serious cut of their crown income source and lower their prices significantly. Therein lies the problem, Google dont need to have a revenue out of Google Apps while Microsoft has yet to find alternative sources of income except from office and operating systems.
VMware on the other hand is threatened by becoming a utility unless they sprint ahead of everything else pertaining virtualization and really start saving money for their costomers IRL and not just on paper.
Daniel: The VAR Guy agrees on some points but disagrees on others. Yes, Google Apps is a threat to MSFT’s traditional Office revenue. But there are some signs of “new” revenue streams… SharePoint is more than $1 billion in annual revenues… small vs. Office but growing, nonetheless. There are small examples like that across Microsoft. The company has to do a better job articulating their new $1 billion+ products/services…
-TVG
Upstarts ? How many years must go by before you’re not considered an upstart any more? Redhat has been available since 1993(17 years) or somewhere about. MySQL has been about for more than 10 years, Linux itself for more than 19 years.
Lest not forget Apache, PostgreSQL, and other such ‘disruptive’ “upstarts” …..
Ballmer is like a bull. Like a bull, he is blindsided whenever someone waves a red flag. His tantrums are well-known, making his subordinates afraid of handing him “bad” news and which distorts his view of reality, leading him to make wrong decisions based on that distorted reality.
What keeps Ballmer up at night? I suspect he spends all night looking in his mirror admiring himself and listening to self-made wma clips telling himself how wonderful he is. “I’m as good as Bill. I am the new Microsoft”
Forced to use Sharepoint. What a worthless product. Even the open soucre alternatives are better. Maybe somebody will wake up and see this, and Microsoft’s revenue stream will go away.
Stuart,
Now I know you’re either full of it, or a computing newbie. I’ve been using MS Word since before there was a Windows version, and the Ribbon is the most evil thing that MS has ever visited upon us. I utterly despise it.
OOo does most of what I need, but if they were smart, they would have copied most of the keyboard shortcuts from MS Office. Two of my most used shortcuts CTRL-M and CTRL-T don’t work by default.
GreyGeek:
OOo may be highly configurable in connecting to databases, but the last time I tried Base it was a nightmare (admittedly, I haven’t tried again for two years).
Hi Pat
15 years in the industry and still out of it
And I love it
Wouldn’t change that for a second
Honestly – I admit that MS and their shonky software has really done me lots of FINANCIAL and TIME damage…..
Quality Control – Not.
So basically all Kudos to Ubuntu Linux (mostly) and some residuals with XP.
Open Office – it’s pretty good except that they do really dumb stuff like failing to “break” the links to images put into documents – so when the images are moved – the documents then lose the images – and the idiots thought that was a grand idea to make people have to go into drill down menus to manually break the links….
They finally got rid of that stupid idea.
And they are still playing with terds like not embedding fonts into documents – never mind that I own a couple of thousand of them – and you can buy CD’s with 10,000 fonts for $10 etc.
The gist of that is that when you produce documents and drawings with Open Office using ones own fonts – well they do not archive with the fonts, and the files are transportable to other machines – except instead of ones “Happy Beach” font in 250 point size – you get Arial 12 point….
It’s like, – “Thanks Idiot – I really needed that”.
So the OO crowd still do some really dumb shit…
And the embedding of images etc.. into text type documents – well Word 2000 does it way better than Open Office Write.
But the drawing package is brilliant.
All it needs is some air brushing tools and it’s basically an almost totally complete everything package.
I’d like to see it expanded to run NC machinery from – like tool and cutting paths etc., from drawings.
I’d also like to see it expanded in 3D capability.
I’d also like to see it start to take on the likes of Autocad in terms of engineering capabilities.
I’d also like to contribute to the development of these features – except after seeing how these “committee minded twats” ran with the idea of embedding ones OWN fonts into ones OWN art and text works, so I can work with them and forward them to others, but I can’t because the fonts cannot be embedded – I kind of thought “You people are just too stupid by half”….
So with Microsoft releasing more scamware, like selling Windows 07 (in 2010) for say $100 in the US and A, and then selling in all the other countries for say $200, and then blocking purchases of the product online – from the US and A to other countries by IP address and via proxy to the shipping address…
MS is Price Gouging – on their own products.
Good One Ballmer…..
So I don’t know – after seeing what really scummy stupid and outright dishonest management this company has, and what their shonky software has cost me over the years – I enjoy kicking Microsoft to the gutter, 1 cent at a time.
Google is just a new face to the open source threat nothing more.
Vmware is also working more and more with open soruce.
Since when Microsoft knew what to focus on! I am happy that they are not focusing on open source now(at least not publicly). As a long time Ubuntu user I know that MS has inferior and highly vulnerable products in their hands. Its getting easier for me to convince people to move to Ubuntu, as MS software looks and behaves more and more dated.