M
MICHAEL
http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/14/mag...t_vista.biz2/index.htm?postversion=2006121510
Microsoft wants a bigger piece of Oracle and IBM's database business, but an oversight in its
new operating system could cost the company plenty.
By Owen Thomas, Business 2.0 Magazine
(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- If you followed Microsoft in the 1990s, you knew it as a company
that deftly moved from strength to strength, leveraging its dominance in one area of software
to command other parts of the tech business.
That company's long gone, folks.
The latest evidence that Microsoft (Charts) has lost its Midas Touch? Its bid for a bigger
piece of the $14 billion database business, a sector now ruled by Oracle (Charts) and IBM
(Charts). Until now, Microsoft has been doing what it does best to attract corporate customers:
It has tied its SQL Server database management software to programs running on Windows
desktops.
But now Microsoft has a problem. Vista, its long-awaited update to the Windows operating
system, can't run the current version of SQL Server. The company is working on a SQL upgrade
that is compatible with Vista - called SQL Server 2005 Express Service Pack 2 - but it's in
beta and can be licensed only for testing purposes. Microsoft hasn't set a release date for the
new SQL program.
So companies looking to install Vista, which went on sale to corporate customers Nov. 30, are
going to have to get their database management software someplace else.
Microsoft has effectively just handed its chief rivals an early holiday present.
All Microsoft, all the time
This, of course, is exactly the opposite of what Microsoft should be doing if it hopes to give
Oracle and IBM a run for their money. Microsoft should instead have released a Vista-compatible
version of SQL Server as early as a year ago. That way, corporate customers would have had
plenty of time to test it in time for Vista's release.
The SQL oversight is one reason, among many, why analysts don't expect Vista to appear in the
workplace until 2008. And it's become yet another sticking point with corporate IT departments
already frustrated by their dependence on Microsoft. In the long run, the lack of SQL support
could delay widespread adoption of Vista even further.
Microsoft's long had a strategy to be everywhere computers are - from home desktops to office
servers. And it's had some success: Currently most database programmers use an older version of
the SQL software called Microsoft Desktop Engine, or MSDE. (While you may not have heard of
MSDE, it's an exceedingly common software component - so common, in fact, that it played a
starring role in the spread of the infamous Slammer worm four years ago.)
So what can companies that adopt Vista do now? Not a whole lot.
Waiting for 'eventually'
They can download the test version of SQL Server and start preparing their database
applications for an upgrade, says Chris Alliegro, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. But
even that step won't be easy.
"It's not ideal, and it's a pain in the neck," says Alliegro. Before company programmers start
testing SQL's beta, they'll have to identify all of the database applications they're running
that rely on MSDE.
For companies that have acquired other businesses, reorganized divisions, or outsourced IT
personnel, that's a mighty tall order. And here's the rub: Until Microsoft releases a
Vista-compatible version of SQL Server 2005, all that testing will be for naught, since they
won't be able to install it on users' desktops.
So good luck trying to get approval from your company's budget cops. Just imagine the CFO
grilling the CIO about a plan like that: "You want to spend money testing software that you
can't run? And you don't know when you'll be able to run it?"
Microsoft, of course, will get SQL Server 2005 officially running on Vista. "Eventually, most
companies who are running Windows will be running on SQL Server 2005," promises Alliegro.
The key word here is "eventually." Microsoft's customers waited five years for Vista. Now,
they're discovering that they still have to wait for a database component that works with it.
No wonder Google (Charts) is beating Microsoft: This is a company that has forgotten how to
execute its own playbook of launching a coordinated wave of products that all work together.
No doubt Microsoft will get this straightened out - eventually. By then, it just might be time
to launch another version of Windows.
Microsoft wants a bigger piece of Oracle and IBM's database business, but an oversight in its
new operating system could cost the company plenty.
By Owen Thomas, Business 2.0 Magazine
(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- If you followed Microsoft in the 1990s, you knew it as a company
that deftly moved from strength to strength, leveraging its dominance in one area of software
to command other parts of the tech business.
That company's long gone, folks.
The latest evidence that Microsoft (Charts) has lost its Midas Touch? Its bid for a bigger
piece of the $14 billion database business, a sector now ruled by Oracle (Charts) and IBM
(Charts). Until now, Microsoft has been doing what it does best to attract corporate customers:
It has tied its SQL Server database management software to programs running on Windows
desktops.
But now Microsoft has a problem. Vista, its long-awaited update to the Windows operating
system, can't run the current version of SQL Server. The company is working on a SQL upgrade
that is compatible with Vista - called SQL Server 2005 Express Service Pack 2 - but it's in
beta and can be licensed only for testing purposes. Microsoft hasn't set a release date for the
new SQL program.
So companies looking to install Vista, which went on sale to corporate customers Nov. 30, are
going to have to get their database management software someplace else.
Microsoft has effectively just handed its chief rivals an early holiday present.
All Microsoft, all the time
This, of course, is exactly the opposite of what Microsoft should be doing if it hopes to give
Oracle and IBM a run for their money. Microsoft should instead have released a Vista-compatible
version of SQL Server as early as a year ago. That way, corporate customers would have had
plenty of time to test it in time for Vista's release.
The SQL oversight is one reason, among many, why analysts don't expect Vista to appear in the
workplace until 2008. And it's become yet another sticking point with corporate IT departments
already frustrated by their dependence on Microsoft. In the long run, the lack of SQL support
could delay widespread adoption of Vista even further.
Microsoft's long had a strategy to be everywhere computers are - from home desktops to office
servers. And it's had some success: Currently most database programmers use an older version of
the SQL software called Microsoft Desktop Engine, or MSDE. (While you may not have heard of
MSDE, it's an exceedingly common software component - so common, in fact, that it played a
starring role in the spread of the infamous Slammer worm four years ago.)
So what can companies that adopt Vista do now? Not a whole lot.
Waiting for 'eventually'
They can download the test version of SQL Server and start preparing their database
applications for an upgrade, says Chris Alliegro, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. But
even that step won't be easy.
"It's not ideal, and it's a pain in the neck," says Alliegro. Before company programmers start
testing SQL's beta, they'll have to identify all of the database applications they're running
that rely on MSDE.
For companies that have acquired other businesses, reorganized divisions, or outsourced IT
personnel, that's a mighty tall order. And here's the rub: Until Microsoft releases a
Vista-compatible version of SQL Server 2005, all that testing will be for naught, since they
won't be able to install it on users' desktops.
So good luck trying to get approval from your company's budget cops. Just imagine the CFO
grilling the CIO about a plan like that: "You want to spend money testing software that you
can't run? And you don't know when you'll be able to run it?"
Microsoft, of course, will get SQL Server 2005 officially running on Vista. "Eventually, most
companies who are running Windows will be running on SQL Server 2005," promises Alliegro.
The key word here is "eventually." Microsoft's customers waited five years for Vista. Now,
they're discovering that they still have to wait for a database component that works with it.
No wonder Google (Charts) is beating Microsoft: This is a company that has forgotten how to
execute its own playbook of launching a coordinated wave of products that all work together.
No doubt Microsoft will get this straightened out - eventually. By then, it just might be time
to launch another version of Windows.