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Paul Merrell

Building Office Business Applications: A New Breed of Business Applications Built on th... - 0 views

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    2006 MSDN white paper that is the best overview I've found thus far of the bridges Microsoft is building between Office 2007 and the Microsoft cloud. 12 pp. Somewhat dated in the intervening two years. Describes the Microsoft "line of business" vision for vertical markets in some detail. "This white paper introduces Office Business Applications (OBAs), a new breed of easily customizable solutions that address real-world business problems through the 2007 Microsoft Office system. OBAs deliver people-centric, collaborative solutions to the enterprise through familiar Microsoft Office servers, clients, and tools. This document discusses today's business environment, identifies a "results gap" that contributes to reduced productivity, and shows that OBAs are an effective new approach that enables enterprises to achieve the "last mile of productivity." You will see that several key components of the 2007 Microsoft Office system can be used to develop Office Business Applications and that, when Line of Business Integration (LOBi) for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is released, it will further simplify the development of OBAs. Finally, if you would like to develop a collaboration-planning scenario using the 2007 Office system, just follow the steps outlined in this paper."
Gary Edwards

Live Mesh: Windows Becomes the Web | Microsoft Watch - Web Services & Browser - - 0 views

  • simply: Microsoft is launching a synchronization platform that the company claims is technology-agnostic. That absolutely is not true. Live Mesh is Microsoft's attempt to turn operating system and proprietary services platforms into hubs that replace the Web. It's the most anti-Web 2.0 technology yet released by any company. Microsoft is building a services-based operating system that transcends and extends Windows and also the function of Web browsers. It's bold, brilliant and downright scary. Microsoft has identified the right problem, synchronization, but applied a self-serving solution.
  • The services platform doesn't seek to keep the Web as the hub, but replace it with something else. The white paper is wonderfully misleading, by implying that Microsoft supports the Web as the hub. Live Mesh is the hub.
  • Live Mesh is competitively important to Microsoft because of companies like Google, whose services shift computational and informational relevancy from desktop software to the Web. But there is something missing as data spreads out across the Web platform to millions of devices: simple synchronization.
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  • This mesh of services compromises the overlaying platform, which is supported by proprietary Microsoft APIs.
  • APIs, desktop software and Mesh run-time take on real importance. Users must install Live Mesh software on their PC, which includes the synchronization run-time and makes extension changes to Windows Explorer.
  • Microsoft's broader Mesh vision extends the operating system to cloud services. Microsoft's PR information refers to the "Mesh Operating Environment," which would presumably grant end users access to applications anytime, anywhere and on anything. Access includes the Web browser, provided it's from Live Desktop. End users would designate devices in their Mesh that would be permitted to run applications. And, yes, it does foreshadow hosted applications as well as those accessed from a Mesh-designated PC.
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    Joe Wilcox takes on MS "Live Mesh" in a series of articles. Clearly he gets it but one has to wonder about the rest of the techno crowd.
Gary Edwards

Google Search To Surpass Size of Microsoft Windows in 2009 - Silicon Alley Insider - 0 views

  • Google's search business will pass Microsoft's Windows business by early next year (at the latest). Good thing Microsoft has another huge, wildly profitable monopoly: Office. Add that to the calculation, and Microsoft can breathe easy for a few more years: GOOGLE SEARCH vs MICROSOFT WINDOWS + OFFICEQuarterly Revenue Q3 2006-Q1 2008 Of course, Google's visible in that Microsoft rearview mirror, too--especially now that it offers a product that is directly competitive with Office. And then there's the most depressing comparison (from Microsoft's perspective). After 13 years of heavy investment, frequent doubling down, and--until recently--a browser monopoly, here's how Microsoft's online business is doing relative to Google's search business. Remember: Google was founded four years after Microsoft launched its online business, and Microsoft's search business is just a tiny piece of Microsoft Online.
  • The "Windows monopoly+Office monopoly=Microsoft" story was absolutely true 10 years ago, but less so now. 1. It looks as if the "Office" revenue figures are coming from MSFT's reported revenues in the Business segment. That's not all Office. Based on what they've said at the last few Financial Analyst Meetings, Exchange is approaching $2B/year, SharePoint is about $1B/year, and Dynamics (formerly Microsoft Business Solutions) is more than $1B per year. I also know that Project has been a $1B/year business for a long time (believe it or not), and products such as Comms Server and Visio contribute around $500m/year. Margins on all these products are lower than on Office, but most (not Comms Server) are profitable. 2. In addition to all the non-Office products that compose its Business segment as mentioned above, the Server and Tools business (Windows Server, SQL Server) is profitable (30% margins) and growing revenues average of 15% for the last six years. Not monopoly, but a good business. Look at all these stats together, and seems like they should get out of search and advertising and sell off (or scale back to maintenance mode) most of the consumer online sites, focusing instead on hosted business apps--they're already doing it with Exchange and SharePoint, why not Office? If somebody's going to canniblize their "real" business, it might as well be them.
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    The Henry Blodgett article comparing Google and Microsoft. Excellent source!
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    Blodgett calls Windows a "natural monopoly," a term derived from the science of economics. But the view of Windows as a natural monopoly blinks past more than a few facts: [i] the monopoly at all times was firmly rooted in government-granted monopoly created by copyrights, patents, and trade secrets; [ii] even the 3.x versions depended mightily on antitrust violations involving DR DOS; and [iii] the dependence on antitrust violations to build, maintain, and extend the monopoly continue to this day. I see scant basis for labeling Windows as a "natural monopoly." Economic theory may blink past the antitrust issues on free market principles, but it may not blink past the government grants of monopolies in similar fashion..
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