Yesterday a series of vendor briefings showed how Microsoft is fighting back in the enterprise computing market and taking on upstarts like Salesforce in the CRM and business analytics markets.
Microsoft’s briefing presented a series of happy customers – including Colliers International, Servcorp and Metricon Homes – describing how they had deployed the Microsoft Dynamics product.
All the businesses at the Microsoft event said how it fitted into their existing business IT infrastructure. All were Windows shops running Exchange and Sharepoint.
This installed base illustrates Microsoft’s strength in the Enterprise marketplace along with its partner network of resellers and integrators.
Microsoft’s partner network was illustrated at HP’s Next Generation of Information Workers briefing where the company’s workplace of the future vision is very much a Windows service, even the layout is a replica of the Window 8 tiled layout.
The Next Generation of Information Workers product is largely built over Microsoft’s Sharepoint and HP’s own Trim product which again shows how legacy providers are leveraging their established technology.
Whether this is enough to hold off the likes of Salesforce and other cloud based services remains to be seen. Being Windows-centric is particularly tough at a time when many employees bringing their own Apple iPads and Android smartphones to work.
Microsoft’s awareness of its position was shown in the billing of the briefing where the invite billed the session as showing how Microsoft competes with Salesforce.
That competition is manifesting itself with both Salesforce and Microsoft aggressively acquiring social, analytics and marketing platforms to compliment their CRM products.
If the competition was just a matter of size there would be little contest as Microsoft’s $290 billion stock market capitalisation is more than ten times bigger that of Salesforce’s.
But it isn’t just a matter of size. Microsoft are have a legacy business to protect while disruptors like Salesforce aren’t encumbered by older desktop and server products.
What is clear though is that Microsoft is gearing to fight for these markets.