News
Azure Adds Risk to Microsoft's Business Model
- By Stephen Swoyer
- November 11, 2008
Most everyone remembers Pearl Harbor Day in 1995, when Bill Gates -- then the
CEO of Microsoft and riding high on a surging Windows 95 O/S -- agreed to nearly
missing the boat on the Internet. Gates famously outlined an Internet strategy
centering around Redmond's Internet Explorer Web browser, which shipped with
Windows 95.
Most everyone remembers how Gates' December mea culpa turned out, too. Microsoft
continued to grow its shares of the client and server operating system markets.
Internet Explorer became the dominant Web browser. And the U.S. Department of
Justice initiated antitrust proceedings -- for the second time in less than
a decade -- against the company.
Industry watcher Gartner Inc. picked up a similar Pearl Harbor Day-like vibe
at Microsoft's recently concluded Professional Developers Conference (PDC),
although the focus this time was cloud computing. Gartner concluded that the
cloud-related offerings Microsoft unveiled at last month's PDC amount to its
"most significant coordinated shift in strategy since its transformation
to embrace the Internet and combat Netscape in 1996."
To be fair, Gartner flagged several Microsoft news items, starting with Windows
7, the successor to Redmond's much-maligned Vista operating system. In addition,
Redmond also unveiled a Web-enabled
version of its Office franchise, slated to ship as part of Office 14.
There's little doubt, Gartner researchers argued, that the latter announcement
-- specifically, the timing of that announcement -- was aimed squarely at Google.
"By announcing the service so far in advance, Microsoft hopes to slow the
adoption of Google Apps and other personal productivity applications,"
wrote Gartner analysts Matthew Cain, Tom Austin and Michael Silver.
The big story, however, was the availability of preview code for Windows Azure
and the Azure Services Platform, Microsoft's cloud-based platform and services
stack. It was Azure's
debut that most contributed to the fraught atmosphere at this year's PDC.
"This most recent PDC was the most important such event Microsoft has
held in a decade. At the forefront, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie
led Microsoft's Azure Services Platform announcement -- a significant and coordinated
shift in Microsoft strategy," wrote analysts Neil MacDonald, David Smith
and David Cearley. "The vision significantly expands Microsoft's 'Software
plus Services' vision to encompass all of Microsoft's offerings, and it will
impact all of Microsoft's products during the next decade."
There's a sense, in fact, in which Windows 7 (which Microsoft distributed on
preloaded laptops to journalists, reviewers and other attendees) was something
of a sideshow; the real story, the one with ramifications for both Microsoft's
and the industry as a whole, was Azure.
"Microsoft is facing the most challenging decade ahead in its traditional
business model, which heavily depends on Windows and Office revenue streams,"
they concluded. "The changes and risk to its business model are significant.
However, Microsoft had to respond to the challenge of cloud computing. Microsoft
has done so in a reasonably cohesive fashion, orchestrated by Ray Ozzie -- even
though different units within Microsoft had proceeded independently with their
cloud strategies -- leveraging its developer and enterprise IT strength with
the potential of the cloud."
About the Author
Stephen Swoyer is a contributing editor for Enterprise Systems. He can be reached at [email protected].