As the Department of Justice (DOJ) vs. Oracle antitrust trial entered its second day, enterprise customers and partners continued to weigh in on the elephant in the courtroom — namely, Microsoft. Two Microsoft executives are slated to testify during the trial, which is expected to last a month. And the revelation on Monday that Microsoft held exploratory merger talks with SAP, another key player in the "high-function software" arena, continued to reverberate among enterprise customers.
Industry consultant Jeff Talley (who requested his company name be withheld), made no bones about Microsoft's strategy to target the high end of the business-software market. But don't expect Microsoft to make its move until later this decade. "Microsoft intends to dominate the enterprise market with (Project) Green (its revamped ERP suite due out in the 2006+ timeframe) just as surely as they intended to dominate electronic spreadsheets with Excel," Talley said. "Green is going to be THE next enterprise solution, with its only real competition probably coming from IBM. It is just a matter of time.
News source: Microsoft Watch
