Say what you want about Microsoft, and I usually do, but they certainly don’t waver from their mission. Bill Gates just gave a speech (they let programmers give speeches now? Isn’t that what Bill’s title says, head programmer?) blaring the party line in every way. Read about it in Gates anoints SharePoint, hammers IBM, and outlines storage, workflow”.
What’s the party line here? You need another server (SharePoint Server 2007). You need to trust your collaboration to SQL Server. You need to realize Microsoft is the One True Way, although they have yet to coordinate their half-dozen communication servers with workflow engines. You need to stop looking at competitors because Microsoft will ship this, they promise, by the end of the year.
Readers tell me they can’t afford an all-Microsoft solution anymore because each application requires it’s own server. Not technically, of course, and not according to the marketing literature. However, running Exchange Server and anything can be a disaster. Running SQL Server and anything else ditto. Remote Access server ditto. SharePoint will be different?
Have you noticed all the information about a standard document format called Open Document Format? Microsoft said they’d play that game, but now they want to “improve” the format with their own Open XML. Told you they never waver in their mission: embrace the standard publicly, change it to fit their proprietary needs, then denigrate the standard.
The market seems to think The Mission may be attackable. Hence money for Microsoft competitors, as described in Start-up targets Exchange customers. Notice the Linux foundation for this new Exchange competitor. This makes at least a dozen ways to replicate Exchange functions without paying the high price in dollars and security headaches for the Microsoft product. Want a list of options? Let me know. Are you using one now? Let us all know.
Feel the Need for Speed? PC World just updated their Power PC Ratings. Speed, as usual, takes cash, as the low end of the Power PC shopping list is about $3500. But that’s considerably cheaper than a Ferrari, right?
