Microsoft’s two-front war for the future

Steve Ballmer doesn’t look much like General George Armstrong Custer — unless you notice all the arrows stuck in his back. Even when it appears as if Microsoft has scored a win, he takes another hit.

Case in point: This week’s kerfuffle over Google’s alleged fib about the security of its Apps for Government. Even if the Redmonders and the Department of Justice have the boys from Mountain View dead to rights, there’s a much larger point here: Google is going after a core Microsoft business, and if it didn’t win this time, it may well win the next. No wonder Microsoft is making such a big deal out of this.

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Then there’s the tablet issue, which hangs over Ballmer’s head like an enemy smoke signal. None other than Dave Willis, one of Gartner’s apostles of the enterprise, has told IT execs to wise up and get on board the tablet revolution. Why is that another arrow? Well, duh — Microsoft is way behind the curve on this one, and if enterprise honchos start hunting for tablets, they’re going to look to Apple, or maybe to the Android platform, or to ABM, which means Anybody But Microsoft.

I’m not one to overstate Microsoft’s weaknesses; no company making that much money is likely to bite the dust anytime soon. But I do know that the trend we’ve taken to calling the consumerization of IT is picking up steam, and it’s a trend inextricably linked to mobile computing. Google and Apple are much better positioned to profit from it, while Microsoft is still stuck in the desktop-centric past.

iPads to the enterprise There’s still plenty of ambivalence in the enterprise to the use of tablets, smartphones, and so on. But as more and more employees find those technologies indispensable in their home life, the pressure to bring them inside business is irresistible.

“Sales leaders are clamoring to adopt media tablets with their sales teams, as a more engaging way to share sales collateral and promotional materials — and it won’t stop there: Next will come customer relationship management systems, and order entry and sales configuration applications,” David Willis, Gartner research vice president, says in a report called “iPad and Beyond: The Media Tablet in Business.” Even business analytics will become, well, tabletized. For sales managers, media tablets will be a natural platform for business analytics and performance dashboards.

Note that Willis is not talking about peripheral concerns. Sales support, CRM, and analytics are absolutely central to the enterprise. Willis quite rightly notes in his report that tablets aren’t going to replace laptops, but they are a great supplement. That’s a whole bunch of incremental business Microsoft won’t get if it stays on its present course, not to mention a certain amount of cannibalization of laptop and, thus, Windows sales.

I might go further than Willis. As business employs increasing numbers of mobile devices and applications, it will become more likely that execs will consider alternatives to the traditional desktop-centric applications they now use as a default.

Google strikes at Microsoft’s core At times, Google reminds me of an incredibly intelligent 10-year-old tripping over his own shoelaces while walking down the hall to an advanced placement calculus class.

The company made a bunch of amateurish mistakes when it tried to redefine the wireless communications market with the ill-conceived Nexus One, embarrassed itself by accidentally vacuuming up data with its Street View cars, and now it’s apparently made another dumb mistake by claiming that Google Apps for Government has FISMA certification when it doesn’t.

My colleague Ted Samson did a good job beating on Google for its amateurishness, so I don’t need to. But while Ted and others were giving it the dope slaps it deserves, hardly anyone was stepping back and talking about the implicit threat to Microsoft.

It seems pretty obvious that Google’s entry into the government IT market strikes right at the core of Microsoft’s business. The company already has taken some major hits in Europe, where open source is being adopted by various entities, and in parts of the United States.

Google launched Government Apps in early 2010. Doing a quick, yes, Google search on those apps doesn’t show lots of traction, but there certainly is some, including the cities of Los Angeles and Orlando, the state government of Wyoming, and the Berkeley Lab, which is run by the Department of Energy. My sources at the lab say the rollout of those apps, including email, went well and there are few complaints about the switch from Office.

On the scale of things, it’s probably more accurate to see those examples as the camel’s nose in the tent, rather than a mass defection. Shifts in core enterprise technologies (unlike consumer tech) start slowly, but shift they do.

Ballmer is no dope, but he and his company are in a very difficult position trying to keep up with the tectonic changes rocking the technology industry while continuing to protect a revenue base rooted in the past.

Watch out for those arrows, Steve, they’re likely to smart.

I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Post them here so that all our readers can share them, or reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net. Follow me on Twitter at BSnyderSF.

This article, “Microsoft’s two-front war for the future,” was originally published by InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bill Snyder’s Tech’s Bottom Line blog and follow the latest technology business developments at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.