buigfess1120
04-02-2011, 06:43 PM
A great number of business pundits have speculated as to whether Windows Vista could be the final big-bang release of Windows. (The answer,Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 (http://www.msoffice2007key.com), as Microsoft officials have repeatedly stated, is no.) I feel they're asking the wrong question. Instead, why not ask regardless of whether Windows will probably be the center of Microsoft's universe going forward? Might there some other product/products upon which Microsoft is betting the farm? My favorite question during the Q&A session at the end of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's Convergence conference keynote address on March 14 sounded deceptively simple. I'm paraphrasing,Microsoft Office Standard 2007 (http://www.msoffice2007key.com), but the questioner asked Ballmer something like this: "With all the hoopla here at the conference around SharePoint Server,Discount Office 2007 (http://www.office2007-key.us), is it correct to believe of SharePoint as almost like an OS (operating system)"? Bingo. Microsoft officials increasingly are talking up "Software + Services," as opposed to "Software as a Service" in explaining Microsoft's future. So how does Microsoft keep the growing family of internet business services it is introducing tethered to on-premise software? SharePoint Server will be the reply. Not Windows. Not Windows Server. Not Office. SharePoint. Ballmer told the Convergence questioner he was dead-on in his thinking. "SharePoint may be the definitive OS or platform for the middle tier,Office 2010 Pro Plus Key (http://www.office2010key.us/)," Ballmer explained. It could be the "missing link" (my words, not his) between personal productivity and line-of-business applications. Ballmer also provided one of the most succinct definitions of SharePoint Server I've heard from any Microsoft exec. SharePoint is just like Office; it's a bunch of point products gathered together into a suite. Although Microsoft is not fond of calling out the six or so servers that comprise Office SharePoint Server,microsoft Office 2010 Activation (http://www.office-2010-key.co.uk/), it is a bunch of server apps loosely joined. What are Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Dynamics ERP other than the perfect guinea pigs for Microsoft's attempts to make SharePoint Server the new, must-have platform for its online business users? Microsoft Organization Solutions (MBS) could be the captive laboratory for Microsoft's Software + Services experiments. Agree? Disagree? Or is SharePoint Server just not on your radar screen (yet)?