Isn’t it interesting that computer scientists have a complete disregard for the most successful software company in the world, Microsoft.
Who’s there to look up to as role model? MS doesn’t really have any competition in the desktop software market. Who’s there to challenge them?
- IBM? Ever used OS/2?
- Oracle? Ever tried to install their database?
- Computer Associates? Uhm, never actually come across any of their software, though they seem to have plenty of revenue.
- Compuware? I’d actually never heard of them until I found this top-ten of US software companies.
- Siebel? They’re supposedly pretty cool but very enterprise. I know very few people who’ve actually laid hands on Siebel software.
- Peoplesoft likewise.
- SunGuard data systems … who’re they?
- BMC Software? Looks very enterprisey (when they have an A-Z list of products with about a hundred entries that are almost the same, you know you’re going to have to watch carefully).
- And finally, Cadence Design Systems … I’d never heard of them. Seems to be software for designing IC’s and stuff.
Bottom line is that there are no real competitors to Microsoft, which is a shame. Only the top three are even close, and they’re MS, IBM and Oracle. And neither IBM nor Oracle have any guts nor talent to go after Microsoft’s core business. All the rest are way down the list and they’re mostly in niches.
Why, oh why, does it have to be so hard to get around MS in this industry?
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