Who's our role model

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May 22, 2002
by Calvin Correli
2 min read

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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About Calvin Correli

I've spent the last 17 years learning, growing, healing, and discovering who I truly am, so that I'm now living every day aligned with my life's purpose.

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1 comment

talli somekh
 

that's not really fair... Not one of the companies you mentioned directly compete with MS. IBM and Oracle are the only two companies that MS might ever directly compete with, may compete at times with them. For instance, IBM and Oracle probably make most of their money in massive installations, consulting and services. I bet MS makes next to nothing in those places. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if IBM and/or Oracle have greater annual revenues than MS. (Remember, MS is the largest company in the world in terms of market cap, not revenue. They're not even close to WalMart in that category.) <p> As far as PeopleSoft, Siebel and the other software companies you mentioned, MS never really runs into them. PeopleSoft and Siebel may run on MS, but they are for a completely different need. Mostly, they are massive HR applications managing employees and other kinds of personnel information. MS is a complete no-show in this world (and the world that IBM and Oracle are in too, for that matter). <p> MS is still not a company that can provide for the truly "enterprise" world. Their OS, DB and other offerings still can't match anything that Sun, IBM or HP build on the high end. This being the machines with 8-100 processors managing massive financial databases. That's not to say they won't be in 5-10 years (and their recent purchases of the Danish company (Navivision?) and Great Plains may be proof they are shooting for it) but to compare their offerings on desktops and the mid-range server market doesn't really take into account the size and range of the total software world. <p> As far as SunGard, I don't know what they do. They are more of a "holding company" in that it seems they have a bunch of satellite companies. I know they have a large donor management app that is one of the cadillacs of the industry. <p> Cadence Software is very out of place on this list. They do IC design, something none of these other guys will ever get involved in. Their chief rival was Avant! a criminal company with a great product. Recently, Avant! was bought by Synopsis, another large software company that will never meet or interact with a MS, IBM or Oracle product. <p> Oh yeah, and MS sucks shit. <p> talli
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