Microsoft IBM: Claim and Counter Claim
August 3, 2008
I get a kick out of companies dressed in inflatable sumo suits whacking each other. I chuckle when both combatants swing and end up sitting on the ground looking at one another. That’s what Microsoft and IBM seem to be doing in the group ware and collaboration market. John Fontana does a good job of explaining this inflatable sumo face off in his essay “IBM Counters Microsoft’s Seat Stealing Boast”. You can read the full text of the Network World story here.
The dust up concerns a Microsoft assertion to the effect that Redmond’s SharePoint would capture five million Lotus Notes’ seats, a euphemism for users. IBM asserts this will not happen. IBM just closed a 300,000 seat deal in Asia as evidence to support Lotus Notes’ hegemony.
What must irritate IBM is that Microsoft’s SharePoint is getting quite a bit of public relations traction. To make the SharePoint product more annoying, Ray Ozzie–the inventor of the software category–works for Microsoft.
More on this struggle of the titans in inflatable sumo suits to come. Film at 11.
Stephen Arnold, August 3, 2008
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