Microsoft Trumps Google, Dismisses Its Enterprise Services
March 2, 2009
Microsoft seems to be returning to its glory days as vanquisher of the weak and destroyer of the newcomers. Phil Wainewright wrote “Microsoft Pumps Cloud, Trumps Google with GSK.” I must admit the GSK threw me. It is the insiders way to refer to Glaxo SmithKline, a pharmaceutical giant. The comment that stuck in my beak was:
Not only that. Ron Markezich, corporate VP of Microsoft Online Services, was scathing of Google’s efforts to make headway in the enterprise market. “Google we really do not feel is ready for the enterprise,” he said in a call briefing bloggers on the announcement an hour ago. “They’re offering three nines SLA and they’ve missed three of the last six months,” he added, referring to last week’s Gmail outage and earlier incidents. In a sideswipe at Google’s offer of a 15-day credit for last week’s outage, he went on to add that Microsoft maintains its services at four-nines availability, while backing up its three-nines SLA with financial penalties: “We don’t just give service credits, we give hard dollars if we miss an SLA.” [Emphasis added]
My take on this announcement includes these thoughts:
- Looks like each Google announcement will trigger an aggressive response from Microsoft
- Microsoft is sending a signal to Google and probably to any other company that it intends to protect its customer base. Good cheer and happiness may not be part of the response
- Google must have landed a kaisho (open hand strike). Microsoft’s statement (cited above) suggests to me that Google is not an annoyance; Google is a threat.
More from the battle front as reports arrive.
Stephen Arnold, March 2, 2009
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