Today is a huge day in Seattle – congratulations Seahawks fans! And with the apparently impending announcement of Microsoft’s new CEO it seemed a good time to comment on our perspective on Microsoft’s position in enterprise software and the demands for mobility.
It’s always refreshing to get out of my local market, the San Francisco Bay area. Here in the land of Google, Apple, Salesforce.com and Box there are plenty of people who have written off Microsoft. To be sure, Microsoft has a lot of work to do to ensure that its products retain, and regain, relevance in the next three to five years. Microsoft has missed the boat in consumer software. Still, it is important to keep in mind that in the enterprise Microsoft is doing colossal business. For their second quarter Microsoft reported posted profits of $6.6 billion on record quarterly revenue of $24.5 billion, beating the street. There were strong gains in the enterprise services sector, which includes Azure and Office 365 for business users.
In many verticals including financial, insurance, energy and professional services, Outlook and Office are the life blood for many of the largest companies in North America. Small and medium-sized business may have more flexibility to try something new. However, many don’t have huge security teams and therefore don’t want to go out on a limb with technology which may present new security challenges.
Moreover, visit enterprises outside of North America. Microsoft is a long established, trusted entity in many regions. Some regions are very reticent to move files to the public cloud or to use web-based apps.
Windows 7 (or its non-Metro successor) on the desktop, Office and Outlook, Active Directory/LDAP, Exchange, and SharePoint – in large enterprise firms and regions outside North America I see no rush to replace these products. Therefore, we provide intuitive mobile access to these solutions. We receive high praise for our SharePoint and Email (MS Exchange-based) user interfaces.
Yet, our Link Unified Endpoint Architecture APIs are flexible. Link is well-positioned to support the mobile web revolution. We can, and do, support other web applications, including SaaS applications, such as ECM and issue tracking, inside of our secure Link Container.
In summary – Microsoft is bread and butter for us in the enterprise. At the same time, Link is a simple and secure way to mobilize any web app, including SaaS apps. We embrace both.
– Maureen