Microsoft gets serious about business apps

By Alorie Gilbert

Microsoft has laid out its plan for expanding its reach in the business applications market, with a software suite intended to help companies do everything from cut pay cheques to ringing up shopping at a checkout counter.

Over the next 12 months, Microsoft plans to release five new sets of business applications, adding to the bookkeeping software it already sells through its Great Plains division. By year's end the company will release three of them, said Tami Reller, vice president for Microsoft Business Solutions.

One set is aimed at helping service companies make more of their employees' time and skills. Another set is designed to help retailers track inventory and gather point-of-sale information. Microsoft gained the latter set of applications in May with the acquisition of Sales Management Systems.

The third is customer relationship management (CRM) software intended to help companies track their sales, marketing and service activities.

All indications suggest Microsoft is serious about business applications. Paul Hamerman, an analyst at technology research company Giga, said: "Their intention is to lead and dominate the midmarket for business applications, not just for accounting but by selling anything an enterprise would need to run their business."

By stepping into that market, Microsoft has moved into a realm of information technology long ruled by JD Edwards, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel. Because Microsoft also has partnerships with those companies it has been careful to define its turf separately from theirs.

Microsoft has its eye on the so-called midmarket, which it defines as companies with between $1m and $1bn in annual revenue. SAP and the rest of the pack have historically focused on very large, multinational companies.

Alorie Gilbert, writes for News.com