Alternatives to Bloated Products

In today’s TechFlash, I commented on the effects that innovation or lack of innovation are having on our (and other ISVs) incentive to partner with Microsoft in online business applications. I should mention that I am a huge Microsoft fan, and have been frustrated that our closest technology giant neighbor has been missing the boat in online apps.

“Microsoft’s failure to fundamentally re-invent its blockbuster products on behalf of preserving its high margin businesses is what is creating the market opportunity for rivals.”

I’ve written several posts over the past many months that circle this theme:

1. Application design in converging products - Evolutionary or Revolutionary Innovation
2. Re-inventing market leading apps- Innovation Resistance
3. Online business application marketplaces - Online Marketplaces

I expect to get plenty of blowback from pro-Microsoft folks for today’s post, but find the evidence in our customer sign-ups and customer feedback compelling enough to be confident that our innovation is hitting the mark. A more graphical display of the 25 user scenario in the TechFlash post breaks out the different costs.

We’ve simply converged the most useful features of the three complex Microsoft products into one familiar interface. Refer back to the Evolutionary or Revolutionary Innovation post for details on the impact of products that successfully pull this off.

- Brent Frei