VORTEX Digest
John Gallant Spotlights Top Network News and Issues
Comments to: mailto:jgallant@vortex.net
Sept. 23, 2005
Volume 7, Number 1
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In This Issue:
* Ray Ozzie in the spotlight - at Microsoft and at VORTEX 2005
* What is Google's game plan?
* Microsoft announces major reorganization
* Executive Spotlight at VORTEX: Ed Kamins, CIO & Head of
Operational Excellence: Senior Vice President, Avnet
* Subscription information
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"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy
present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must
rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew
and act anew."
Abraham Lincoln
Dear Vorticians,
Sometimes the timing just works out right.
This week, Ray Ozzie took on a big new set of responsibilities at
Microsoft - a role central to the company's future success. In
just over a month, he'll be on stage at VORTEX 2005 and he'll
share with you his plans and what they mean for customers,
partners and competitors. In fact, Microsoft's emerging nemesis,
Google, will also be at VORTEX, where the best and brightest on
the IT world will convene. (Are you registered?
http://www.vortex.net)
One of the underlying premises of VORTEX is that there is
profound change underway in the technology industry and nowhere
is that change more evident than in the emerging battle between
Microsoft and Google. In recent days, the press has been filled
with stories about developments at the two companies that presage
a very stormy future. I use the word presage because Google is
always mum about what's on the drawing board and neither Google
nor Microsoft is very talkative regarding one another.
Microsoft seems to be on the defensive for the first time since
the concept of Web-based software was raised in the late 1990s -
a threat that Microsoft was able to beat down at that point and
one that it probably hoped had died along with many of the dotcom
pioneers. The defensiveness is all the more interesting because
the threat from Google is rather amorphous at this point. What
exactly is Google planning, ultimately, to offer desktop users
and how will that undermine Microsoft's hegemony? How will Google
use its increasingly large stash of cash? In short, what game-
changing strategy is in play?
Last week, Google raised another $4 billion in a secondary stock
offering that builds it war-chest to some $7 billion (an amount
that, admittedly, pales in comparison to Microsoft's $60 billion
piggybank). Google is snagging key executives from Microsoft and
other top tech companies. Just this week, the talk was all about
Google's rumored plans to build a nationwide Wi-Fi network and
how it is building an internal network that rivals the scope of
some of our nation's largest telecom companies. We've discussed
the rollout of Google's instant messaging and VoIP offerings.
Clearly, there's a great deal happening behind the curtain and
much more yet to be revealed.
The developments were of a different nature at Microsoft. The
company announced a major reorganization this week, and a page
one story in The Wall Street Journal details how the 30-year-old
software giant is revamping its hidebound software development
process in order to get products to market more quickly. (I
recommend this news.com piece entitled "Microsoft's nightmare
inches closer to reality," http://nww.com/092305nlvortex).
Jim Allchin, who's leading the development of the oft-delayed
next rev of Windows, will retire at the end of next year. The
company seems to be scrambling to try to shake off cobwebs and
reignite the sparks of innovation. In short, it seems to be
uncertain about how to position itself in an age of Web-based
software and, maybe, showing its age
Enter Ray Ozzie, who came aboard with Microsoft's acquisition of
Groove Networks. Ozzie has been given a new, highest-priority
mission to lead Microsoft's strategy for delivering software as a
service. According to Microsoft, Ozzie is charged with the
company's "communications and collaboration strategy,
applications and platform infrastructure, and for helping drive
Microsoft's software-based services strategy and execution across
all three of the company's divisions." (Those divisions are the
Platform Products and Services division, the Business division
and the Entertainment and Devices division.)
Ozzie will be the point person for recreating how Microsoft
delivers its software in a Web- and services-oriented world. Last
year at VORTEX, we spoke with Dan'l Lewin Microsoft corporate
vice president, .Net business development about the .Net strategy
and Microsoft's views on an SOA future with those of SAP, Oracle,
IBM and others. This year, we'll explore with Ozzie how Microsoft
will accelerate its services effort in light of the rapidly
changing threat landscape changing and what that means for all of
us.
In a separate presentation, we'll also hear Google's top tech
executive, Dr. Douglas Merrill, about the amazing
computing/communications arsenal the search giant is building and
how the company plans to put it to use.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this Google/Microsoft tilt
and ideas about the questions Geoffrey Moore and I ought to be
asking Ozzie and Merrill. Reach me at mailto:jgallant@vortex.net.
This week, on the VORTEX Blog, you'll find a couple of entries
about my favorite products rolled out at this week's DemoFall
conference (http://www.demo.com). You'll love this stuff,
including a very cool technology that enables your cell phone to
give you spoken driving directions! See the entries at
http://www.networkworld.com/weblogs/vortex/2005/010011.html and
http://www.networkworld.com/weblogs/vortex/2005/010005.html. If
you were there, tell me what you liked.
Bye for now.
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Executive Spotlight at VORTEX: Ed Kamins, CIO & Head of
Operational Excellence: Senior Vice President, Avnet, Inc.
VORTEX 2005: Setting the IT Agenda
Breakthrough to Value
Oct. 24-26 at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco
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How do you create value in a highly commoditized business that
has global competition and razor-thin price margins? You
differentiate on operational excellence, driving your costs lower
than the other guy's and your partner and customer satisfaction
metrics higher. As CIO and Head of Operational Excellence at
Avnet, a global leader in high-tech distribution, with operations
split between a high-volume electronic components business and a
high-value technology solutions business, Ed Kamins is at ground
zero for this effort. He brings a strong will and a great sense
of humor to the task, and he has plenty of war stories to share,
so don't miss this interview.
Register today at www.vortex.net/V5E1VD
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ABOUT VORTEX DIGEST
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VORTEX Digest is a weekly summary of the VORTEX Blogs written by
Executive Producer John Gallant and offers an ongoing dialogue
on matters raised at The VORTEX Conference, and within the VORTEX
Community.
VORTEX is an exclusive, invitation-only event for senior
executives that brings together all the key elements: leadership,
thought, funding, and regulatory expertise, to shape the future
of the network business and the technologies that drive it.
VORTEX shakes off the hype and helps you understand where you can
win new customers, and find new revenue in a time of dramatic and
seemingly unpredictable change.
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Copyright: Network World, Inc. 2005
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