Bizness as usual for Microsoft

1999-05-28

Yesterday in Paris, Microsoft relaunched its eCommerce strategy under the banner “eCommerce for all”. Apart from presenting the strategy from a European perspective, nobody expected much difference from the first launch, two months ago in San Francisco. However, things move awfully fast in this business, and it was clear that the strategy was significantly firmer than when first announced.

The building blocks were the same – Microsoft Commerce Server, BizTalk server and MSN. Commerce Server is “websites with transaction management” – an essential element of setting up an eBusiness site. BizTalk server is the XML interpreter and integration layer, to enable business applications to communicate across the Web. MSN, back in its third (or is that fourth) incarnation, is now an eCommerce portal.

What has changed? For a start, the marketing may be the same but the technology appears a lot more advanced. It is possible to start believing some of the dates in the roadmap - currently product betas are expected in the summer. Real issues are being addressed, like how Exchange and Biztalk server will work together, for example to deal with eCommerce transactions via email. Another change was a small change of emphasis – Microsoft will be “stewarding,” rather than controlling, the standards effort required to define the XML schemas for vertical markets such as Finance, Retail and Healthcare. This gentler approach is to be welcomed – whilst it is recognised that big companies such as Microsoft and SUN have a major role to play in setting standards, it is a relief to hear that they are prepared to give up those standards to more appropriate bodies, when the time is right. Let’s face it, Microsoft’s reputation in this arena is less than pristine.

Still disappointing was the rollout plans for MSN commerce in Europe. Expected early next year, this leaves us Europeans significantly behind if we want to take advantage of MSN’s services. Having said that, maybe its not such a bad thing – it might leave time for a non-US company to step into the breach.

(First published 28 May 1999)