NEW YORK -- Seeking to put business context around its ongoing massive technology refresh, Microsoft Corp. yesterday began laying out how its next-generation products will help organizations boost innovation and foster tighter collaboration inside and outside their four walls.
As detailed by CEO Steve Ballmer at the Microsoft Executive Business Forum, held here, the company's "People-Ready" software initiative proposes to make knowledge workers more productive by removing technical obstacles that prevent them from securely accessing and sharing business-critical data and applications from a variety of devices across a multiplicity of systems.
Ballmer, with the assistance of Microsoft Business Services Division Corporate Vice President Chris Capossela, showed off next-generation business solutions built on Microsoft's upcoming Vista operating system and the Office 2007 software suite (expected before year end); its new SharePoint web portal software and Dynamics CRM software suite; and its next version of Exchange Server, among other products. Ballmer's intent was to highlight how businesses in the not too distant future will be able to create more efficient workflows that support faster and more informed decision making -- fueling greater organizational productivity.
"This is a natural extension of the founding vision of Microsoft -- empowering people with software," Ballmer told the 500-plus customers and partners who attended the event, which kicked off a $500 million "People-Ready" branding campaign aimed at reinforcing the company's push to enable its products with the process flexibility many businesses require. Ballmer said the company's three-year, $20 billion R&D investment is "radically simplifying IT," resulting in software tools infrastructure that will empower employees to think and work more collaboratively -- which, he said, will drive top- and bottom-line growth.
Ballmer's IT simplification comment sounded like a not-so-subtle shot at IBM, whose go-to-market strategy pivots around outsourcing and utility computing services designed to help businesses contend with growing IT complexity. Microsoft's vision, despite its adherence to emerging web-services standards, remains somewhat Windows-centric. Its People-Ready initiative positions Microsoft Office -- particularly Outlook e-mail, where knowledge workers spend the bulk of their work day -- as a way for employees and business partners to share structured and unstructured data that lives in repositories dispersed across the organization and between enterprises.
Already, Microsoft is enabling knowledge workers to use Outlook to access enterprise data residing in its Dynamics software suite through its so-called "Dynamics Snap" applets. (SAP will soon provide the same functionality to users of its MySAP ERP software.) Microsoft has also integrated its Dynamics CRM software with Outlook and is enabling businesses to create "role-based" profiles to facilitate more efficient use of its enterprise software. The "People-Ready" initiative, however, would take data and business process integration to another level.
For instance, Capossela demonstrated how businesspeople will be able to use conventional telephones to retrieve e-mails (via voice commands and responses) and tap new web-enabled Windows PDAs (like Cingular's HTC Wizard) to view and annotate PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets and share them throughout a workgroup using SharePoint web portals, MSN Instant Messenger, or its Groove collaboration workspace.
Capossela also demonstrated how Dynamics CRM could be used in combination with sales data (from an enterprise application), spreadsheets, business intelligence tools (scorecards pivoting around key performance indicators) and advanced search tools to help businesses create and share reports that assess how promotional campaigns were meeting business objectives.
While embracing this approach would represent a stretch for many companies -- including those living on the bleeding edge -- some businesses have little choice. Tommy Hilfiger, president and CEO of the high-fashion apparel manufacturer that bears his name, told attendees that "People-Ready" software would help empower his employees to meet the demands of a fast-moving and fickle market "where retailers expect fresh merchandise every four to six weeks."
Hilfiger CIO Eric Singleton added that "a single version of truth" would enable the New York-based company to create a supply chain that "is as integrated as possible" and stay ahead of demand. The tools, he said, are available. "We cannot afford to not take the risk," he argued.
However, risk is exactly what manufacturers will need to consider before moving forward. Most if not all are heavily invested in Microsoft Office and Windows applications, as well as infrastructure components (servers, tools, and databases) and, to a lesser degree, enterprise applications (Dynamics CRM and Microsoft's many acquired ERP applications). "They've also been looking at the newer capabilities that the newer servers like SharePoint will offer them to help tie systems and people together," noted AMR Research analyst Jim Murphy, in an e-mail exchange.
Many manufacturers already run their business on Exchange Server and Excel, but have had difficulty integrating the data they generate into cohesive, automatable systems, he said. "From that perspective, the ability to rein in these formerly ad hoc and inexact means of conducting business will be very welcome," Murphy noted.
On the people and process fronts, domestic manufacturers are starting to see how tighter workforce and partner collaboration can drive innovation, which many believe can help them triumph over lower cost, offshore competitors. Moreover, the "People-Ready" software concept will resonate with manufacturers who are facing the retirement of baby boomers, which is placing a premium on technology to help effect knowledge transfer, Murphy added.
That's why many manufacturers are seeking to automate as much of their business as possible, and are embracing Lean and Six Sigma to instill greater operational efficiencies. "Arguably, what Microsoft is offering in the next wave is a means to do just that -- to solidify human-centric processes with the goal of automating them down the line," Murphy said.