With its Worldwide Partner Conference coming to a close in Boston, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner declared war on companies and technologies aspiring to Microsoft’s place in the enterprise.
“I’m in it to win it, and No Limit is my home.”
— American rapper and poet Snoop Dogg
Microsoft is in it to win it when it comes to the enterprise space. Just because a lot of journalists think Google and Linux will take a wrecking ball to Microsoft’s foundation of Windows and Office doesn’t mean Microsoft feels the same way.
COO Kevin Turner told the crowd during his closing keynote speech that “we’re not going to let Google win in the enterprise space. That’s our house, our market space,” a CRN report noted.
Turner continued in this vein, to the approval of the Microsoft faithful in attendance:
“Then we’ve got Novell, Linux, Red Hat and other competitors. We’re going after IBM and Google,” Turner said. “We’re going to win because we have a better solution, better total cost of ownership. We’re going to get at the competition.”
“We know you have choices,” Turner told partners. “But this is a company that if we don’t get it right the first time, we’ll keep coming, and coming and coming and not stop until we get it right.”
That does sum up how Microsoft has entered and ended up dominating a lot of markets. For example, Microsoft moved from a zero market share in the web browser market to a figure of about 83 percent usage of Internet Explorer in 2006. One-time browser leader Netscape is a shell of what it used to be.
All the ex-Wal-Mart CIO Turner was missing from his speech was a Howard Dean-style call to action from the executive. Though it is tempting to rule out Microsoft when so many alternatives exist for its products, the company does enjoy the business of numerous large and powerful corporations for its core revenue generating products.
They’re in it to win it.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
