Gates: Channel Investment Key To .Net Strategy

Microsoft

Speaking before a jammed audience of analysts and journalists gathered for Microsoft's .Net briefing Wednesday, Gates said Microsoft will invest heavily in ISVs and channel partners to sell .Net, especially in tough economic times.

"The key to the .Net platform is the partner support we get for it,the ISVs and consultants. There's always going to be a fight over hearts and minds of those people. It's in our genes to use that model," said Gates. "Our biggest competition is IBM, but then they go and do their own implementation and favor their own internal consulting than outside people."

Gates, who fielded a few questions along with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the briefing, said the beauty of .Net is that it reduces total cost of IT ownership for companies, which is a nice sell in tough economic times. But Gates noted that Microsoft's partners will ultimately decide the success of .Net.

Gates and Ballmer both said it will be a long road to realizing revenue from .Net, but hinted that the tough economic climate may make the platform easier to sell.

Ballmer said the ability to wrap .Net plumbing around existing applications and infrastructure makes it an easier sell than a total rip and replace platform.

".Net is about, and in tune with, a sentiment in the world today that says it's a bleak economic climate," Ballmer said. "IT budgets are under pressure and .Net has to fit into that context. So .Net is a way to reuse applications you already have. It reduces costs. It's an architectural approach to integration."

Ballmer and his longtime boss said Microsoft's ISV and systems integration partners are well-positioned. "It breeds opportunities for partners," Ballmer said.

During the day-long briefing, Microsoft touted a number of .Net-enabled products slated to ship in 2003, including its forthcoming Notification Server based on .Net Alerts. It also unveiled its "Greenwich" realtime communications and collaboration technologies that will be incorporated in server form and delivered as a .Net Messenger service, Gates said.

Microsoft also plans to make available its "TrustBridge" technology in 2003 to enable the federation of its Active Directory with other directories that are WS-security enabled. The company's Web-based directory, Passport, will be enhanced with a consent feature next year to allow end users to determine what personal information they wish to hand over to each Internet vendor with which they come into contact.

Executives also touted the forthcoming. .Net-enabled version of the Windows server, due to ship in the first quarter of 2003, as well as the .Net Enterprise version of SharePoint due in 2003. Microsoft also unveiled Wednesday the Office XP Web Services Toolkit 2.0, which allows solution providers to meld XML Web services with Office XP.

As part of the Office Web Services Toolkit 2.0 released Wednesday, Microsoft has integrated UDDI support to enable solution providers to discover and integrate XML Web services into their solutions.

Microsoft and partners are beginning to meld XML Web services with Office, SharePoint and CRM systems to enable customers to exploit the deep reservoir of data and connect disconnected islands of data in a corporate network, said Microsoft Group Vice President Jeff Raikes.

"Opening up Office as a smart client connected to Web services will help people have access to disconnected islands of corporate data," Raikes said during the .Net briefing.