When Partnership and Support Spell Change

In the application-development arena, 2003 may go down as the year Web services morphed from marketing hype to reality tool for a broader spectrum of integrators, ISVs and other software-oriented solution providers. Case in point: Microsoft, voted top dog in the Web apps and tools category, bested last year's champ, Macromedia, and a host of rivals in the Java camp.

After a slow start out of the gate, Microsoft has been making headway with developers who laud the XML-laden .Net framework and Visual Studio.Net tools for ease of use. Rounding out the Annual Report Card field is Macromedia, which still ranked No. 1 in product innovation and partner loyalty based on its technically robust Dreamweaver, Flash and ColdFusion tools; IBM, whose WebSphere Studio-led products were knocked down a peg from second to third place; BEA Systems; and finally Oracle.

What's most impressive about Microsoft's results is how far the software giant has come in a year. Its strong showing reflects the substantial investment it has made in channel initiatives this past year.

"A major area of focus for us has been to be a leader in innovation, and that's been especially true this year in the Web apps area with the release of new products like Visual Studio.Net 2003," says Allison Watson, vice president of worldwide partner sales and marketing at Microsoft.

Ironically, Microsoft's decision to enter the business-applications space two years ago hasn't hurt its rankings in criteria such as managing channel conflict, sales partnering and ease of doing business.

"Compared to Microsoft, IBM's support is not there in terms of being able to get help on products, and the WebSphere tools are confusing," says Richard Siena, president of Relativity, a solution provider in Seaford, N.Y.

Macromedia grabbed the highest score of all for its products' richness of features and functionality. Despite that, Siena says the maturation of .Net as an underlying development framework relegates Macromedia's tools to more of a complementary role, as opposed to a competing product.