> So, NT will end up stuck in the closed, mostly off line small to
> mid-size business network market--a big and lucritative market, but
> not as big or as lucritive as large scale networks that actually run
> the internet and are the electronic backbone of multinational
> corporations, governments, and huge financial institutions. The only
> saving thought for Microsoft in that environment is the
> decentralization and re-distribution of those giants into smaller
> local envirnoments with isbn trunk connections to link up the smaller
> and distributed network pieces. It is within this exchange between
> local networks (running NT of course), that I think the MS memo is
> talking about when it mentions 'extending protocols'--i.e writing
> custom, non-standard, closed exchange routines, data checking and
> encrytion, security filters, etc. etc.
There's another side to what we'll have to call the Microsquash Bubble: in addition to us baying penguins of Linuxdom snapping up market share from below, Mister Softie has a gigantic, EU-sized headache, in the form of SAP Inc., a German software firm which is growing like mad in the bourgeoning Intranet domain -- i.e. internal corporate systems, production-flow software, stuff like that. Intranets require (1) reliability, (2) security, and (3) foreign language capability, among other things; all areas where SAP R/3 system is several light-years ahead of NT. Which is bad for Billworld, because Intranets are, like the banks, where the real money is at. The network may not be the computer, but the network is where truly vast super-profits are to be had. So far, Microsquash and SAP have signed a couple of "cooperation" agreements and haven't really tangled; there's a reason for this. Larry Ellison, who seems to have a penchant for launching rhetorical boomerangs, predicted back in 1995 that Oracle would totally own SAP's market share inside of two years (they do compete in somewhat similar environments, i.e. large-scale networks). SAP nodded politely, and proceeded to put the hurt on Oracle's ass something awful, and since then a chastened Ellison has inclined to a more cooperative approach with the Walldorf firm. Microsoft has been watching this, and knows enough to know that SAP is more of a long-term threat to them than any anti-trust trial.
-- Dennis