Industry analysts argue that Microsoft's Web services pricing model
is totally wrong.
Ovum analyst Neil Ward-Dutton told CW360.com that Microsoft has
chosen the wrong business model for .Net. The problem, he noted,
was that Microsoft has the technology and it wants to host as
well.
"It would make sense to make .Net free because Sun and its Liberty
Alliance will come and say we are going to do Web services for
free," he observed. "But if Microsoft starts free, at what point
does it start charging?"
Ward-Dutton believed the model was wrong because people would not
trust Microsoft. Rather, he suggested: "It would make more sense
for telcos or banks to host the services, because to some degrees
they are already trusted."
Tim Jennings, research production director at the Butler Group,
agreed that Microsoft was unlikely to charge for use of its .Net
protocols. However, he could not see the business model working in
terms of storing, securing and managing profile data. "I don't
really see that works unless companies receive some revenue for the
services," he said.
Jennings noted that Microsoft was planning to make a substantial
investment in data centres to support the .Net strategy.
Eddie Bleasdale, director of NetProject, a consultancy that helps
business use open source systems, said: "Microsoft is basically
helping businesses advertise their services for a fee." Bleasdale
agreed that the Microsoft business model favoured large business
and could preclude people and organisations not prepared to pay the
fee.
IBM has its own Web services strategy geared towards it WebSphere
application server software. When asked whether the Microsoft
charge was justified, Tony Occleshaw, regional marketing manager of
IBM's software group, said: "I guess it's a bit cheeky for
Microsoft to try to charge a developer for the pleasure of writing
a proprietary application which would be limited to their
platform."
Occleshaw said IBM had a three-tier developer programme, with the
lowest tier free and the highest at $20,000. However, the charges
were often waived. "Of the 180 top tier partners we had last year,
all but two of them had their charges waived," he said. "The two
that didn't simply failed to provide the necessary paperwork, so if
you are serious as a developer and are making a commitment to IBM,
it is free."
The other main Web services pioneer, Sun Microsystems, also
believed the Microsoft business model did not make sense. Guy
Norgrove, director of Sun Microsystems northern Europe, told
CW360.com: "In terms of .Net pricing, I think it's difficult to
price something Microsoft does not yet have."
He said that the industry was only just starting long-term Web
services adoption. "The [full] roll-out could take anything from
five to 15 years," he said
In spite of criticisms over the charging, Microsoft business
partners see .Net and the My Services product as good for business.
John Beech, customer services director of Access Accounting, said:
"The extra costs involved are very minimal. The only additional
thing they will require is the .Net licence, which costs £2,500."