Revelations that Microsoft was looking to buy SAP earlier
this year are the latest evidence of its ambitious enterprise
software strategy.
Microsoft and SAP said they had "initiated preliminary discussionsÉ
to explore the possibility of a potential merger between the two
companies".
Although it failed to buy SAP, Microsoft has been busy in the past
few months signing strategic alliances with enterprise software
companies in a bid to increase adoption of its .net web services
architecture.
Deals with Oracle, Siebel and SAP have bolstered the viability of
.net as an alternative architecture to Java on which to base an
enterprise infrastructure. But experts have warned that choosing
.net as the basis to run enterprise applications and databases
could prove restrictive, as the .net platform is only available on
Windows.
Last month Oracle announced an agreement to more tightly integrate
its 10g database and the Microsoft Visual Studio .net development
environment. Oracle plans to offer a download for integration with
Visual Studio .net 2003 from the Oracle Technology Network website
later this year.
SAP and Siebel are also planning to support .net within their
products. Microsoft's strategy is to offer .net on Windows as a
viable alternative to Java 2.0 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), which is
commonly used in enterprise software implementations.
In Siebel version 7.7, which was released in April, Siebel and
Microsoft collaborated on the development of a .net version of
Siebel's Universal Application Network middleware product.
At its annual Sapphire user conference in May, SAP stated its
ongoing commitment to the .net platform.
Ashim Pal, vice-president at analyst firm Meta Group, said,
"Microsoft is trying to push more [enterprise] workload onto
Windows."
However, unlike code based on J2EE application servers, which
should be able to run on any supported platform - Windows, Unix or
Linux - .net is a Windows-only architecture. Users could face a
costly rewrite if they outgrow their .net environment due to this
lack of interoperability, according to Jyoti Banerjee, director of
analyst company MyBusiness.Net.
Banerjee said, "In terms of web services theory, it should not
matter whether an organisation uses .net or Java as the foundation
for its ERP implementation. In practice, we are a long way away
from that at this point. If somebody wants to switch platforms
from, say, .net to Java, I think they will have to put up with a
significant amount of re-implementation."
Banerjee urged users to keep putting pressure on suppliers to
extend their adoption of standardised protocols to overcome
interoperability problems between ERP applications on different
platforms.
David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum, said, "Moving from one
operating environment to another involves a major rewrite." As with
any rewrite, users may also face problems recoding undocumented
business processes when they switch platforms, he added.
Users can minimise this work by implementing enterprise software
using a three-tier architecture, where an application server is
deployed to separate business-specific customisation from the
enterprise system.
However, if a user decides to move from a .net architecture to a
Java-based application server, the portion of the enterprise system
implemented on the application server would need recoding, Bradshaw
said.
Microsoft said, "Ultimately, all interoperability will be achieved
through the use of web services." But the company admitted that
until web services standards mature, enterprise software will
continue to be implemented using existing APIs and frameworks.