But Wait, There's More

• The suspense is killing us. According to reports from Reuters and the Associated Press, Microsoft has responded to an antitrust complaint filed against the company by the European Commission. For the past four years, the commission's antitrust organization has been inching toward a full-blown lawsuit, and if Microsoft does not address the concerns of antitrust commissioner Mario Monti, it seems likely that within a month Microsoft will be sued and could face billions of dollars in damages from a lawsuit filed on behalf of European consumers. The commission is concerned that Microsoft is illegally using its monopoly of the desktop operating system to move into the markets for server operating systems and media players. There's no question that Microsoft is doing this; what the lawyers on both sides will be arguing is whether what Microsoft is doing is legal. Neither the commission nor Microsoft will comment on what Microsoft said in its filings. Microsoft has the option of three days of oral arguments in mid-November, and the commission's antitrust body could rule early in 2004. Then the appeal to the European Court of First Instance will undoubtedly take place, dragging the case out for years more. By the time this is all done, Microsoft will have $60 billion in cash in the bank, and a $3 billion fine will seem like lunch money. Antitrust law as implemented and as argued simply does not work on either side of the Atlantic. If there is any area where we need fast-track, it is antitrust cases.
  
  

• A decade ago, when Microsoft first got into the server operating system racket and was just bundling up the Office and BackOffice suites, the company figured out that the operating system would only be good for generating profits for a short term, and that, over the longer haul, its future profits would be in application software, middleware, and access licenses to all of this software. With this week's launch of Exchange Server 2003 for servers and the new Office System for desktops, Microsoft will once again pony up hundreds of millions of dollars to get hundreds of millions of users to upgrade to its new application software and middleware. Microsoft is about to launch Office System, which is really Version 11 of the Office suite with Exchange Server 2003 added in. Office System is one of the most complex products Microsoft has ever put out, and it includes the core Office programs (Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint), plus Visio, FrontPage, Publisher, Project, OneNote, and InfoPath. The latter two are new. The Office System also includes the new Exchange Server for e-mail and the Office Live Communications Server for online collaboration. We'll give you a complete rundown on the Office System in next week's issue.
  
  
• Microsoft has delivered its promised beta version of Windows Server 2003 for the 64-bit Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices. Microsoft is delivering the Windows 2003 Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition for the Opterons. Microsoft has already delivered Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition and Datacenter Edition for the competing 64-bit Itanium 2 processors from Intel, and to level the playing field as Intel delivers the "Deerfield" low-power Itanium 2s, it has rolled out Windows 2003 Standard Edition for the Itanium 2 as well. Subscribers to the Microsoft Developers Network service can get the betas for these chips immediately, and Microsoft says that they will be available to the general public soon.
  
  
• While SSA Global has been busy buying companies and acquiring customer bases, the partnership and alliances side of the house has been allowed to make some progress, too. Two weeks ago the Chicago ERP giant announced an expansion of its alliance with business intelligence software vendor Cognos. With this agreement, SSA enters into an OEM agreement with Cognos for its ReportNet, Enterprise Planning Series, and Metrics Manager applications, which SSA will sell as part of its recently announced SSA Corporate Performance Management suite. These applications will be added to the stable of Cognos applications that SSA sold, which included Cognos' Enterprise BI Series 7 and Analytic Applications. SSA has built interfaces that allow Cognos applications to work with some of its ERP applications, which eases implementation costs.
  
  
• After cutting almost 1,100 jobs in the last month, IBM's chief executive, Sam Palmisano, said the company may need to create 10,000 new positions for 2004. In mid-September, IBM cut 720 jobs in the Global Services unit, and two weeks ago it cut an additional 380 people in the Software Group, affecting IBMers in Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colorado, Cupertino, California, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Somers, New York; no cuts appear to have been made at IBM's Rochester, Minnesota, plant, where most iSeries development and manufacturing takes place. Earlier this year, IBM eliminated 600 jobs at its microelectronics plant in Burlington, Vermont, but so far it has cut far fewer jobs this year than in 2002, when more than 15,000 employees lost their jobs as part of a cost-cutting initiative. In a prepared statement accompanying IBM's third quarter financial results, Palmisano indicated IBM will be creating new jobs in 2004. "Next year, in fact, we see the need for approximately 10,000 new positions in key skill areas, including high-value services, middleware technologies, Linux and open standards-based hardware and software," Palmisano said in the statement.
  
  
• Fresh off its J.D. Edwards acquisition, PeopleSoft recently bought its new customer base a token of its affection when it purchased JCIT International's Demand Flow application. Demand Flow is a supply chain planning application designed to reduce inventory levels, to eliminate waste from the supply chain, and to generally make manufacturers "leaner" by "enabling demand-driven thinking." The acquisition is targeted specifically at the manufacturers and distributors who run their operations on J.D. Edwards software. Demand Flow is immediately available from PeopleSoft, in limited release, and is expected to become generally available in 2004. JCIT International, meanwhile, will continue to sell Demand Flow education and services, and plans to jointly market software, training, and consulting services with PeopleSoft.
  
  
• Manhattan Associates last week announced the acquisition of Streamsoft, a Chicago-based company that develops software for improving the efficiency of warehouse environments. Manhattan Associates, based in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to integrate Streamsoft's FlowTrack warehouse optimization software with its Supply Chain Execution warehouse management application. FlowTrak helps warehouses run more smoothly by doing things like making sure that the most productive material handling equipment and labor (in other words, the fastest forklift and its driver) are handling the most popular items in the warehouse. This so-called slotting optimization capability can help companies improve productivity, reduce costs, and use space more efficiently, says Streamsoft's founder and CEO, Paul Maurer.
  
  
• IBM last week acquired mainframe database integration technology vendor CrossAccess for an undisclosed amount. CrossAccess, based in Santa Clara, California, develops technology that allows companies to access VSAM, IMS, IDMS, Datacom, Adabas, Sequential, DB2, and Oracle databases, as well as OS/390, Unix, and Windows applications, and make that data available for new applications. Although CrossAccess doesn't appear to support DB2/400 databases, there is nothing stopping IBM from doing so, now that it owns the technology. After the acquisition closes, which is expected to occur next month, IBM plans to integrate the technology with its DB2 Information Integrator software. The plan is to merge the CrossAccess software and personnel assets with IBM's Data Management Software Division, which is led by general manager Janet Perna and is part of its Software Group.
  
  

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