GARTNER: Microsoft's collaboration "dominance" vs. IBM

Posted by Mike Snyder on September 23, 2005  |  Comments (0)

Got this little tidbit from Dale Timberlake, our Midwest District Partner Team Lead:

Hot off the Gartner presses, a terrific report entitled “Microsoft and IBM Share Similar Collaboration Goals, but Follow Different Paths.” The report compares the long-term vision of each company in order to predict how successfully or unsuccessfully IBM will compete with Microsoft’s “dominance” and “early lead” in the space.

A few highlights:

• “By 2009, Microsoft’s collaborative vision will achieve significant, if not overwhelming, enterprise adoption (0.9 probability). The viability of Microsoft in the integrated collaboration market is not really in question.”

• “Given Microsoft’s dominance and ambitious plans for Windows and Office System, it will almost certainly continue to dominate. Whether IBM is a distant second or a realistic challenger depends on how it executes its basically sound strategy. Based on current performance, we believe IBM is more likely to be a distant second.”

• “IBM has the more difficult job ahead of it, because Microsoft has taken an early lead in building support for its vision of integrated collaboration.”