Business Agility Campaign Launched

Touting its “Software for the Agile Business,” Microsoft has launched a major advertising campaign to raise its profile as an enterprise applications company. With growth in its operating systems and desktop applications businesses slowing, Microsoft will use the campaign to move beyond the desktop and position itself as a player in large enterprises alongside IBM, Oracle, and Sun.

The US$220 million “agility” campaign highlights the company’s increasing focus on server-based applications, such as BizTalk, Exchange, and SQL Server. Enterprise applications are the fastest growing revenue segment in Microsoft’s business, with the company’s last quarterly report showing enterprise server revenues up 26% and enterprise platforms (Windows 2000 and NT) revenues up 19% from the previous year. The enterprise data center and mission-critical application market is particularly attractive to Microsoft because it is virgin territory for the company, and has huge potential for revenue growth: Microsoft took in US$4.5 billion last year in a segment estimated to be worth US$93 billion worldwide.