Updated: July 12, 2020 (September 19, 2005)
Analyst ReportSummit Previews Midmarket Push
The roadmap for Microsoft’s midmarket strategies and products became clearer in Sept. 2005 with a midmarket-focused event for partners and customers in Redmond, WA. The company used the Microsoft Business Summit to announce new branding for its Microsoft Business Solutions products, outlining how four current product lines will be merged into one; announced a midmarket server offering built on Longhorn Server; and officially released its accounting product for small business.
Aiming at the Midmarket
The midmarket-defined by Microsoft as businesses with 25 to 500 PCs, or 50 to 1,000 employees-is shaping up as a major competitive battleground for Microsoft. Enterprise vendors, hurt by a general spending slowdown among large customers, are hungrily eyeing the next tier down and developing low-end or hosted versions of their products that don’t require the deployment effort of their enterprise products.
Although Microsoft dominates the desktop in the midmarket (as everywhere else), the midmarket is also fertile ground for server products and services, where the company faces strong competition. In addition, the company’s product line has not been optimized for the midmarket. For example, Small Business Server, with its low price and unified setup, works well for small business, but its 75-user limit cuts off many midmarket users. Larger customers with at least 250 PCs are eligible for Microsoft’s more advanced volume licensing plans, such as Enterprise Agreements, but the bulk of the midmarket, with between 75 and 250 PCs, has fewer options and gets the fewest discounts.
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