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Larry Greenemeier at InformationWeek reports that former Environmental Protection Agency CIO Kimberly Nelson has been named by Microsoft as the executive director of E-government in its U.S. public sector business.
Microsoft Corp. today announced general availability of five industry-specific solutions developed in close alliance with selected independent software vendors (ISVs) participating in the Microsoft Industry Builder initiative. The solutions, scheduled to be available Dec. 1, 2005, are designed for businesses that specialize in retail, distribution, process manufacturing, professional services, industrial equipment manufacturing, and field service management. The solutions announced today have been developed for Microsoft® Business Solutions–Axapta®, now part of Microsoft Dynamics™. Additional solutions will be released over the next few months.
These industry-specific solutions are a part of the first wave of Microsoft’s Industry Builder initiative, which will offer customers solutions that are packaged with Microsoft support offerings and high-quality code review. The initiative was announced at this year’s Convergence, the annual event for organizations that use products and services offered by Microsoft.
Here’s the original Convergence press release. The Industry Builder Initiative is apparently Microsoft Business Solutions specific.
Yesterday’s item about Microsoft and startups (“Do not automatically look to Microsoft as a rainmaker”) comes to mind when reading the Business Week Dec. 5 cover story, Googling for Gold:
The Google effect is already changing the delicate balance in Silicon Valley between venture capitalists and startup companies. Instead of nurturing the most promising startups with an eye toward taking the fledgling businesses public, a growing number of VCs now scour the landscape for anyone with a technology or service that might fill a gap in Google’s portfolio. Google itself and not the larger market has become the exit strategy as VCs plan for the day they can take their money out of their startups. Business founders have felt the tug as well. “You’re hearing about a lot of entrepreneurs pitching VCs with their end goal to be acquired by Google,” says Daniel Primack, editor of PE Week Wire, a dealmaking digest popular in VC circles. “It’s a complete 180 [degree turn] from the IPO craze of five years ago; now Google is looked at like NASDAQ was then.” Other entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are skipping the VC stage altogether, hoping to sell directly to Google.
On Wall Street, the Google effect, while less profound, is still clearly in force. All manner of investment banks, from giants such as Morgan Stanley (MWD ) and Credit Suisse First Boston (CSB ) to mid-size players such as Allen & Co., have dispatched bankers to Google’s Mountain View (Calif.) headquarters, the better to court the Google gatekeepers as they attempt to sell a raft of mergers and acquisitions, financings, and strategic advice. Meanwhile, smaller boutique firms are trying to ride Google’s considerable coattails, signing up the scores of increasingly valuable Web upstarts cropping up around Google.
There’s one snag in this planetary realignment: Google has shown little interest so far in doing big deals with anyone.
Much more by following the link, but this kind of thing is bound to happen. Risking another analogy, lots of ready cash of either the real or market cap variety exerts a very powerful magnetic attraction. Equally understandable is the defensive reaction by the holders of the pot-o-gold to all the blandishments of those folks who want to sell them a company, although Google is particularly difficult according to the article.
Paula Rooney at InformationWeek – Microsoft’s Oasis Pushes More App Dev Offshore:
Microsoft is pushing more of its internal application development work offshore as part of a project called Oasis.
Oasis aims to hand over more of its internal systems development and business application development work to a handful of global systems integrators including Infosys, Wipro, Tata, EDS and BearingPoint, said sources familiar with the plan.Partners that currently engage in application development work for Microsoft’s IT group must now go through a new process, sources said. Oasis, however, has no impact on Microsoft’s product development efforts or partners that develop products with Microsoft, sources said. “The initiative is being pushed by Microsoft’s internal IT organization,” said one source familiar with the Oasis project. “The IT group is pushing business units to work through key partners to ensure privacy and security standards are met and Microsoft is getting the best cost deal.”
A Microsoft spokesman indicates that the “offshoring” aspect is secondary to the procedure change.
