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July 26, 2005

Big Brother (Microsoft) is Watching

Microsoft starts its Windows Genuine Advantage program today. The net effect is, except for security updates, you must be running a genuine copy of Windows to get updates. If you’re running a pirated copy of Windows you will not be able to download updates.

This is all part of their effort to make software piracy less of a problem. A link here explains . . .

A study by the Business Software Alliance and market researcher IDC released this spring estimates that 35% of PCs worldwide ran pirated software last year. At a meeting with Wall Street analysts a year ago, Microsoft executives estimated that 22% of PCs in the United States--about 12 million machines--ran pirated software. In China, 13 million PCs did, Microsoft estimated.

Software piracy, which includes installing multiple copies on a network without buying them, severely decreases profits. But piracy also reduces how much money is available to improve the product. Businesspeople are just like the rest of us. Profits for our vendors are nasty, but our profits are wonderful.

Great Plains has always required registration to run their software, but Windows has, in the past, been easy to pirate. It’ll be interesting to see if this helps or hinders Microsoft’s business.

Posted by Ted at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2005

The 2005 Bottom Line at Microsoft

You may have heard that Microsoft, whose fiscal year ends June 30, finished on a high note. Sales were just a smidgeon under $40 billion with profits of $12.5 billion. That ain’t bad. Any business with profits over $30% of sales is a great business. I know people that would kill for a net of half that amount.

Alas, the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) division did not fare as well. They finished the year with sales of $803 million and a loss of $76 million. From what I read they don’t expect the MBS division to be profitable any time soon.

My suspicion is that Project Green is sucking up a lot of cash. That’s the project that plans to meld Great Plains, Axapta, Solomon, and Navision into one code base. Programmers are not cheap to start with. With the economy improving they are likely getting more expensive all the time. On top of that, the task is a formidable one.

I was wondering if this strategy is a good one. Proctor and Gamble probably sells 10 different brands of soap. Having multiple products has a strategic advantage in the each can server different segments of the market.

But software is not soap. Software requires enormous work to maintain it and improve it. If all four product lines could be consolidated into one, product support costs would drop dramatically. It would also make integration with the Office series that much easier.

It’s a good thing Bill has very deep pockets.

Posted by Ted at 03:48 PM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2005

New Version of Windows Coming

Microsoft is releasing a new version of Windows in 2006. It's being called Windows Vista. They will release a beta version of Vista August 3, 2005.

It's been a long time coming.

Posted by Ted at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)

Migration from a Legacy System

I was doing some telephone prospecting when I stumbled upon a user that is still running an old Real World application. It turns out he is interested in migrating to Great Plains. Although I have done several migrations from the old GPA to Great Plains, I have never done a Real World one.

I contacted Great Plains to see how much they would charge to do that. They referred me to a company Vertical Migration Solutions, LLC. It appears that the migration business is at such a low point, they are farming that out to a third party.

One interesting point from this is this company can apparently migration from almost any software system to Great Plains. They have something they call a Universal Migration Application Tool.

Posted by Ted at 08:46 AM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2005

Crystallizer

I was at a client site over the last few days and he’s trying out a Great Plains add-on called Crystallizer. Crystallizer allows you to print Crystal reports from inside Great Plains.

It also allows you to add security to those reports so only certain users can run certain reports. In addition you can batch your Crystal reports and print a whole bunch at one sitting.

Currently the client prints about 60 reports at month-end. I set up almost all his reports in Crystallizer and then combined them into a batch. Now he has only to load the printer with paper, start the reports running and go home for the weekend. It will make his month-end much less stressful.

Another advantage to Crystallizer is, you don’t need to have Crystal installed to run the reports. I have too many clients that have Crystal installed on multiple stations, even though they have only purchased one copy.

By federal copyright laws they are required to purchase the multi-user version of Crystal. The Crystallizer product takes care of the multi-user requirements.

I’m still learning all the in’s and out’s to the product, but so far it looks very good.

Posted by Ted at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)