How big vendors are getting it wrong in the recession

I just finished reading Dennis Howlett's excellent analysis "Surviving and thriving: or why MISO has it (mostly) wrong" in which he discusses the basic strategic mistakes being made by Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and Oracle. The net takeaway is that the companies have an unfriendly attitude toward customers and a focus on technologies that the market has not demanded.

Some key points that outline why MISO are going in the wrong direction:

• The egregious treatment of customers at the shrine of maintenance revenues
• The foundational technologies for what they deliver are all showing distinct signs of age, wear and tear
• The five year lifecycle of product delivery is all wrong in today's rapid development

One of the reasons we hear (and write) so much about open source and cloud computing these days is because customers want to be in control of their destinies as well as their infrastructure. MISO offer a great deal of lip service to new technologies but don't deliver an overwhelming wealth of new products or features that users actually want.

What's the point of selling me shiny new technology which I'm struggling to understand anyway when I need to pay the bills more efficiently but more importantly find new business.

Howlett wrote a lot of words, but it's definitely worth a read. The issues at hand with MISO provide enormous opportunities for start-ups to jump in and take market share while the big guys offer empty promises.

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