REDMOND, Wash. — New software modeling systems are breaking out
of academia and making their way into Microsoft’s product pipeline, the company’s chairman said Thursday.
“It’s modeling that’s going to greatly simplify application customization,” said Bill Gates, who is also Microsoft’s chief software architect. “It’s modeling that’s going to let navigation of business information be done in a richer way.”
The company is using modeling to describe how two pieces of software relate to one another, and how software systems can share rules to set a framework for how they’ll work together.
The modeling premise is one of the fundamentals behind Microsoft’s .NET
as well as some of the more innovative features in its next-generation
Windows system, now named Longhorn, that are integrated into key products
such as SQL Server.
Modeling is a key feature in many of Longhorn’s innovations, such as
declarative user interfaces that move the model itself in an application to
becoming a set of blueprints, such as an XML text document that is shipped
to the computer with instructions and then windowed on the fly while
controls for the application are built.
Microsoft’s XAML language, a key part of Longhorn, is also part of adding
modeling to the software and application development approach.
Specifications of the language have been submitted to standards groups.
“Modeling is something you will be hearing more about,” Gates said during the company’s annual financial analyst day here. He opened the presentations by highlighting innovations coming out of Microsoft’s research divisions.
Chief among them, he said, includes modeling systems that help declare
what a big process should do, and rules and constraints for that behavior.
He said the company has bet big on this, and it also factors into
the company’s innovation with search functionality that extends beyond the
text-based algorithms so prevalent today.
“The holy grail of total recognition [among software applications] at
human levels is still many years ahead of us,” he said, but little
breakthroughs are bringing this along. To that end, Microsoft said it
will spend about $6 billion on research during fiscal 2004. Gates said the company
expects to receive 3,000 patents by the end of fiscal year 2005, up from
roughly 2,500 in 2004.
The financial analyst day is a chance for each of the company’s divisions
and chiefs to highlight where their latest products stand, and what’s
cooking in the innovation department, such as new texting features in the
Tablet PC that improve handwriting recognition, or new administration
functions in Windows upcoming service pack that will enable administrators
to shut off potentially malicious pop-ups. Demonstrations throughout the day
include Windows, Office, Mobile Devices, Business Solutions, Servers, and
Developer Tools, Games and Xbox, MSN Services and its Trustworthy Computing
program.
As for current product lines, some analysts expect questions about
Microsoft’s least profitable areas, such as Microsoft Business Solutions
Channel. “I’d like to see them explain the next steps in integrating the
Great Plains/Navision partner channel with the normal Microsoft sales
channel, something that created some problems in fiscal 2004,” said Rob
Helms, research director for Directions on Microsoft.
“It was originally supposed to happen this fiscal year, but I suspect
they might back off from that goal. I’d also be looking for any plans to
rationalize the existing product lines, which increasingly overlap in their
markets but are still on separate code bases,” he said.
In June, Microsoft streamlined its chain of command for Microsoft Business Solutions, naming division
chief Doug Burgum to report directly to CEO Steve Ballmer and Orlando Ayala, who heads up the company’s Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partner Group.
The management shift is seen as a sign that the business division isn’t
living up to Microsoft’s sales expectations, said Directions on Microsoft
analyst Matt Rosoff.
“I’d also be looking for any plans to rationalize the existing product
lines, which increasingly overlap in their markets but are still on separate
code bases,” Helms added.
While Ayala was in charge of all sales and marketing to SMBs, there was a
separate sales organization under Burgum devoted to Microsoft Business
Solutions — which also focuses on SMBs, according to Rosoff. “There were
different sales organizations working at cross purposes.”
