Microsoft 2010 Annual Report Download - page 9

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 9 of the 2010 Microsoft annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 80

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80

8
Windows Live software and services compete with Google, Yahoo!, and a wide array of Web sites and portals that
provide communication and sharing tools and services.
Server and Tools
Server and Tools develops and markets server software, software developer tools, services, and solutions that are
designed to make information technology professionals and developers and their systems more productive and
efficient. Server software is integrated server infrastructure and middleware designed to support software
applications built on the Windows Server operating system and includes the server platform, database, storage,
management and operations, service-oriented architecture platform, security and identity software. Server and Tools
also builds standalone and software development lifecycle tools for software architects, developers, testers, and
project managers. Server offerings can be run on-site, in a partner-hosted environment, or in a Microsoft-hosted
environment. Our cloud-based services comprise a scalable operating system with compute, storage, and
management capabilities and a relational database, both of which allow customers to run enterprise workloads and
web applications in the cloud, as well as a platform that helps developers connect applications and services in the
cloud or on premise.
Server and Tools offers a broad range of enterprise consulting and product support services (“Enterprise Services”)
that assist customers in developing, deploying, and managing Microsoft server and desktop solutions. Server and
Tools also provides training and certification to developers and information technology professionals for our Server
and Tools, Microsoft Business Division, and Windows & Windows Live Division products and services.
Approximately 50% of Server and Tools revenue comes from annuity volume licensing agreements, approximately
30% is purchased through transactional volume licensing programs, retail packaged product and licenses sold to
OEMs, and the remainder comes from Enterprise Services.
Products and Services: Windows Server operating system; Windows Azure; Microsoft SQL Server; SQL
Azure; Visual Studio; Silverlight; System Center products; Biz Talk Server; Microsoft Consulting Services;
Premier product support services; and other products and services.
Competition
Our server operating system products face competition from a wide variety of server operating systems and server
applications, offered by companies with a variety of market approaches. Vertically integrated computer
manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Oracle offer their own versions of the Unix operating system
preinstalled on server hardware. Nearly all computer manufacturers offer server hardware for the Linux operating
system and many contribute to Linux operating system development. The competitive position of Linux has also
benefited from the large number of compatible applications now produced by many leading commercial and non-
commercial software developers. A number of companies supply versions of Linux, including Novell and Red Hat.
We have entered into business and technical collaboration agreements with Novell and other Linux providers to
build, market, and support a series of solutions to enhance the interoperability of our products with their virtualization,
management, and network security solutions, and to provide each other’s customers with patent coverage for their
respective products.
We compete to provide enterprise-wide computing solutions with several companies that offer solutions and
middleware technology platforms. IBM and Oracle lead a group of companies focused on the Java Platform
Enterprise Edition. Commercial software developers that provide competing server applications for PC-based
distributed client/server environments include CA Technologies, IBM, and Oracle. Our Web application platform
software competes with open source software such as Apache, Linux, MySQL, and PHP, and we compete against
Java middleware such as Geronimo, JBoss, and Spring Framework.
Numerous commercial software vendors offer competing software applications for connectivity (both Internet and
intranet), security, hosting, database, and e-business servers. System Center competes with server management
and server virtualization platform providers, such as BMC, CA Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and VMWare in
the management of information technology infrastructures. Forefront products compete with CA Technologies, IBM,
McAfee, Oracle, Symantec, and Trend Micro in protecting both client and server applications. SQL Server competes
with products from IBM, Oracle, Sybase, and other companies in providing database, business intelligence and data
warehousing solutions. Our products for software developers compete against offerings from Adobe, Borland, IBM,
Oracle, other companies, and open-source projects. Competing open source projects include Eclipse (sponsored by
CA Technologies, IBM, Oracle, and SAP), PHP, and Ruby on Rails, among others.