Solutions for the Next Wave of Enterprise Computing

Since the start of Windows NT Magazine in September 1995, its tagline has been "Solutions for the Next Wave of Enterprise Computing."In 1995, that statement was ahead of its time. IS professionals were skepticalthat Windows NT would solve many problems at the enterprise level. Today,innovative NT-based solutions are making a significant contribution in manyenterprises. This issue profiles some of those solutions and recognizes thoseenterprises as NT Innovators. In addition, our columnists honor products thatsignificantly influenced the industry in 1997, and predict which products willbe influential in 1998. Let me give you my pick for 1997 and my prediction for1998.

SAP
My pick for 1997 is SAP/NT. SAP's influence has been in bringing NT into theenterprise. In fact, when a skeptic says NT can't handle the enterprise, someone usually says, "SAP ships almost half its systems on NT." Thatstatement usually ends the argument.

For the past 2 years, suppliers have lined up behind SAP's NT support,adding momentum to NT's move into the enterprise. Large-scale NT-solutionvendors respect SAP's technology so much that Microsoft, Oracle, and Informixbenchmark their success in the enterprise by measuring SAP installs andperformance. HP, Compaq, Digital, IBM, and others regularly use the SAP R/3Sales and Distribution benchmark to measure their hardware's performance.

Like many SAP customers, Microsoft is using SAP products to reengineer muchof its internal operations. SAP may even help Microsoft make good on an oldpromise. I remember hearing Microsoft say it would use NT to replace its 14 IBMAS/400s by the end of 1995. Well, it's 1998, and the AS/400s are still handlingMicrosoft's business-critical operations. Microsoft's current strategy is toreplace the AS/400s with the combination of SAP products, NT, and SQL Server.

Oracle on NT
For 1997 and 1998, influential products in bringing NT into the enterprisecome from Oracle. Of all Microsoft's competitors, Oracle is the one that hasMicrosoft's attention. First, Oracle is the number one multiplatform databasevendor. Oracle's share of the NT database market equals Microsoft's share withSQL Server, and in some countries, Oracle even surpasses Microsoft in NTdatabase market share. For example, of the 3200 installations of SAP on NT, 70percent are on Oracle, compared to 20 percent on SQL Server.

Oracle is influencing the NT market by bringing all of its third-party,business-critical applications to NT. Oracle's presence in the NT market isfueling an application development race with Microsoft. Every day, Microsoftpeople motivate themselves by visiting Oracle's NT application listing(http://ntsolutions.oracle.com/index.htm) to see whether the number ofapplications is growing faster than the number on Microsoft's list(http://www.microsoft.com/industry).

Microsoft will compete with Oracle by bundling SQL Server with otherproducts, including Internet Information Server (IIS) products, Small BusinessServer (SBS), Systems Management Server (SMS), and CA-Unicenter TNG. Althoughhaving SQL Server in these key areas is important, the number of businessapplications that run on SQL Server or Oracle will determine the final outcomeof the database battle. Why? Within two years, people will be buying NTprimarily for application solutions rather than the technology.

The main stumbling block for Oracle is that it competes with some of itspartners. If you're a software vendor with a solution that competes with OracleFinancials, you may want to partner with Microsoft and SQL Server.Line-of-business applications are about the only area that Microsoft has chosennot to compete in, so in this area, you reduce your chances of being crushed byyour development partner.

Oracle has the opportunity to seriously upstage Microsoft SQL Server in theareas of scalability and availability. Oracle claims to have built an NTdatabase that scales up to eight CPUs and that their Parallel Server providesscalability and availability in a four-cluster configuration. In addition,Oracle plans to be first in supporting 64-bit NT. If these products live up toOracle's claims in 1998, Oracle can grab and hold a sizeable lead in the racefor the NT database market. The longer Oracle waits, the more opportunityMicrosoft has to play catch-up with Sphinx, SQL Server 7.0.