Cosying up to Microsoft in a crowded bed

Anybody who has been watching the TV adapatation of Fanny Hill recently will recognise that  hopping between beds can be the fastest way to win friends and influence people. In enterprise software, that truth has long been recognised, hence Open Text's announcement that it is cosying up to Microsoft by opening up a development office in Redmond,  home, of course, to the world's largest software company.

In a statement, Open Text said: "Our relationship with Microsoft is founded on customers' need for
complementary ECM solutions that blend the strengths of Microsoft and
Open Text, bringing the power of Microsoft's productivity tools and
ubiquitous presence on the desktop, together with our ECM solutions and
vertical-market expertise."

Quite so, but the problem for Open Text is that everybody has the same idea and Microsoft's bed is very crowded these days. Everybody wants to gain a lever from Microsoft's ubiquity by integrating its software with key programs and by copying its look and feel. This has been Software Marketing & Development 101 ever since companies such as Corel and Micrografx saw there was business to be had in building applications for Windows.

A secondary driver is the fact that Microsoft is eating the lunch of ECM companies, thanks to the remarkable success of SharePoint. Firms like Documentum are reduced to hoping that firms use SharePoint at the front-end and their "grown-up" products at the back end. This, they hope, is the new realpolitik, although even this compomise might be delusional.

In ECM, you can't spit without hitting a company that claims to be in cahoots with Steve Ballmer's men. Many claim to have "special" relationships, for example in developing for certain vertical industries. It's no secret that these companies care about Microsoft more than Microsoft cares about them. The only time that will change will be the day Microsoft decides it needs to buy one of these companies. Then, at last, there really will be a special bedfellow.