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BUSINESS APPLICATIONS
Microsoft rebrands its business applications
MICROSOFT is an enormous company by pretty much any standard. In spite of the pummelling it receives in the mainstream media, it has succeeded, for the most part, in satisfying most users most of the time, or nearly l,2bn PC users last year.
While still in training to take on software industry heavyweights like IBM, Oracle and Sun Microsystems, the USS92 billion software giant, currently ranked 127th on the Fortune Global 500, has set its sights on selling a wider range of products, such as financial, CRM and ERP packages, more aggressively to mid-size companies with between 50 and 1 000 employees.
Microsoft's impressive growth has been mostly organic, but its two biggest acquisitions have been accounting package Great Plains (for US$1, lbn in 2001) and Danish ERP package Navision (for USSl,3bn in 2002), two products with significant market share amongst mid-sized companies.
Last week Microsoft announced...