Microsoft moving closer to Centro
The product is still months away, but Microsoft is sharing a few more details on its forthcoming custom software package for midsize business servers. — Microsoft first announced its plans for Centro back in September 2005, saying at the time it would be based …
Context & Ripple Effects
Centro has been a long runway: Microsoft first sketched out the midsize-business server package in September 2005, and two years on it is finally close enough to ship that the company is willing to describe what will actually be in the box. The timing matters — 2007 was the year Microsoft's server story started consolidating, from its 'Cloud OS' infrastructure plans taking shape over the summer to niche experiments like the Windows-based kitchen client.
Centro's premise is segmentation: instead of selling midsize companies the same components enterprises buy, Microsoft pre-integrates them for firms without large IT staffs. With no syndicated pickups of this update, the detail drop reads mainly as a signal to the channel and to partners preparing for launch.
First-order effects
- Midsize businesses move from assembling Windows server components themselves toward a single preconfigured package, changing what Microsoft expects them to buy at launch.
- Channel partners and integrators whose value came from stitching together those components face a vendor doing that integration in the box.
Second-order effects
- Rivals selling server software to the midmarket are forced to compete against bundle pricing and pre-tested integration rather than product-by-product comparisons.
- Microsoft's own component teams gain a packaging vehicle that can steer which configurations midmarket customers adopt, shifting internal leverage toward whoever defines the bundle.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, server software gets sold as role- and size-specific bundles rather than à la carte SKUs — a structure that also makes the midmarket easier to migrate to hosted delivery later, since Microsoft controls the whole configuration.
The trend: Server software vendors are repackaging enterprise products into pre-integrated bundles aimed at specific customer sizes, with the midmarket as the proving ground.