This is the sixth installment in a 10 part blog on Microsoft as a practitioner of asymmetric marketing.
6. Ecosystem Management
Microsoft gets the whole notion of market ecosystems. They are at the center of multiple ecosystems. But before I get ahead of myself, let me define ‘ecosystem’ from the point of view of an asymmetric marketer. It’s not an abstract construct like a ‘value chain’. It’s a living base of customers, partners, and co-evolutionary stakeholders clustered around a center, usually a dominant vendor or natural monopoly. Here’s 3 examples of highly evolved Microsoft-centric ecosystems.
The PC OEM Ecosystem: Microsoft’s first. It includes branded PC suppliers who license the Windows OS, as well as silicon and platform technology partners, e.g. Intel, AMD, and others. This ecosystem has grown up and evolved around Microsoft’s natural monopoly in PC markets. But even before Microsoft fostered it’s own ecosystem, it had joined the IBM ecosystem as a software partner to create the original IBM PC, and learned the importance of cultivating these co-evolutionary networks.
The Microsoft Developer & ISV Networks: Microsoft is at the center of tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) who make money selling applications on Windows. These partners have been the key to Microsoft’s ability to evolve out of it’s original PC focus into the enterprise software business. This developer network is key to Microsoft revenue growth, as it moves up the fitness landscape to take on Oracle, the world’s largest enterprise software company and an asymmetric marketer in it’s own right.
The MSN Network of Content, Media & Commerce Partners: Microsoft has been steadily building up the MSN properties by attracting a web of ecosystem partners in content, media and commerce. This ecosystem is critical to Microsoft’s future as web services company. In fact, in the wake of the European Union’s ruling forcing Microsoft to un-bundle Windows Media Player from the OS, their emerging media ecosystem is serving as an alternative engine of distribution, effectively allowing Microsoft to continue to make Media Player ubiquitous.
Asymmetric marketers seeking to leverage these ecosystems can do so along 3 basic strategies.
Attachment: Tech companies should not just have a Microsoft-focused biz dev executive, they should have comprehensive strategies in place to infiltrate and attach to Microsoft ecosystems. For startups, this can be the difference between years of ‘chasm crossing’ or rapid momentum. Join every relevant Microsoft partner program and network to the max.
Gap Filling: Gaps exist between competitive ecosystems, e.g. the Sun Java and Microsoft .NET ecosystems. IBM has been targeting this gap for a while and has invested in it’s professional services business in a big way to capitalize on this opportunity. BEA Systems is also positioned in the gap between Sun and Microsoft’s various web services visions, as is emerging player WebMethods. The newly announced 10 year technology agreement between Sun and Microsoft is their attempt to better serve this gap themselves.
Overlap Mining: Overlap also occurs between warring ecosystems, e.g Microsoft and Oracle, and occurs naturally as global companies engage in mergers and acquisitions of companies with disparate IT infrastructure. Security companies like Symantec, McAfee and Internet Security Systems mine the overlap between competing ecosystems as this overlap is often a source of network and applications vulnerability.
In summary Microsoft began by attaching to the dominant ecosystem of it’s day, IBM. Later it became adept at organizing it’s own. Asymmetric marketers need to follow their lead and apply the attachment, gap and overlap approaches described above.
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