Increasingly, it is the glue that ties new applications together within applications and across applications. I believe Microsoft s Component Object Model is the best object technology for integration. Microsoft has a much better interoperability and scalability story than most people realize. Over the next several years, I think it will change the face of corporate computing. Microsoft s approach to TCO is to offer tools that take advantage of transaction processing, messaging, and Web services in the operating system.
Integration is really hard and costly.
Microsoft tools and services are very well integrated, and this takes some of the cost and complexity out of integration efforts. IBM has a great integrated services story too. The growth of Linux among Unix users is another TCO trend to watch closely. I think it appeals to companies as a lower cost Unix alternative when integrated services aren t necessary. We will see a big growth in Directory-enablement in the next couple of years.