business model innovation design we're on a road to nowhere // on a quest to analyze and explore the design of business model innovations, i.e. 'hideous and hidden things' like organizational structures and capabilities, corporate strategies and all things related // on a yellow brick road with a girl, a lion and a straw-man wasting our time // …

IBM’s Web-based approach is distinctly different than the document-centric world of Sharepoint. It’s this Web-oriented, open approach that may prove to be the difference for IBM. We’ll have to see. Microsoft remains the major power in the enterprise. Its future is in proprietary systems. But who knows. As the cloud becomes more a part of doing business, Microsoft may continue to have the upper hand, especially if it can execute on its partnerships with third-party application providers.

Yes, I enjoyed the lunch with Alex – and our little exchange on the validity of the IBM approach. Great analysis he did here – this competitive situation isn’t one where players are entrenched and deadlocked I think – at least one of them is enlisting open systems, complementors and users (probably changing the game …)