By editorial@silicon.com, 4 May 2001 15:17
NEWS On that kind of budget could easily afford one of the large consulting companies - Accenture, Deloitte & Touche, KPMG or PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) would be all be possible takeover candidates according to Tom Bittman, analyst at Gartner, who made his predictions when speaking at the Windows conference in Los Angeles. However, Andrew Parker, analyst at Forrester, says this would be a radical about-turn for Microsoft. "Much would have to change internally," he said. "IBM has its Global Services, as has Compaq - even SAP and Oracle have more consulting experience than Microsoft." Obviously this shortfall has been high on the agenda in Redmond. Earlier this week the company announced it will merge Support and Business Consulting in order to better meet the needs of its customers, above all for high end servers. This has created a department with 13,000 employees worldwide and according to Microsoft sources this will grow by 20 to 30 per cent per year in the future. Up to now Microsoft has only taken over small companies and expanded them to suit its needs. The marriage with a large established name could have far-reaching consequences that would affect the company philosophy deeply. For instance, its software would have to be made compatible with competitors' products already in use within the company. However, the purchase of a consulting firm would not be so unusual. Hewlett Packard has already shown a strong interest in the consulting arm of PwC, although the $18bn deal fell through - a fact industry watchers believe will not be lost on Gates. "PwC is still available," says Parker. "So there is at least one takeover candidate on the field." By Christian M. Wagner, reporter, silicon.de
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