Microsoft 2014 Annual Report Download - page 11

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10
Windows Embedded extends the power of Windows and the cloud to intelligent systems, including the Internet of Things,
by delivering specialized operating systems, tools, and services.
Windows Commercial revenue is mainly affected by the demand from commercial customers for volume licensing and
software assurance, often reflecting the number of information workers in a licensed enterprise, and is therefore relatively
independent of the number of PCs sold in a given year.
The versions of Office in Commercial Licensing are designed to increase personal, team and organizational productivity
through a range of programs, services, and software solutions. Office Commercial revenue is mainly affected by a
combination of the demand from commercial customers for volume licensing and software assurance and the number of
information workers in a licensed enterprise, and is therefore relatively independent of the number of PCs sold in a given
year.
Skype is designed to connect friends, family, clients, and colleagues through a variety of devices. Revenue is largely
driven by the sale of minutes, subscriptions, and advertising.
Microsoft Dynamics products provide business solutions for financial management, customer relationship management,
supply chain management, and analytics applications for small and mid-size businesses, large organizations, and
divisions of global enterprises. Revenue is largely driven by the number of information workers licensed.
Competition
Our server operating system products face competition from a wide variety of server operating systems and applications
offered by companies with a range of market approaches. Vertically integrated computer manufacturers such as Hewlett-
Packard, IBM, and Oracle offer their own versions of the Unix operating system preinstalled on server hardware. Nearly
all computer manufacturers offer server hardware for the Linux operating system and many contribute to Linux operating
system development. The competitive position of Linux has also benefited from the large number of compatible
applications now produced by many commercial and non-commercial software developers. A number of companies, such
as Red Hat, supply versions of Linux.
We compete to provide enterprise-wide computing solutions and point solutions with numerous commercial software
vendors that offer solutions and middleware technology platforms, software applications for connectivity (both Internet and
intranet), security, hosting, database, and e-business servers. IBM and Oracle lead a group of companies focused on the
Java Platform Enterprise Edition that compete with our enterprise-wide computing solutions. Commercial competitors for
our server applications for PC-based distributed client/server environments include CA Technologies, IBM, and Oracle.
Our web application platform software competes with open source software such as Apache, Linux, MySQL, and PHP. In
middleware, we compete against Java middleware such as Geronimo, Wildfly, and Spring Framework.
Our system management solutions compete with server management and server virtualization platform providers, such as
BMC, CA Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and VMware. Our database, business intelligence, and data warehousing
solutions offerings compete with products from IBM, Oracle, SAP, and other companies. Our products for software
developers compete against offerings from Adobe, IBM, Oracle, other companies, and open-source projects, including
Eclipse (sponsored by CA Technologies, IBM, Oracle, and SAP), PHP, and Ruby on Rails, among others.
Our embedded systems compete in a highly fragmented environment in which key competitors include IBM, Intel, and
versions of embeddable Linux from commercial Linux vendors such as Metrowerks and MontaVista Software.
We believe our server products provide customers with advantages in performance, total costs of ownership, and
productivity by delivering superior applications, development tools, compatibility with a broad base of hardware and
software applications, security, and manageability.
Competitors to Windows Commercial are the same as those discussed above for Windows in the D&C Licensing
segment.