Microsoft Aims at Mid Size Firms with Centro

Software Giant Microsoft is expected to announce a specially tailored server software package for small and mid size firms code named Centro. The said software will combine Windows Server operating system, Exchange e-mail server as well as other network management tools.

The company is also expected to make a series of product announcements, detailing plans to launch future versions of its Microsoft Business Solutions products under the common name "Dynamics."

The Office division will launch its new Small Business Accounting 2006 software during the event. It’s Microsoft’s latest bid to take on Intuit, which makes competing products including QuickBooks.

The broader event represents Microsoft’s latest bid to turn things around in an area where it has struggled. The Microsoft Business Solutions division, formed through a series of acquisitions, offers such products as customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning software. It remains one of Microsoft’s unprofitable divisions.

"Midmarket has been one of the hardest segments to serve for Microsoft," said Microsoft senior vice president Bob Muglia, who heads up Microsoft’s server division.

Typically, computer administrators overseeing businesses with anywhere from 25 to 500 employees will spend most of their time fixing and trying to make server, or networked computer, software work together to store data, keep accounts, manage e-mail and perform other business tasks, Muglia said.

Microsoft executives said Centro will be a group of software products that can be installed across multiple servers that can be configured for a particular business with the necessary applications and settings, freeing up system administrators to find ways to improve business tasks, rather than fixing daily computer problems.

"We think the mid-size market is still underserved," said John Lauer, Microsoft’s vice president in charge of marketing for mid-sized businesses.

Microsoft estimates that there are more than 1.4 million mid-sized businesses across the globe and that they will increasingly need to use computers connected to the Internet to compete effectively. Together with small businesses with less than 25 employees, Microsoft hope to sell more than $10 billion in software to such companies by 2010.