Microsoft should starve on radical penguin diet
When the mouthpiece of American capitalism calls a company a dog, it's time to re-evaluate that company's chances. In Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, columnist Holman Jenkins, Jr asks if "Steve Ballmer is a failed CEO?" then forecasts Microsoft's feeble future even as it banks record profits. Microsoft is a company stuck in the …
...with the bones of those who underestimated Microsoft.
Will MS be as successful in the future? Who knows? But betting against them is a sucker's bet.
...with the bones of businesses who partnered with Microsoft.
Will MS be as successful in the future? Balmer should pay close attention to history. When a company becomes too successful they think that they can do no wrong, they begin to believe that they will succeed in whatever they do. MS is in this frame of mind now, and if they don't wake up from their reverie they stand a good chance of, not going down in flames, but not being able to be a bully anymore either.
At one point Novell was the Big Cheese of networking. Then Mcirosoft nommed thier lunch. IBM was once the 800lb gorilla of all things IT once upon a time. Now they are slowly fading to black. I wouldn't bet against Microsoft; if they smarten up they havet he resources to become the next big thing!
What the chances are of that however...
When Microsoft did those things, it wasn't a giant multinational corporation.
When they pulled the rug from under IBM, Bill Gates was a 20 something year old geek with poor personal hygiene practices who had the smarts to only license DOS to IBM. A product that he bought from someone else, and hacked to work on the PC.
Today, they would have had to run that by legal, and this would have given IBM time to think.
When they rolled networking into Windows, they had an established product at the dawn of easy networking.
That was all what.. 20+ years ago?
Today Microsoft has caught the corporate disease. Middle management sprawl. Like an oil tanker, they can't change direction on a pin like a small company.
Breaking the 640k limit.. One guy.
DirectX, a personal project.
Would they have got done today? Would they have been patented and forgotten about? This is what Microsoft has lost. And will never get back while everything has to go through so many corporate filters.
"Bill Gates was a 20 something year old geek with poor personal hygiene practices who had the smarts to only license DOS to IBM. A product that he bought from someone else, and hacked to work on the PC."
Special order from Bill's mom, who sat on the board of the IBM.
That small fact puts things into much better perspective than any other explanation. I don't think Bill had anything to say about these deals.
Your facts are slightly flawed... Mary Maxwell Gates, Mother of Bill, never served as a director of IBM, nor did she ever serve as a director of any technology company, save Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company which after the AT&T antitrust smack down became one of the 9 RBOC's that eventually became Qwest communication.
She spent most of her working life in high level / director positions in the banking and education industries as well as many non-profit organizations and charities, which is where Bill gets his roots in philanthropy.
The reason your facts are only slightly flawed is: one of her most notable accomplishments was becoming the first female chairman of the national United Way’s executive committee, members of that committee were many and included John Akres who at the time was the CEO of IBM. it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why IBM was favorable to microsoft at the time. Yes the demon mum pulled a few strings to help her demon spawn along in his plight to rule the world, but she never served as a director for IBM.
'nor am I suggesting that Microsoft replace Windows with Linux as its desktop and server operating system. That would be madness'
But why shouldn't Microsoft develop their own Linux distributions for server and desktop? They might not replace Windows but they could be sold and used alongside it. Then they could easily develop a compatible mobile version of Linux too. That might solve various problems in one go.
"But why shouldn't Microsoft develop their own Linux distributions for server and desktop?"
Because such Microsoft Linux distributions would need to run MS Office and that would potentially allow other Linux variants to do the same and therefore, present viable alternatives to a windows desktop for corporate use. That may be for the common good but it would be suicide for Microsoft.
MS Office is often a key reason why corporates reject alternatives to a Windows desktop and, with this reality, it is difficult for competitors to get to the critical mass needed to get their products in the door. Having said that, Microsoft seem to be keen to annoy their users, if recent versions of MS Office are anything to go by.
I mean they already do, though they may have similar roots - but there is no harm in them keeping the cash cows they have and outright buying Novell and having a Linux variant as well... They would probably destroy it, but if they made it succeed then they would garner the faith of the OS crowd, increase interoperability between Linux and MS, and all sorts of good would come from it, I'm sure half of which they could monetise!?
I've always said that if Microsoft was truly savvy, it would develop the next version of Windows as a Linux distro with proprietary Windows API's on top of it. The said distro would be able to run both Windows and Linux apps natively. That would all but shut down Linux and improve Windows greatly. This is similar to what Apple did with the release of OS X. However, they'd be eating crow and admitting Linux is superior than Windows by doing so, and Ballmer is too stubborn to admit that!
What on earth makes you think that most of us who use Linux now would have anything to do with ANYTHING MS was involved with?. Pure Linux will still continue.
"Because such Microsoft Linux distributions would need to run MS Office and that would potentially allow other Linux variants to do the same and therefore, present viable alternatives to a windows desktop for corporate use. That may be for the common good but it would be suicide for Microsoft."
It would, there's no doubt about that, licencing policy doesn't give other options. Losing not only one, but both cash cows would be a commercial suicide and I doubt that they are dumb enough to do that.
It wouldn't bother me much, though: MS strenghts are in marketing and lawyers and both are a nuisance in any modern society, just cost and no production.
"That would all but shut down Linux and improve Windows greatly. "
No it wouldn't.
No-one in their right mind would use "MS-distro" while there are reliable distros who don't report you to Redmont on every update and on the other hand MS can't make a such distro and same time obey the licencing.
It would make a better Windows, maybe, but unless it has DRM, Ballmer can't use it. And I don't see any way DRM could be integrated into Linux kernel, it slaps on the face every principle Linux is built on.
No, as I think I've posted in these forums, before, Microsoft stopped looking like an 800lb gorilla, sometime at the start of the last decade, and suddenly started looking like Mr Blobby.
The behaviour was the same, but the outcome was now strangely, and embarrassingly, different.
While I believe the author hits the nail on the head in terms of what the prospects for MS are, his solution is unlikely to work (even if there is an attempt). Here is why.
1. There is so much bad blood between MS and 99.999 of the open source community that there will be a significant opposition at many levels.
2. The business model of MS (which I doubt is going away) of embracing/extinguishing (FAST anyone?) is just going to ruin even Novel before achieving anything.
3. So many egos must be squashed at MS before this could happen that it would be easier to make GOP vote for healthcare.
I actually blame Bill Gates- he infamously claimed Internet is of no interest to MS. They could not create a monopoly in the new market and since this is the only way they know.....
That's what happened when they bought Danger. You remember Danger? Used their own fast lightweight OS that ran on Java? Very much similar to a mobile linux in terms of strengths. Whatever happened to them? Oh. Yeah. Kin.
The really telling bit was the quote from an ex-Danger employee that Mini MSFT reposted.
http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2010/07/kin-fusing-kin-clusion-to-kin-and-fy11.html
Can you see any mobile linux devs faring better at MSFT instead of, say, going Android? Actually, that'd be an interesting tactic.
What would happen if MSFT pulled out its old 90s playbook, and did embrace and extend? Fork Android's core (like the OPhone), put in Mono to replace the Android JDK, and voila, a mobile linux that runs MSFT technology and competes against Android. It can even be installed on the same hardware as Android, commoditizing the mobile phones.
Windows's brand is rather poisonous right now, not Vista poisonous, but XBox has better loyalty. So call them after the other brand associated with XBox: Live Phones.
Then put in new MSFT-only tech, use a patent portfolio that would make it more expensive to ship Android phones than Live Phones, and in this current market, they are not a monopoly nor using the desktop monopoly to unlawfully leverage the phone market, so that would keep the US DoJ at bay.
Gah. That's kind of scary. Fortunately, egos are so strong that this would never fly within MSFT.
... has an amazing gem hidden in the comments. It goes like this:
"There is so much technology can do today! I still hope that being a microsoftee is the best way to do technology for the masses and make a difference!"
Did a double take. If that isn't cargo cultism, I'm billg himself.
***"In Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, columnist Holman Jenkins, Jr asks if "Steve Ballmer is a failed CEO?""***
Title says it all really.
When Gates was in charge, Microsoft could do no wrong. Do evil, yes, but not "wrong" as far as their business was concerned.
Since Ballmer took over they seem to do nothing *but* wrong. There's the Vista fiasco for starters, and then there's the way they have been caught with their pants around their ankles in the Mobile OS field.
Seems that Apple have stolen the "Evil Empire that can Do No Wrong" title from MS.....
iPhone 4 / iOS4 upgrade fiasco(s). And the iPad doesn't seem too good, though it will probably improve as time goes on.
And the evil? That's definitely there with Apple.
But yeah, MS is losing because it lost its "golden boy", but is still alive thanks to its corporate momentum. Apple will just collapse when that happens to them- it's a fashion statement, and when they turn out the same crap 3 generations in a row their customer base will be all but gone.
But we'd all prefer it if they didn't.
An article in today's Wall Street Journal illustrates why MS should not be allowed within a country mile of Linux. The product planners working on the development of IE8 intended to harden up the security of the browser by including a default option that would block tracking companies from creating user profiles which would then be sold on to advertising groups.
Executives from MS's own advertisment division got wind of the proposed change and strangled it at birth after "consultations" with the product planning guys. End of story.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383530439838568.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_LEFTTopStories
with all of Microsoft's failed projects.
For all the shine and bluster of the pyramids of cash that Windows and Office have brought to Microsoft, there are acres of fields full of the bones of past (and soon-to-be-past) projects that have failed more or less miserably.
In fact, one might say that there is nothing that Microsoft touches that does not wither and die, or live a stunted and limited life.
And I'm not talking about C# or any other programming "initiative". I'm talking about products that were supposed to bring in money. Next to none of them have, and the (very) few that have not been miserable failures have not had the shimmering success that they were supposed to at launch.
Not by a long shot.
Windows and Office are still around because of businesses that can't do without them. That is the Microsoft lifeline and I believe it will last for a while yet. But the market is becoming diverse on this point, which is something that Microsoft worked very hard to stamp out in the past and will not be able to do in the future.
Thus, yes, Microsoft is now on the decline and desperately needs to find a new cash cow, if you admit that desperate is living on top of a Himalaya of money with a badger nibbling away at the bills from the bottom.
I'd say it's littered with the bones of those that trusted rather than underestimated Microsoft.
They come with sweet words of encouragement and great wads of cash, then they stab those that trusted them in the back and take, or remake the products in their own image.
I'm a long-time Linux user, but I have to wonder about Microsoft transitioning to an open-source focus, That reminds me too much of Sun. The Sun set.
It wasn't the open-source stuff that killed Sun. The other things they did are, if you ask me, quite sufficient to explain their failure, and plenty of people have seen it coming for years:
* Explosive growth of unnecessary departments and personnel during the surge of profits just prior to 2000 and expansion into all sorts of markets Sun didn't need to be in; "There's low-hanging fruit everywhere", as somebody said at some point about marketshare. They got arrogant and thought they could do everything. They kind of turned into DEC and got all matrix-managed.
* Multiple expensively failed chip projects, such as UltraSPARC V and RK, on whose outcome their future depended. The best they could do was squeeze more life out of UltraSPARC IV and, too late in the game, use Fujitsu's chips for their high-end products and sell Niagara chips on the low end.
* Sun lost their bang for the buck. UltraSPARC II may have had it, but UltraSPARC III sure didn't--I think I remember a comment on here a while ago about a manager saying something like "I'm never buying this expensive purple shit again."
* Several billion dollars' worth of completely unnecessary acquisitions, such as StorageTek ($4.1bn) and MySQL ($1bn), and those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. Sun didn't need to be in those markets, and counted on being able to make gobs of cash after making a costly entrance; it never happened. All those billions bought Sun were higher operating expenses and pitiful beachheads in markets they shouldn't have entered.
* They didn't want to get rid of departments that weren't pulling their weight. While Sun's reluctance to lay off employees was admirable, a bush that doesn't get trimmed gets ugly and full of dead branches--but at least a bush doesn't have to pay its dead branches.
* Sun got lazy about selling things. What happened to their sales force? Oh, and why did they fire a bunch of StorageTek sales people if they wanted a chance in hell at making money in that market? Acting like DEC again.
They got sloppy, uncoordinated, and generally started acting like a typical failed bureaucracy. They forgot how to keep afloat in their own core businesses and, while they neglected that, they distracted themselves with delusions of entering the storage market and pretty much whatever else they thought they could do. Open-sourcing a lot of their software, however, was not such a bad idea, because it attracted thousands of developers (or did until this Oracle deal) who otherwise wouldn't have given Sun or Solaris a second thought. The availability of ZFS, coincidentally, probably gained Sun more ground in the storage market that Schwartz was so obsessed with than any of their ridiculous acquisitions. Attracting mindshare isn't a horrible thing for a server company to do. It gets people thinking in terms of your product line and gets them to consider you as an option, whereas otherwise they'd probably just stick to what they knew. Forgetting how to sell servers, however, is a fatal mistake, and that's the mistake they made.
What's this guy talking about? How do you make money from open source? So it attracts developers, to do what, sell MS Visual studio for free? The one thing with Windows is you never need to contact Microsoft cause either it works or the forums are great. What financial model to make money the Ubuntu guy is suggesting? There is only one left, sell support as ubuntu or redhat does. Persoanlly, I would like my software to just work and need no support whatsover. Otherwise he is suggesting Microsoft should become a charity, which mean they make no money at all. That wasn't the point of the article.
"Persoanlly, I would like my software to just work " Should have bought a Mac then. As someone who made a very nice living for a number of years babysitting and nuturing various varieties of windows, I can say that MS stuff does NOT just work. It needs to be massaged,fiddled with and have its hand held on a continuing basis. What I guess you might be getting at is, you want your OS preinstalled and ready to run, that's different. Anyway, as a Linux user I smile at the CDs included with pretty much every peripheral and spare part I buy. Most of them appear to contain drivers and so on, I can't say for certain as I never need them. With a Linux distro these days all the housekeeping is done for you. You might say it "just works" !
"Persoanlly, I would like my software to just work and need no support whatsover."
I'd like too, but have you ever seen such software?
I haven't. And I've been looking since early 80s. I've seen a huge amount of different software and _all_ have bugs. Every one of them.
You can _buy_ support from MS but 1/10th of the money hires you a linux-expert in-house and he can not only support you, but make fixes to those problems which annoys you.
Good luck on that with MS: Their support fixes those problems which are important to them, not you. No matter how much you pay them.
Sorry but Microsoft is making huge leaps and bounds in territory others only dream of right now. They just building a larger empire all at once instead of piece mealing it together over years. What I mean is Microsofts huge push for their cloud based services that connect all of your devices seamlessly. Their big push is get windows 7 mobile out, use it's silverlight / XNA capabilities to drive a centralized code base for developers. Since silverlight will work on pcs, phones, xbox, tablets, and laptops, and lets you tie data to the cloud. You quickly unify all of a users systems into a streamlined unit. A demo recently showed just how perfect this system can work. Contracter goes out to a job site, takes pictures with his phone and stores them with onenote, synched to the cloud. He takes a few notes about what needs to be done. He goes to lunch opens his laptop and there are the pictures and notes he just took with his phone, he starts working on his estimate, but gets called away hits save, and goes on. Later that night he is sitting at home fires up his tv and uses his xbox to connect to the document and finishes out his cost analysis and emails it to the client. No flash / pen drives, no complicated 3rd party software, no "there is an app for that" deals, its good to go out of the box.
Also with project natal aka kinetic you can turn any TV into a touch screen. Also since win mobile 7 will work with XNA you instantly get options to buy thousands of games that are already finished, sitting around bored waiting for you.
Not to mention MS is already going way of Open Source and simplifying development for the web. They just released betas for webmatrix which provides a simple easy to use coding language and a file based database which is portable with the application / software. Their goal is to add self containing web applications / sites that can then be ported over to their web publish platform. While also giving a free version of an easy to use software to develop web pages and forms.
The list goes on and on. If anything the only thing to complain about MS is they might have too much to try and release. It's hard keeping up with Microsoft's development house, nearly impossible the second you read about something the next version is about to start alpha.
"huge push for their cloud based services "
Microsoft is already a cloud also-ran.
"that connect all of your devices seamlessly"
As long as they're all from Microsoft.
"Their big push is get windows 7 mobile out"
I have my doubts about whether their big push can be automatically presumed to translate to great success. They're squeezing this one out after their last mobile attempt fizzled pathetically, in a market they've never dominated with a couple of big, cut throat players already in it.
"use it's silverlight / XNA capabilities to drive a centralized code base for developers"
Developers already well into the iPhone and Android excitement. Sure, .NET people might show some interest, but unless the phone shows signs of taking off I don't think the developers will be piling in to the minority platform when they can tap huge user bases with Linux and on the iPhone.
"Since silverlight will work on pcs, phones, xbox, tablets, and laptops"
Time will tell. It's really just a flash wannabe isn't it? I haven't felt the need to install it yet.
"and lets you tie data to the cloud"
Certainly has nothing to do with that, unless I'm much mistaken.
"You quickly unify all of a users systems into a streamlined unit"
With MS? That would certainly be a first. Sounds like the sort of thing Apple are pretty good at. Also, unifying all my systems into a streamlined unit is a mixed back I'd say, not a major selling point. I don't really see why my games console and business workstation and phone need to be unified.
"A demo recently showed just how perfect this system can work"
This just reminds me of the Win98 bluescreen presentation.
"Contracter goes out to a job site, takes pictures with his phone and stores them with onenote, synched to the cloud. He takes a few notes about what needs to be done. He goes to lunch opens his laptop and there are the pictures and notes he just took with his phone, he starts working on his estimate, but gets called away hits save, and goes on. Later that night he is sitting at home fires up his tv and uses his xbox to connect to the document and finishes out his cost analysis and emails it to the client. No flash / pen drives, no complicated 3rd party software, no "there is an app for that" deals, its good to go out of the box."
No complicated third party software? Does this contractor not have a PC at home? The x-box is agonisingly shoe-horned in there.
"Also with project natal aka kinetic you can turn any TV into a touch screen"
Thought it was a gesture input system?
"Also since win mobile 7 will work with XNA you instantly get options to buy thousands of games that are already finished, sitting around bored waiting for you."
So once again it's a toy?
"Not to mention MS is already going way of Open Source"
Lol, nice one.
"and simplifying development for the web"
They're nowhere close to the ease and speed of Ruby on Rails, or even PHP with CodeIgniter.
"They just released betas for webmatrix which provides a simple easy to use coding language and a file based database which is portable with the application / software"
Hmm? Sort of like django with SQLite?
"Their goal is to add self containing web applications / sites that can then be ported over to their web publish platform"
Innovation? Must be some in here somewhere.
"While also giving a free version of an easy to use software to develop web pages and forms."
Big deal. Fantastic, powerful, scalable web frameworks already out there, and properly Free, not just free.
"The list goes on and on."
But few, if any, of the points have any substance.
"If anything the only thing to complain about MS is they might have too much to try and release. It's hard keeping up with Microsoft's development house, nearly impossible the second you read about something the next version is about to start alpha."
Yeah, right.
All this integration "it just works" is great.
But what about inter-operability with external systems?
What standards are they developing that others can use that are free and available?
It is far easier to throw a lot of money at a set of products and make them work together in-house.
Microsoft have never had a problem with making their own software inter-operate internally.
People are fed up of the MS tie-in now that they see there are other options.
The question for business is do they continue with the MS-only shops and pay the MS tax year-on-year, or do they do with what some might call second-best and get it practically for free (not including the support costs of course).
More and more, business are saying that GNU/Linux and other open-source and free options are good enough and save them a packet. Given that money if short and budgets getting cut at the moment, this is a very relevant issue.
" It's hard keeping up with Microsoft's development house, nearly impossible the second you read about something the next version is about to start alpha."
So the next step on from 'alpha' is 'vapour'?
"A demo recently showed just how perfect this system can work." So you saw the demo!
I saw a demo at Microsoft in 1994 (yup....1994) showing a really great integrated communications client on a Windows desktop. It looked like an email client, but it integrated email, voice-mail and faxes in a single tool. It looked and worked like an email client, but brought all the various media items together in one place. Fantastic demo.
......but I never saw anything else like it ever again! That's the thing with demos....sometimes you never see anything ever again.
So we have to put up with the travesty of windo$e 7 on mobile devices too ?
Oh **FUCK**
Enough said.
Webmatrix - don't make me laugh
Did you ever use the original one - it was inadequate for writing anything above 'Hello World' type stuff. When I went on the NG's for help all the devs were saying 'You mean you don't have VS - then we can't help'.
I wanted to use Webmatrix to keep the code clean - but even a couple of basic requirements weren't possible. So the company bought VS and we installed it on the dev server - after which .NET apps stopped working altogether. Project limped along until the company went bust cos they'd been sold MS servers to run three call centres VOIP based mass dialling - and the system never worked properly.
Four hundred odd staff sacked on payday without being paid. All cos the management were non-techie and were sold rubbish from MS. Still, at least MS had their licenses paid for up front. It still amazes me how a company can sell such rubbish and never get sued - ususally cos it's caused the death of the companies I suppose.
"Since silverlight will work on pcs, phones, xbox, tablets, and laptops, and lets you tie data to the cloud."
"Works", not works. There, I fixed it for you.
Tell me, what happens when your internet connection breaks and all of your data is in the "cloud", ie. inaccessible?
Right: Nothing happens. Everybody just sits and plays solitare. Most stupid move anybody could do from the technological perspective.
Slow access, no reliability, no security, no nothing: Plain stupidity. Or hype, same thing.
You said, 'I don't think the developers will be piling in to the minority platform when they can tap huge user bases with Linux and on the iPhone.'
Does that mean you bet against Android when it was a minority platform against the huge user base of iPhone?
but open up. Even contribute.
Open up to get your code fixed and while you're reeling from that have your big thinkers (not marketing) read a shit load of cyber punk novels. Think past Web2.0. Don't run the marathon but play leap frog. You have the cash to be a bit fruity. Drink Tequila and Red Bull every morning and get rid of those woolly jumpers.
No one is going to type their legal documents on their IPAD, no one is going to post their financial spreadsheets on a could app when their customized pivot tables are all on MS Excel. The desktop is still where 99% of the work will be done and the cloud is a joke compared to mature desktop apps. That's why there are still folks on mainframes. Business goes with what works.
You are living in a techie dreamworld is you see anything like this happening in the next 20 years.
Basically 95% of the users in this world can barely type in their first name as a password, let alone live in the non-automatic, non-wizard world of the cloud. They won't change stuff unless the cloud offers something the desktop can't, which it won't in the foreseeable future.That is why Linux hasn't replaced Windows as the main OS of the desktop world. The app's in Linux are just about as good as anything MS has out, it's stone stock stable, takes less hardware to run, and is massively cheaper. The desktop is easy to use and pleasant to look at.
But it's not automatic, it doesn't auto configure, you don't just click on setup.exe and get everything run automatically, etc., etc ... Until it's as easy as windows to setup, maintain and run, then it won't replace it. If the MS Centric world actually didn't work pretty damn good, then you might have a chance to replace it. The only place Linux has penetrated the corporate world (where 90% of the revenue is driven from) is at the server IT level where techies rule. Why, it's stable, cheaper, more versitile .. just like how MS Windows NT replaced Novell ... but on the desktop - not a prayer!!
It make nice news copy, but it's not a realistic scenario.
"nor am I suggesting that Microsoft replace Windows with Linux as its desktop and server operating system. That would be madness."
Yes, perish the thought - Windows might actually become far more secure and less bloated. We definitely can't have that, can we!!!
"strain and push to reinvest in its core business"
That's how you get a typical MS product all right!
Now I know where the brown Zune came from!!
The squirting was from that taco day at Redmond's canteen that nobody talks about.
Being in England it would certainly benefit ARM for MS to focus on mobile. However, why give up such a vast amount of possibilities when talking about the desktop. Take Azure for example and if you simply implement our own personal desktop that we have at home as our own personal cloud computing service for us to manage and control and store information from our mobile phones then a new world is reborn again. The possibillities are endless the tools are there its a matter of vision and goal that will make any of these techonologies shine and become relevant and all from Microsoft, or as some call them now 'the Vole'. It would be cool to have MS turn around and actually come out with a division called the Vole and have it make holes thru the competition and take Google, Apple, and all others head on tic for tac. Superman didn't have an S on his chest he had MS. Lol.
You're exactly right that Microsoft could use a third pillar to it's revenue stream. But with Windows 7 being the fastest selling operating system EVER and Office 2010 continuing uptake of Office as the primary business productivity suite, they have some comfortable room to investigate exactly what this cash cow could be. The problem is that Microsoft has had a few too many "me-too" products rather than true investments in new technology.
However, I think the above posted comment is right that if Microsoft successfully builds, brands, and expands its cloud-connected ecosystem, they will have found that new cash cow. Problem is that this hugely depends on the success of Windows Phone 7. At the surface, WP7 appears to be another "me-too" product. It comes significantly late to the game in terms of modern mobile platforms. Nonetheless, few would argue that ditching Windows Mobile was the right thing to do. They could still win here if they can create a cloud backend that ties together the Windows, Office, search, and (to an extent) Xbox products people already own.
Nobody else is currently capable of creating this level of symbiosis between desktop, server, mobile, and gaming-- every other company out there is missing more than one of these critical componants that can be part of a cloud-connected environment.
There's no need for Microsoft to get in to open-source when it comes to desktop/server OS's. They have a strong hold of that cash cow. There's little evidence that that's going away anytime soon. There's even less evidence that open-source could somehow make Microsoft money.
Rather than release their products as open-source, Microsoft should focus on building a fantastic API for this cloud (which they're doing with Silverlight and XNA). Win32 made developers embrace Windows. A similar approach with a Windows Cloud API could make developers latch on to it.
In short, if Microsoft can make a cloud ecosystem that connects its already proven products (Windows and Office) with its emerging technologies in search, mobile, and the web, then they'll have found that third pillar. They don't need the next flashy software suite or the hottest new gadget. They need an ecosystem that makes all of their products light up when used together.
You buy or already own one or more of their products and instantly the cloud makes you desire the other peices of the puzzle you don't own yet.
"But with Windows 7 being the fastest selling operating system EVER"
PR-mathematics, ie. meaningless numbers.
1) How many windows 7s MS has actually _sold as retail_? OEM versions are not sold by MS, but OEMs. More than 10 000?
2) When the Vista is the only other option, who would buy that, at any price?
3) How many of those "sold" is actually paid by customer and registered to be in use?
These are simple questions which MS-PR isn't answering. Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
The writer of this article is clearly behind the times. Mirosoft announced last week that they have a brand new Mobile OS and they have signed deals with four of the major players .
...as, if any pose a serious threat, MS simply waves a patent-stick at it. I hope Mr Shuttleworth has deep, deep pockets and very good lawyers.
Hayden Clark,
FUD , repeat FUD.
Goodbye.
