Microsoft biz stars won't shine in Wall Street web show

Irrelevant

It doesn't matter what Microsoft says, where it says it, when it says it, why it says it, and/or how it says it.

The fact is that Microsoft has dropped the ball too many times, and is playing catch-up in all of the sectors that matter. (Note that for purposes of discussion, "playing catch-up" could refer to market position, technological innovation, or both. It is possible that Microsoft is ahead of the competition in one aspect, but behind in another, and losing ground over time, even if a major player today.) To wit:

-- Search: Bing is playing catch-up to Google

-- Mobile Telecom: WinMob7 is playing catch-up to Android and i(Phone)OS

-- Portable Music: Zune is playing catch-up to the iPod and iTunes

-- Console Entertainment: XBox/XBox 360 is playing catch-up to Wii, and to a lesser extent, PS3

-- Utility Cloud Computing: Azure is playing catch-up to Amazon EC2 and RightScale

-- Virtualization: Hyper-V is playing catch-up to VMware ESX/vSphere, XenServer, and to a certain extent, Linux-KVM

-- Cloud Apps: Office Online is playing catch-up to Google Apps

Microsoft is still leading its competitors in certain sectors, but in my mind these market areas will become less and less relevant over time:

-- Browser: Collectively, Internet Explorer is still ahead of Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari. However, if you compare individual versions, IE is at parity, or starting to fall behind.

-- Desktop: Windows still owns the vast majority of the desktop, laptop, and netbook market. However, the move to handheld and tablet Internet devices will seriously eat into PC market share, which will spell trouble for Windows licensing revenue. This is especially true on the consumer side, where browsing, simple messaging, e-book reading, music listening, video watching, and telephony are the six primary reasons for owning a compute device. For these six well-defined purposes, a full-fledged PC and/or "fat" operating system is overkill.

-- Office: Microsoft Office is still the dominant player in the word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation appsuite market. Even so, many sovereign states (especially in Europe and South America) are experimenting with (or have already moved to) FLOSS* alternatives like OpenOffice.org, and other government entities and businesses are trying out hosted application services like Google Apps.

Until recently, Microsoft seemed to be virtually invulnerable, having shrugged-off antitrust lawsuits in the U.S. and appeased European regulators with similar concerns. However, its political resilience hasn't translated into increased revenue: Microsoft announced its first-ever round of layoffs during the Great Recession, in order to protect its liquidity ratio, and as a hedge against market saturation.

Let's face it: We have entered the Post-Microsoft World. MS needs to focus on doing a few things, and doing those things very well, if it wants to remain relevant, and ultimately, to continue to exist. I am not saying that the company is (at present) in any danger of folding, or going bankrupt, or even unloading any of its assorted divisions -- it's sitting on a veritable pile of cash -- but it does seem to be having trouble navigating present market currents.

In short, the bandwagon has often already left, by the time Microsoft gets around to hopping on it.

*FLOSS = Free/Libre` Open Source Software