Microsoft Isn't Slowing Down

An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this Business Week article Microsoft is stronger than ever. Considering this is typical of the kind of Microsoft Rump-Swabbery that Management often use to 'enlighte'" themselves, it's little wonder that so many are of the opinion that if you can't give Microsoft money for it, it must be no good." Of course, did anyone expect Microsoft to just roll over?

Comments

Learning Strategy

[Amphigory]

I am learning to play the game of Go (kind of an oriental version of Chess, only much cooler.) One thing I have learned along the way is that its very easy to make strategy against where your opponent is -- and lose. You need to be planning for where your opponent is going, anticipating his moves and taking the places on the board he wants before he can get them. Otherwise, you will inevitably get slaughtered.

It seems to me that the open source community has not learned this lesson -- possibly because we are so unstructured. Like it or not, open source has not generally produced fundamentally new technologies at the rate Microsoft has. The one exception would lie in the Internet server market (and it is not coincidental that that is the main market where OSS is successful). We tend to spend all our time catching up in other areas.

For example, Microsoft has had a component based desktop for years, and we are just now starting to get workable ones. Microsoft has had easy GUI design for trivial apps (VB) since the early 90's -- and we are just starting to get it (QT Designer, Kylix). Microsoft still has us totally slaughtered in the groupware arena because we can't seem to really understand that groupware and email are not quite the same thing.

When Microsoft *does* miss a beat -- as with the Internet -- they follow up quickly. Once again, this is like Go. If your opponent gets you in an awkward strategic situation, you can often play through it tactically. Essentially, you end up playing just to stay in the game until your opponent makes a mistake. Then you strike out ahead and hopefully recover your strategic error. This is Microsoft's well known practice of always being the second-best product on the market until the competition screws up.

Anyway, one wonders if Bill Gates plays Go. It's relatively popular on the west coast thanks to the large oriental population. It's truly an awesome game -- the Japanese maintain that it teaches character and strategic thinking for real life. And, I think they're right. It penalizes both cowardice and foolhardiness equally, encourages you to think ahead, and has rules simple enough to teach my three-year-old with permutations complex enough to take a lifetime to understand.

&lt/Ramble&gt

--

Time to dust off our Microsoft Exit Strategy...

[gdav]

A few years back, I was one of the people involved in drawing up a plan for our university's choice of desktop OS and office software suite. For the office suite we looked at offerings from Microsoft (the incumbent), Corel and Lotus, and for the desktop OS... well, that quickly came down to an all-Microsoft choice. I should point out that our student labs run over 400 apps used in teaching, mostly win16 but a few win32 (and one or two DOS!)

We consulted our users about the office site and they quickly voted for Microsoft on the grounds that it would be a sheer bloody pain to shift. Corel was on the ropes and Lotus cost almost as much as Microsoft. So we signed Campus Agreement, and it made life a lot simpler, and Mr Gates a lot richer.

I was the local Linux zealot and I did try long and hard to convince myself that:

* We could offer a Linux desktop, with linux-native office apps and browser, and run all 400-odd teaching apps under Wine.

* We could offer a Linux desktop, with linux-native office apps and browser, and run all 400-odd teaching apps under VMware.

* We could offer a Linux desktop, with linux-native office apps and browser, and run all 400-odd teaching apps on a Citrix app server via the linux ICA client.

And the I thought - why?

Once the decision was made, we all thought - "Don't worry, we don't need to renegotiate for a few years, and the DOJ will have broken Microsoft up by then - or at very least imposed regulations to make Mr Gates tame, polite and meek in all his dealings". This did not turn out to be true, did it?

So I suppose it's time to look at putting together a strategy to make Windows 2000/Office 2000 our final Microsoft platform - there's no way we're touching Windows Xtra Pain, that's for sure. Since we last looked at the problem, Staroffice/Openoffice has become pretty viable, many of our teaching apps have been replaced by web-based teaching aids, many new apps have appeared that have linux ports.

Are any other universities thinking along these lines?

george

It's a GOOD thing, believe it or not

[Xunker]

I know it's essentially suicide to mention anything PRO-Microsoft, but I'm going to take the leap.

As much as some of the 'harrier' open-source and free-software supprorters deride large Close-Souce Companies. the truth of the matter is that having companies like them around *does* foster quality development.

Just think: suppose MS died, and there was no one controlling the desktop market? I'm willing to bet you a herring that feature development on ye' olde' favourite Free OS would slow. There would be no need to improve it at the current rate because you're not racing anyone.

We in the Open Source and Free Software communities would like to think that we're immune from such normal things like sloth, but believe it or not, we are human, and are at risk of getting sloppy if there is no one prodding us on.
.

Re:It's a GOOD thing, believe it or not

[KingBozo]

The problem is I can say good things about linux and don't have to back them up, or I can say bad things about MS and not have to back them up.

What does that have to say about the Slashdot crowd.

Not anonymized for your flame throwing skills.

Re:Continued Growth

[KFury]

Nah. Before that happens they'll devote billions to R&D to find new markets.

Face it folks, Microsoft may be our best bet for interstellar travel, if only so they can find other civilizations that need Windows machines!

Kevin Fox
--

Microsoft != Windows

[tbo]

While you may be of the opinion that Windows sucks more than ever, or that linux/OS X/BSD/BeOS/AmigaOS is more threatening than ever, that's largely irrelevant. Microsoft is a business, and their strength is reflected by business forcasts, price-to-earning ratios, and other financial indicators.

While Eazel is going out of business, Mandrake is asking resorting to donations, and countless other tech companies are hurting, Microsoft is doing just fine. They're not instituting mass layoffs. I know people who work there, and things are the same-old, same-old.

Linux may be a better OS, but it's not a better business plan, unfortunately.

Re:Microsoft != Windows

[ryants]

Mandrake is asking resorting to donations

*sigh*

It was the users who asked Mandrake to set up the donation system; it was not Mandrake's idea.

Sheesh. How many times must this be repeated before it sinks in?

Ryan T. Sammartino

Re:Microsoft != Windows

[ryants]

but the growth of the PC has been in direct relationship with the growth of Windows, and related M$ products

I think you have that backwards.

MS grew because the PC grew, not vice versa.

The so-called IBM PC is as prevelant as it is because of the reverse engineering of the original BIOSes and the relative openness of the PC versus the Mac (for example). Anybody could build a PC, but nobody except Apple could build a Mac.

It's just one more lesson from history where being open is better than being closed.

Ryan T. Sammartino

Continued Growth

[west]

Microsoft has indicated that it is intent on continued growth of 20% a year.

Has anyone calculated just how many years it will be before Microsoft corporate strategy requires that they own everything? :-).

Due to MS' concerted effort?

[13013dobbs]

I wonder if MS' continued growth is due to their being able to have a unified front against other companies? MS acts as one while Linux has numerous groups all with the same core beliefs (basicly) but, with their own idea of how things should be done. When MS puts out a piece of software, there is only one version at a time. Often in the Linux world you will have a free* version, a open* version, a gnu* version, etc... MS is once again able to use its unified front against these other (and often times better) products to give the impression that it's product is more popular and thus (in their eyes) better.

Why exactly did you post this?

[DrEldarion]

Did anyone really expect Microsoft to start slowing down? They're the biggest and most profitable software company out there. The quality of what they sell is really irrelevant from a business standpoint. What matters is that they know how to sell it, keep selling it, and make large quantities of money from selling it. They do that well. Very well.

How many people here DIDN'T know that Microsoft was going strong?

Honestly, I don't think this article was posted to inform us of anything, or to be interesting. I think the sole reason that this was posted was to see the flames fly at Microsoft. If that's the case, you really need to grow up.

-- Dr. Eldarion --

Microsoft's biggest competitor...

[big.ears]

Microsoft's biggest competitor isn't Linux, Mac, OS/2, Sun, Oracle, Beos, etc.--its themselves, because they have to give people a reason to buy new versions of their old products. They do this in several different ways--one is by adding features (e.g., they added Explorer to their OS, and XP has built-in .zip and mp3/wma support. These additions weren't necessarily motivated by the need to kill off netscape/winzip/winamp,--they were motivated by the need to get users to upgrade.) Another way is to make their older products subtly incompatible with their newer products (Like all the different versions of Word that didn't work well with eachother, or the criminal differences between Word format and their Works format. For a long time, it was impossible to read one with the other. A third way is to make it difficult, impossible, or illegal to move old software to a new computer.

Their .net strategy is a way to avoid all these games. Instead of having to produce a better word processor to convince people to upgrade from Office 97, they develop a steady revenue stream by offering their product as a service, and charging monthly. Its brilliant, and they probably have the power to do it. Fortunately, as long as their are free alternatives out there (mozilla, abiword, openoffice, etc.), they will not be able to capitalize entirely on their position, EVEN IF THOSE ALTERNATIVES ARE NOT USED BY THE MAJORITY OF COMPUTER USERS. AOL funds Netscape development but uses Explorer because right now, Explorer is a little better, and if they don't have an "Ace in the hole", Microsoft will no longer need to give away Explorer. Microsoft's strategy can be successful at quashing competing companies, but the open source alternatives don't play by the same business rules, and are thus very important for keeping Microsoft in check.

Don't be afraid, look at the real fact!

[CrazyLegs]

Look, M$ produces suck-ass products and we all know it. But they figured out how to market hard and own the markets they choose. However, the Business Week article - besides being an overt blow-job for M$ advertising dollars - is almost science-fiction in its analysis.

M$ will continue to make lots of money, no doubt. But there are a few issues that need to be understood:

• M$ will NEVER make significant money from Internet-based subscription services. People don't like to pay for stuff they think they can get for free off the Web. Lots of companies have tried this route and failed - and M$ doesn't seem to have more clues about the Internet-as-a-business-model than anyone else.
• M$ will NEVER make any serious inroads into the big corporate datacenters - contrary to what their PR and the press will tell you. I work in Big Corporate Land and can tell you that any M$ technology that's snuck onto the raised floor is going buh-bye in favour of Unix.
• .Net is a junky vision and is just a rehash of ActiveX, DNA, and whatever other names they've used in the past. It's more marketing concept than it is a set of solutions. The folks who adopt .Net in any meaningful way are the same folks who develop with ActiveX, OLE, MTS, etc. today. I don't see any new markets opening up with .Net
• Finally, M$ on everything we touch? Don't make me laugh! They have screwed up more often than they haven't - settop box software, PDAs, phones. Need I go on?

In the end, M$ makes loadsadough and will continue to do so. But they're not poised to dominate the world, me buckos. They're big, they're bloated, and not every pie in which they currently have a finger will taste very good to consumers. 'nuff said.

Re:Microsoft will die, just give it time

[s20451]

Microsoft will eventually fall victim to the same forces that destroyed the Soviet Union as well as the old-world monarchies in Europe.

The problem with your argument is that Communism never made anybody rich. The forces that caused the collapse of the USSR were economic more than political; they were just bankrupted by their "business model" of oppressive centralized control. People seem to have much more patience with repression than with starvation, and I'm not seeing too many economic problems over at MS.

MS will probably collapse in time, as do most huge organizations, but it probably won't be because they're evil. It will probably be more like a shift in the economic climate, such as the one that did in the great rail companies.