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Microsoft Fights the Flab as it Turns 30
Alain Williams writes "This review of Microsoft, as it enters middle age, looks at it's problems in maintaining growth." Discusses the recent Kai-Fu Lee/Google debacle, as well as things like Apple's iPod.
...red midlife crisis sports car?
When Microsoft hits its midlife crisis, what's it going to do? Patent the Porsche?
and get on to the next level. That's my advice to MS. Otherwise they'll suffer brain-drain. I too was a hunk at 25 now in my early 30's I'm back to pumping iron and cutting down fat. You gotta work on getting rid of the fat!
Java Oracle Linux Enthusiast
Thirty is not middle aged.
Love,
Gaz (age 32)
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
How can microsoft continue to grow with it's current market share? Granted it still has competition, but that's not going to change much.
Tons of people use windows, the people that don't aren't going to switch any time soon. Most people (in the US at least) have computers (and probably running windows)... so the only place I can see microsoft going is into a new market section, or just down.
With embedded media centers not taking off that fast, I'm assuming the latter will most likely happen.
I lost 44 pounds, perhaps MS should sign up and lose several pounds of chair-throwing, monkey-dancing flab.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
Kai-Fu Lee and the iPod represent MS's biggest problems, they have nothing to worry about.
Microsoft getting fat isn't news, Microsoft being fined half its cash reserves, further restricted and split into 2 would be news, good news.
ROFL
as opposed to previous versions, which only came with Access and Outlook.
MS is way past the flab stage. They need immediate intervention for obesity.
When are they going to move out of their parents' basement?
However, Colony argues that Gates's biggest worry should be Google, and a coming change in the nature of the internet that could undermine Microsoft's business. So very true. Not just that, Google is going to be the next Giant. They're dragging MS away from their core business and funny thing is MS is taking the bite. Eventually MS will be left High and Dry. Developers ans smarties are feeling the heat and are qutting. The one's who'll quit now will get some royal treatment like Lee's whopping Court fees being paid. The one's who'll jump ship later will have to code for loaf of bread and kasawa in the coasts of ghana.
Java Oracle Linux Enthusiast
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Even if Microsoft has slowed down, I'd be very suprised if they all of a sudden went belly-up.
The increase of competition is a good thing, as companies have to make their products better than their competitors, and sometimes selling them at a cheaper price.
I just wonder how many small companies with great ideas were too intimidated by Microsoft to put those ideas into action (a certain Simpsons episode comes to mind, no?)
Only this week /. posted an article about how vulnerable Firefox ('our' best hope for the majors) was. Linux on the desktop is as far away as it when I started using it four years ago (ask your non-techie friends), MS are still kings of the hill.
Sure, our little guerilla band has got a bit stronger: MS know they aren't going to get rid of us, so they just hop to contain us - and so far they are winning.
Indeed, the competition helps them with all that anti-trust stuff. Basically, I am not as optimistic about a free and open future for computing as I was even 18 months ago, though we have come along way since Byte declared Windows NT was the "death" of Unix.
Or are people worried because they bought a stock which was far overvalued due to fervor and hype which was known to everyone at the time to be unstable, unsustainable, and a bad risk?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I'm 34, and I don't seem to have any problems maintaining growth.
"Apple's iPod" is only a "debacle" for Microsoft beacuse they decided to make it one. If they concentrated on making good software that plays well with other children, rather than defining each actual innovation in the wider marketplace as a threat to their core competencies - or rather, redefining their core competencies to include any actual innovation as it turns up in the wider marketplace - they might be a "mature" company in two senses of the word.
yes, we have no bananas
Can someone please tell me why everyone (and also their grandmothers) have an ipod?
Honestly, I catch the train everyday to school, and probably every 2nd student who catches it with me has the ubiquitous white earbuds prominently hanging from their ears.
I actually feel ashamed and inadequate now to even take the minidisc player out of my pockets to change a song. Is this what it's like everywhere else too?
Should I cave in and buy a Nano? wtf mate?
Ok, so let's speculate for a bit. Assume that Microsoft's reign is over. They'll still be around for years to come, and they may stay a major player, but they won't be the f[r]iendly monopolist that they are now.
What about Google, though? It seems they are showing many of the traits that made Microsoft so strong. They're relatively new, innovative, providing useful products to the masses for cheap, and attracting talented people by good working conditions (including high salaries).
Where Microsoft dominated the world by virtue of virtually everybody using their OS and office suite, Google is getting hold of people through their Internet services; search, email, instant messaging, voice over IP, and videoconferencing all being key parts of the current and (near) future Interent and computing experience.
There is also the risk of vendor lock-in; you can access your emails stored in Google Mail only as long as Google allows you to, their VoIP and videoconferencing services are currently only available to users of the proprietary Google Talk client (Google states that they will release protocol specifications, but not a hint as to when this will happen; even with the protocol specifications out there, it's still possible for them to block other clients), some key parts of their search technology are patented, making it difficult for competitors to match the efficiency, etc.
Note that I am not saying Google is evil or will turn evil, but I am worried at the potential for doing nasty things. I remember the days when Bill Gates was every nerd's idol (except fringe figures like Mac-using nerds and the FSF); look where we are now. A wise person said it this way: "The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I'm not just harping on one company here, I'm thinking organizations in general. Just as individuals have a natural birth, aging, and death cycle, the same seems to hold true with other phenomena. Organizations become victims of their own success. They get larger and more unwieldy, and the presence of excess resources seems to create its own economy of waste. Internal empires form. Departments carve up the pie, and defend turf. As waste increases, the survival of the organization tends to trump whatever purpose it originally formed to serve. With hundreds or thousands of individuals depending on the status quo, or at least the continued existence of the organization, there is a convergence that takes place that makes one soul-less organization or government look much like the others after a while.
Software bloat we all know about. Features get added by divergent interests who don't fully understand the limits of the paradigm, until the structure starts to sag and/or crumble under the weight. Loose ends and bugs multiply and begin to take on a life of their own, like cancer cells multiplying out of control.
Sometimes organizations or programs can be "born again" and rise from their own ashes in a completely different form. But sooner or later, some kind of major destruction is inevitable, and maybe necessary.
Bill Gates knows when to use "it's" and when to use "its" (unlike the Slashdot editors).
Sigh, this is typical of the current level of debate on the internet. One article of four pages of which two and a half pages are about the company's history, leaving only a page and a half for comment and analysis. The article just reprises what 1001 other articles have said: Microsoft is too big to be a growth stock any more and these days it has some competition, although despite both alleged handicaps it is still makes stupendous profits.
No one seems to ask whether these vast sums sucked out of the IT industry could be put to better use. It would be interesting to add up the annual profits of the top six IT companies and then see how much they spend annually on fighting spam, phishing and malware. Probably a fraction of one per cent of their profits? I guess if you're a top IT exec then worrying about malware and spam is what the little people do.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
IBM went through similar growing pains.
Their heyday was the 50's to the 80's and then the bottom dropped out of the equipment market. But IBM adapted.
Microsoft shows some signs of adaptation with the X-Box line but I don't think it will be enough. The bigger they are, the harder they fall and it's usually 30 or so years of the good life, followed by the remainder being rough.
MSFT hasn't budged in years
Amid the anniversary festivities, Microsoft's founder and chairman will set out a confident vision of the software giant's future.
Oh no, not again! The only confident thing we'll be seeing is Vista. More chair-throwing, possibly (I love that, it's much funnier than comedies).
and expects to generate billions of dollars in new sales.
Sure, Xbox 360 will make negative billions of dollars' revenue.
People just think there's no growth
How can you become bigger than 96% of the OS market?
What I like about Microsoft-related articles is that they're all the same. Take an article about Windows 95 and compare it with an article about Vista. Nothing has changed. More eyecandy, more possibilities, easier than ever, more features. But while they were adequate in 1995, they don't get the picture in 2005. People are tired of continuosly paying for upgrades just to get more features they don't need. I use a Pentium III and won't upgrade my CPU because I don't need to. Everything works, any app I install won't give a message that I need to pay for a new PC. I'm able to even play Doom3 in low-res.
Netcraft confirms that Microsoft is dying ...Oh, wait! Never mind.
May 1990 Launches Windows 3.0
Aug 1995 Windows 95 launched
Jan 2000 Steve Ballmer becomes chief executive
2001 Office XP and Windows XP launched
Jan 2003 Company declares first annual dividend
I just can't believe they left out Windows ME.
I've been using this OS for years.
I don't see why everyone hated ME so much, seriously. Not only can I download the internet in 13 seconds with it's networking capabilities, but I've never had my computer cra
(Neil Blender cited this blog on the earlier M$ story.)
you had me at #!
I heard the new exercise to remedy this problem consisted of clapping hands and the incessant yelling of "Developers! Developers! Developers!"
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Wow. Now I've seen it all: +4, Insightful for a dupe. Rock on, meister!
It's a joke. You definitely say some smart stuff in your post.
But that lack of quality plus the oil embargo encouraged consumers to try smaller, more fuel efficient foreign cars, specifically Japanese models.
Consumers discovered that the reputation of Japanese cars being cheap and poorly made was not true. Not only did they get better gas mileage, but they were really reliable cars. My first import was a Toyota Tercel and the only things I put in that car over 100,000 miles were gas, oil, a set of tires and brake pads. Today you couldn't give me an American car, even though the imports are made here and most American cars are assembled elsewhere. Impressions last a long time.
That's how I see MSFT. For years they were turning out crap and people are in the process of discovering that the alternatives are pretty good. I'm typing this on a Linux box. A few years ago I hadn't even heard of it. I'm never on the bleeding edge of technology and rarely even the leading edge. If I'm using Linux it's because it works. It works for me at home and, where appropriate, for my business customers.
MSFT will still be around for a long time, but I believe the market will change to include more alternatives and those alternatives will have a following of their own. There are a lot of people walking around with a MSFT chip on their shoulder that they'll never forget.
If it's one area MSFT has really fumbled it's inspiring customer loyalty. They're one of the few companies inspiring their customers to outright hostility. They've abused their market position by treating customers as a revenue stream. Most people will get tired of being porked after a while. We're there. MSFT traded short term quarterly gains for long term loyalty. That's what happens when bean counters run your company and Republicans run your country. And I believe people will remember a long time.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
you want coolness??/ get yourself one of these babies...
I hate to point to reality, but given your UID, you're the last person I'd take advice from regarding what's hip and cool.
Basically all this hubla about Microsoft's employee culture imploding is FUD. While everyone has things they hate about their job, you talk to most any MS employee and they love their jobs.
It's as if all the tech writers got bored and turned this little Google/Microsoft fiasco into a big blown up epidemic.
I do wish Microsoft would downsize a little and perhaps shed a little of its "running around like its head is cut off" way of marketing and developing products and not intercommunicating well enough between product groups. I can't even remember how many versions of Vista are slated for release, but its nuts.
In an interview very reminiscent of that other fool, Ballmer struggles to stay 'on message', repeats his key words and phrases out of context ('Innovation! Innovation! Innovation!') and generally makes a fool of himself.
you had me at #!
MS will only be able to further penetrate the market if they lower the price of ALL Windows products. I'm mean, come on, $300 for the full version of XP pro? Rome: Total War is just a complicated as as XP pro (if not more so) and it sells for just $50!
Microsoft will continue to lose market share, however slowly, as long as their prices remain sky high. They are already losing to Linux with governmental agencies.
Granted, MS wants to keep its bloated profits, but I have just one question: How much profit do you need? The answer: Some. You always need some profit. The only place you get profit from is your customers. Would you rather get less profit from those customers and still retain the "King of Software" title, or lose ALL profit because your customers are leaving your software for alternate choices?
Like I said at the start of my post, MS will need to lower the price of their OSes to penetrate the market any further.
If we had listeded to all of the idiots depicting the fall of Microsoft over thepast 5 years, Microsoft wouldhave crumbled years ago.
It amazes me that ignorance is so prevalent. You go right ahead and hold your breath; Microsoft will fall soon.
Jamey Kirby
it's = it is
OSS has been taking its roots in business and development and the momentum has been building up to what we have today, where a day doesn't go by without OSS making the headlines or having an impact on the important stories. The end users will be the last to feel the wave, they do not know what's going on behind the scenes, but sooner or later they'll end up with a product in their hands where OSS is behind it (TiVo, Google, Firefox, etc).
Not "it's problems", "its problems".
This isn't difficult.
Pedestrians swear at drivers. Drivers swear at pedestrians, get out of their cars, and start swearing at drivers.
Whoever's law says 90% of everything is crap. The same is true of people... 90% of people are asshats.
When we allow an exception for people our own age, or the music of our own era, or whatever, we fundamentally trap ourselves. It's true that almost all 14-year olds are awful, but that isn't because they're 14. It's because they're people.
What it comes down to is that a man likes the smell of his own farts, and can't stand anybody else's.
I hate posting anonymously, but it is the only way to spill the beans.
:-), all the banking industry is either evaluating, implementing and a few, like the bank I am talking about, using in production Linux desktops.
(think top 5 worldwide) has around 500 Linux destktops in one of their internal help desks facilities (yep, the place is so big that they have an internal IT help desk) in a Spanish city that shall remain unamed (but there are only 2 or 3 cities in Spain with the infrastrucutre for such a thing, so use your brain).
If you think Linux in the desktop is a far fetched possibility you will be immensely surprised when you begin to hear more and more news like this and the bearer of the news does not have to remain anonymous
Why?
Windows lax security and Linux ease of configurabilty.
I have seen companies with very competent WIndows SAs been brought to their technological knees due to a Windows virus.
The coporate IT world is tired of this (tens of Engineers out of bed at the less expected time in order to contain the latest exploit against MS software) ands is looking for alternatives (even MacOS is now and again mentioned)
We all did once [for about 12 months]...
"You idiots will never get the big picture"
What's the big picture? World domination and control?
The unsinkable Vistanic is launched. ;)
(Written from the safe deck of a Debian cruiser.)
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Nine year old children can get that right. What does that say about Slashdot 'editors'?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Our company has just "partnered" with them for their new hosting services (they really don't "get" shared hosting btw :) - I talked to our CEO, and he described the relationship (paraphrased):
"It's like having a crazy, jealous girlfriend. You don't want to dump her just yet because she'd go nuts at the rejection. And you don't want to let her anywhere near your checkbook. You just want to keep her happy so you can get on with your life in peace"
I find the comment from George Colony at Forrester that it was a mistake for MS to drop stock options hilarious! WTF! MS was FORCED to drop stock options because thier stock was not climbing anymore therefore options were not as attractive to prospective employees. It wasn't a mistake on thier part, unless you are going to argue the whole business model is flawed because they weren't growing as fast anymore. It was beyond thier control, what do you expect? Indefinite growth? In fact if anything they compensated with options for TO long they now have unhappy employees (my friends included) who are on cash poor option rich employement and are leaving in droves after believing they got "screwed" by MS.
When I interviewed with MS out of college I (and many others) specifically refused option loaded offers. Simply put we could get a better return investing more cash elsewhere in place of those options.
All of us here on Slashdot know is just downright economically IMPOSSIBLE for MS to get the kind of growth that Google can and will over the next several years, the market is simply not that big! Therfore options as MS has traditionally granted are not really even a CHOICE for MS. They will have to resort to ane ESPP style structure. Any changes in MS stock price from now on will be small potatoes compared to the past, options will make no more money for MS than they can for any other large company. And eventually Google will reach this point also. This is just another marketer who has lost all touch with reality. *end rant*
just help yourself mantaining growth with viagra
No need to worry about future company profits.
First they're going to make the same promise they've made for years and tell people that the latest version of Windows is going to be so much more secure than the previous version. And people will buy it. They they will buy the latest version of Office other necessary software packages.
Then they intend to keep reselling software to people. That includes updated versions of Office to support DRM. Updated versions of Windows to support DRM. As the DRM "standards" are updated the can keep selling updated versions of the software because they will be able to hold people's data as hostage. Especially when they move to a subscription only model. Which will happen eventually.
Thanks to their DRM software they will be able to effectively keep people from writing "free" software because they will sell a digital signatures to keep Windows from screaming about unverified or unlicensed software. If you do decide to license their digital signature software, you will eventually have to pay a maintence fee to keep the signature current. In fact you may even have to pay a maintence fee so that you can send out patches for your own software.
In short DRM will ensure future profits, while reducing the corporate need for innovation.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Geeze guys.
You need more digits. Or a google search as opposed to a calculation.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.