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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.
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.
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.
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.
(Neil Blender cited this blog on the earlier M$ story.)
you had me at #!
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.