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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?
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?
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.
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
"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
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.
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 #!
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.
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
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.
If Google releases an online office suite, it's over for Microsoft. Imagine an office productivity suite that doesn't require installation, is always up-to-date, and is integrated with the 'net.
"Sufferin' succotash."
We all did once [for about 12 months]...
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