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Five Ways Microsoft Could Change After Gates
Might Squirrel noted a perfectly mediocre story to chat about on a boring post-holiday weekend Monday. This one is a look at 5 ways Microsoft could change after Gates. From accepting Open Source to serious interoperability work, there are definitely 5 things on that list there. Nothing about my solid gold rocket car.
Without Gates Microsoft runs the risk of becoming a faceless super-corporation focusing on sales rather than developing the tech that could give the company an edge.
Runs the risk? Isn't this what Microsoft is now?
Maybe Microsoft will change for the better after Ballmer leaves. But not while he's in charge. At least, that's what I think.
I hope that nothing changes. That way, people will continue to pour over to Ubuntu. More people using Ubuntu will mean more apps written for Linux. Everybody (for values of everybody outside Redmond) wins.
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They could design a whole new OS from the ground up, abandoning much of the legacy code in Windows that makes it a bit flaky and adopting the "Ã la carte" modular design. They could even make it more secure. But that would risk alienating a huge chunk of traditional Windows users (who still want their old stuff to work, will be confused by a modular design, and who *hate* security popups asking for a password every time they install something). It would be a major risk to the dominance of one of their two big cash cows and could open the door for Apple to swoop in for some market share.
Some years ago I remember reading an article that argued that Microsoft should dump Windows and shift to Linux. Specifically it argued that MS should code the Windows desktop as a window interface running on top of a Linux core. At the time I dismissed it as the ravings of a Linux fan, but I wonder more and more if there isn't some value in the argument.
and as we know from history of extinct species, those who could not adapt and change died out and made way for the ones that could.
And the reason Microsoft can't change is because they are catering now to huge bureaucratic corporations (think insurance companies, banks, etc, some of whom are still running Windows NT 4.0), and these are not exactly at the forefront of technological adoption let alone innovation. I.e. they cater to a market that doesn't like change.
If Microsoft decided to do an "apple" and ditch Win32 for solid proven UNIX kernel and build their own APIs around that, these businesses would be creaming bloody murder and literary make Microsoft support their old crud.
Now this could be done through VM these days (but then again most of businesses don't have powerful machines for their users), or perhaps MS could split consumer and business OS further, since consumers are more likely to follow latest trends.
But all this seems to iffy and risky decision for Microsoft to make. So I don't expect any change from them.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
I wouldn't replace them with anything, I think there are more than enough alternatives out there.
MS's behaviour during the standardization process of the document format has left me firmly in the camp of people that want to see microsoft gone.
The fact that they were bailed out of their conviction seems to have given them the impression that they can do anything they please and that they can buy everybody. It should not be that way. No other software company (that I'm aware of) is currently playing this crooked.
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I do see a shift. .NET and good old Visual Basic provides the lock in that Windows needs to keep it in the Enterprise. DirectX provides the lock in that they need to keep the games on it. With games and the Enterprise locked in WindowsXP could have kept selling for the next twenty years.
I see a shift away from Windows as the center of the Microsoft universe.
Office is Microsoft's real cash cow.
Office,
A major break with current Windows code base is more trouble than it is wroth.
The first problem is Drivers. Look at the the problems that Vista had with the change to Video and Printer Drivers. Multiply that by all the funky hardware that is being used on PC and you will see why massive code base change may not be a good plan.
Where Microsoft has blown it is in the none PC market. They never could knock out Palm even when Palm was making error after error. They don't seem to have a chance to kill the Blackberry or the iPhone. The Zune? What a waste. Microsoft could have really integrated the Zune with the 360 to make good media system. Instead it is a bad joke. The fact that Microsoft's iSync talks about how well it works with the iPod should say it all.
I see Microsoft pushing for more and more developer lock in and more on the applications and less on the OS. They still have a massive market share and that isn't likely to go away soon.
The key is that people use applications the OS is just their to run them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I don't see how they could make a radical shift anytime soon. Their entire model was "a system out of the box" - i.e similar to Apple, but without including the hardware. That's why they bundled iExplorer (the original i_something_), that's why the included Movie Maker, MSWrite, Paint, etc, etc. They certainly strip down everything and include only the basic OS - I'd love it if they ever did that - but even as an option it would be hard to swallow.
Their dominance is based, in part, on the fact that they can offer a complete user experience once you turn your computer on. The "specialist" market is small. MS will continue to care about it, but that is not their main focus - at least I don't think so. If they keep your grandparents and parents hooked to Windows, they'll be satisfied.
If they create a modular version of the OS - I assume that they will have a Home/Business/Ultimate breakdown for consumers, with Home and Ultimate having many/all of the extra features we all love to hate, and the business version being the stripped down version we've all clamored for all this time. But I don't expect to see that version widely available for sale, and certainly not bundled with new computers, at least not at Dell/HP/Toshiba.
-- All this knowledge is giving me a raging brainer.
I guess the approach to this depends on your medium-term strategy. If you are concerned that Linux and OS X market share is likely to increase significantly based on current trends, and you acknowledge that Vista has been a failure in the market but there is still a lot of demand for XP today, then this indicates a need to move in a different direction where you can compete effectively with Linux and OS X a few years down the line but no desperate need to shift dramatically in the near future.
If you assume that the thing most holding back Linux and OS X today is application (including driver) support, and you acknowledge that this is the major technical reason people are still using Windows, then from the previous assumptions you must expect software companies to focus more on portability and use of cross-platform libraries in future as the target markets using alternative operating systems grow. However, you can use this to your advantage, because it means if your new direction plays nicely, it will continue to be at least as attractive for software developers to support your platform as any of your rivals when they go cross-platform.
If you look at the major competition in Linux and OS X, both are based on decades-old concepts that are tried and tested, but also aren't particularly well suited to current trends in networked access, mobile devices, and the like. This creates an opportunity for your new direction to provide genuine improvements for the users while learning from the successful ideas that have gone before, and thus to make your new platform the more attractive one.
And here's the kicker. If you're Microsoft, you are one of the few companies on the planet that has sufficient development resources, financial reserves and attention from software developers to have a credible shot at this. But you need to be honest about the situation, and make a few hard choices about who you're going to put in charge, since your problem is not your generally very smart technical people or your generally very effective marketing people, it's your generally missing the point management people.
I don't really expect them to do this, because I don't think they have the guts to bet the house on such a big move. But I honestly believe their best strategy in the market today is to sit in a holding pattern on the XP/Vista line for the near future (when neither Linux nor OS X is a serious threat to their dominance), aim to have a serious alternative a few years down the line that can compete on merit in a market where one-OS software is increasingly rare and the threats from alternative platforms like Linux, OS X, and whatever new trends emerge in web-based and mobile computing are growing. Along the way, they could move towards open standards and continue their strategy of basically giving away powerful development tools that support their platform, which would undermine some of the key selling points of the opposition, and continue to support the company via sales and incremental improvements to XP and Office for the immediate future.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They could fully embrace open source. But that means risking the dominance of Office--their other cash cow. And they're not going to do that.
Actually, one of the big things that they could do is focus on expanding Office, rolling out a consistent WP, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, etc. platform to everyone. If they did that, I'd be willing to bet that they'd get people buying it for Linux. Maybe their OS would fail if they did that, but it sounds like that's going to be more of a cost center than a net income generator in the future anyway based on the amount of time it took to create Vista.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
They spent some amount of time and effort on making sure that Windows would not be virtualized under OS/2, and perhaps some effort was spent to make sure it wouldn't under WINE, as well. At this point they may have sunk themselves by making Windows un-virtualizable, at least with reasonable performance levels. In other words, in blocking OS/2 and WINE, they may have blocked that course of action for themselves.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I'm sure you're not trolling, but neither am I:
In my experience, windows installs ok, if you have the manufacturers install CD that came with the PC, or if the machine is totally popular and 'generic' as far as drivers go.
If you don't have the manufacturers install CD, it's generally a pain in the butt - you have to manually search for sound card drivers or video card drivers etc.. Easy for you and me, but not so much for others.
On the other hand, on the same 'more diverse' machines, I've always found that a FreeBSD CD installs out of the box - the default CD has far more drivers in its generic kernel than windows appears to (and before the Linux people say it - I fully expect their experience would be similar to the FreeBSD one - I just don't have the experience to say one way or the other)
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and before the Linux people say it - I fully expect their experience would be similar to the FreeBSD one - I just don't have the experience to say one way or the other
Nor do I, I've never looked at BSD (experienced MS users read that TLA quite differently and get nervous!) One particular nuisance on Linux is trying to get around the problem of manufacturers not releasing driver specifications and only producing MS drivers. The thought of struggling (usually unsuccessfully) with ndiswrapper to try to get wi-fi working (a real nuisance when there's no internet connection until you get wi-fi working) makes my heart sink when faced with installing Linux. Driver support like that is another advantage MS has: you might have to search, but at least the drivers will be out there. It's an unfair advantage, but whether it's fair or not probably isn't at the front of most people's minds when trying to get a system working.
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I am sorry but you are just not being honest...
All of what you say might be true for a two year old PC but any kinda laptop or server hardware is a nightmare whithout the OEM CD.
First you are going to need storage drivers. You can't put these on a thumbdrive because the Windows installer only supports loading these from floppy. In most cases the BIOS emulation on the system will let you use USB-floppy(hope you have one) or a second cdrom, drive. Still this is a pain and not trivial for the typical user.
Next you are going to need video drivers. You are going need these pretty much right away. The generic svga drive will only do 640x480 or 800x600 on many chips. Modern Windows is almost impossible to use this way, hell the welcome application does not even display right. You are not getting these in 10min of downloading either, they probably weigh in around 160M, yep 160M for a video driver....well that and all sorts of useless OEM widgets that come with it. Note even if you have a fast connection the manufactures FTP site will be painfully slow.
Now you need network drivers These might be easy to hunt down if you are on a popular chipset platform or have a popular discrete controller. They might be near impossible to figure out the right one or how to downlaod if you happen to have one Intel's more exotic devices, or some off brand. It may even take a couple tries to get the right driver. Mind you the wrong one will probably install and just not work.
Sound drivers, if you need those See network drivers...
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