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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.
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 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.