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InfoWorld's Crystal Ball Predicts the Future of Microsoft
museumpeace writes "InfoWorld executive editor Galen Gruman has brainstormed five different scenarios for Microsoft in the coming decade and solicits the reader's vote on which is more likely. Does it tank? Does it go open source? Does it out-Google Google? Does Ballmer really fill Gates' shoes?"
Why do you ask?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
MS will continue to force OEM installations on the market, non-it companies will still be afraid of FOSS and MS lobbyists will still do their part on locking down IT departments in public sectors. (In even some of the most "socialist" countries Windows is still used on 99% of desktop PCs in public (school, administration) services, where no special software is needed.
Cloud computing, Web 3.0, "web-bases OSes (!)" and whatnot buzzwords won't change that.
What we could hope for is that the Recession will create focus on cost linked to software licenses, and more focus on saving old hardware. (With software needing updating.)
The greatest thing that could happen is that MS invented some 100% waterproof way of securing Windows against piracy (of Windows itself). Ofcourse, *if* that would happen, they'd just drop the prices substansually in 3rd world contries to regain the lost marked share. (Just look at the netbook rebate. They had to loose half the market shares before slashing prices)
Remember "grid computing"? Remember "application service providers"? Remember how that was supposed to change everything? Right.
The current appeal of "cloud computing" is that some companies are willing to give it away to get market share. That won't last. Google is cutting back on their freebies. The day is probably coming when "Google Apps" won't be free. Gmail is already a paid service for businesses. Google runs those services mostly to cost Microsoft money.
As a business, "cloud computing" looks a lot like shared web hosting. The price competition is fierce and the service levels aren't very good.
A few niche applications have been outsourced well, like "Salesforce.com". In fact, that's the leading commercial outsourced application. But Salesforce doesn't compete with Microsoft.
None of this looks like a real threat to Microsoft.
None of these scenarios represent the future for Microsoft. A much well thought out future was done by the now defunct Business 2.0 on Google http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/01/01/8368125/index.htm
1. Desktop Operating Systems: Granted, Microsoft's cash cow of Desktop operating systems better evolve. I don't agree with the statement on Office 12 which is much better than previous versions. The same can't be said of Windows Vista or Windows 7. They better start working on IE 9 which should be open source and standards compatible for starters. The future of desktop OS is the browser and technologies like gears, silverlight and AIR.
2. Server OS: Microsoft will probably retain the 50-50 ratio on the server side and Server 2008 is excellent with AD. However, it may have to think long and hard about Hyper-V because virtualization is going to be the future on the server OS side.
2. Gaming: With the XBOX division, they will be making their $$ of Xbox live and not by selling the console. Xbox live is very stable and provides an excellent online gaming experience. Sony's victory of Blue Ray won't be longer because for movies and all, its going to turn to a streaming model. So MS better start putting TB drives in there or make them generic for the users to swap them out.
3. Application Dev: Eclipse is a good alterative but MS Visual Studio is one of the best IDE's out there. It is not going to die anytime soon.
4. R&D: Microsoft's labs may not match Google currently but they are coming out with some cool stuff. Photosynth comes to mind. With their "surface" technology evolving it will be interesting.http://livelabs.com/projects/
It's still got 10 to 15 years of lingering life in it before it falls.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I tried reading the article, but the crystal ball spent half the time trying to guess what the next great thing would be (cloud computing...) and then how Microsoft would fit into it.
The article accuses Microsoft of going in too many different directions at once, but when there are so many possible outcomes, how can they not. Microsoft can't affort to miss out on the next big thing, whatever it may be, so they play in every market.
Microsoft was already late to the internet (Netscape), virtualization (VMWare), Business Apps (SAP), internet search (lots of companies), and then improved search + ads (Google), Virtual Meetings (WebEx), next gen programming (Java/Eclipse), media players (IPod), video game systems (PlayStation/Nintendo), phones (IPhone)... and they can't afford to miss the next big thing. Sure, in some of these industries they were in the market, but maybe their product was inferior and it didn't take off (Zune, early revs of Windows Mobile).
So they must maintain a market presence in business apps, touch computing, mobile computing, cloud computing, game systems, video streaming, health care... just in case that is the next big thing.
What most Microsoft bashing tends to miss is that being in the market isn't enough.
Sometimes first to market is enough (Playstation 2 vs Xbox). Othertimes it is tie-ins with 3rd parties (IPod with the ITunes library). Sometimes it is price driven (Linux) and sometimes the quality of the product matters most (IPhone). I never see anyone do a full review Microsoft except as a list of bullet points for the markets that they play in.
"Nobody buys MS that doesn't want to"? Say that to about every user that's had a problem with something with MS.
Meanwhile, just because they're the biggest company doesn't mean they're relevant. It just means they WERE relevant. Past tense.
You are 100% correct, if you completely ignore corporate America using Windows.
Lets take a large corporation as an example and look at the costs you ignored:
Dozens of in house Windows apps, which would either need to be re-written or at least fully tested again in an emulation environment.
Training for the end users for a new OS.
Training for the end users for a new Office suite.
Training for the end users for any critical applications.
A new desktop management software roll-out for IT.
Any server changes for IT.
Training for IT in the new OS/Suite/Apps/Management software/servers.
Time to convert from the old systems to the new ones.
and a few dozen problems that will spring up during the transition.
Now, after the millions spent on the above, you can wait a few years for the ROI in your new MS free environment.
It'll be really slow almost no matter what happens. Even if Windows and Office bombed tomorrow(by "bombed" we'll assume ourselves to mean "no sane individual would ever start a new deployment, legacy deployments are looking to migrate when they can") they would have years of legacy volume licence revenue to work with. Further, they would most likely spin out and sell a system(either VM based or like WINE; but with the benefit of the actual win32 stuff) for running win32 applications on whatever platform(s) became dominant.
.net runtimes for various platforms would probably be a tidy little business all on its own. Their gaming division is also pretty decent(when it isn't throwing money at hardware).
That is not even mentioning the stuff they make that people actually like. Visual Studio +
MS is at considerable risk of losing its status as de facto standard, and of suffering significant erosion of its margins, and I hope both things happen; but the notion that it will actually die is implausible at best. Companies with far weaker products have held on for ages on legacy deployments alone.
If it got to the point were someone didn't want MS anymore, they go find something else. Simple as that.
Many companies have invested millions of dollars in Microsoft software as a core part of their computing infrastructure. That's not something that can be replaced quickly, easily, or cheaply.
Developers: We can use your help.
Haha. You are truly Captain Wishful Thinking. You people that think if you come on a board with a bunch of like minded "thinkers" and say something, that makes it true. "Microsoft is irrelevant!" "See how I've made my hatred known by saying something nonsensical and dismissive of an entity I hate!?". You just did the equivelent of a 13 year old girl's "wha-EVA!"
If you hate MS that much, a better tact would be to not underestimate the enemy in your little nerd battle. They're not irrelevant, to say they are is laughable and shows how provincial and limited your experience in the computing industry is.