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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?"
But "slow" is *really* slow. Like... Give them 20 more years, and they may have "declined" to the size that IBM is now.
Most of these scenarios take the "cloud" for granted. Since the death of mainframes, businesses have been reluctant to adopt hosted apps, even when they are hosted in the company's own datacenters. The number of highly successful cloud app deployments for business will be countable on one hand. A single major outage will derail the cloud computing train for another 10 years or so and history will repeat itself for the 5th (6th?) time... Any scenario that predicts Microsoft's downfall based on the failure to adapt to cloud computing is flawed. #1 & #5. Same with the scenarios that predict Microsoft success based on the cloud. #3 & #4...
In the sort term, I see Microsoft having a huge hit on their hands with Windows 7. CIOs everywhere will pat themselves on the back for saving so much money by skipping a generation, and the software itself will be improved thanks to the massive open beta that was Vista. The new version of Office (running locally) will also be a hit. Internet Explorer will continue to lose marketshare, but Silverlight adoption will increase. That covers the next 4 years. Anybody who claims to have a credible idea of what's going to happen after that is simply guessing.
Although not for all the reasons they listed under that scenario. I was there when the pronouncements of the paperless office doomed every word processor to the scrap heap of history, only to see the amount of paper actually expand. But now offices really are using less paper and I believe the need for heavy duty word processing, particularly one for every workstation, will...no, is diminishing. That chops at one of Microsoft's major profit centers and, even if you disagree about the future of paper, it's still a declining industry segment any way you shred it. The need is diminishing, the alternatives are getting better and more abundant.
The internet appliance trend will continue to eat away at OS market share. On less expensive hardware the cost of Windows becomes a larger percentage of the cost of a new machine. Unless the user has a need that justifies the cost, if users have a choice they will, at least some of the time, choose the alternative. The desktop market isn't growing as fast as the appliance market and more functional and more powerful appliance devices, like Netbooks (oh, no, we're gonna get sued!) are going to continue undermining the sales of higher end laptops and at least a few desktop sales. Mobile devices, smart phones all take their razor nick of blood out of the beast.
I don't see MS disappearing for a long time but I do see them diminishing over time. And I also believe there will be an "Enron" moment when it becomes apparent that earnings have been sliding for a long time.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The five scenarios were written right around the time Gates retired; TFA is a short six-month update ...
One of the things that none of the scenarios discuss is the economic meltdown expected in 2009. Microsoft, with its multiple revenue streams and strong international business, may be better equipped to handle this than a lot of its competitors (e.g. Google is still almost completely dependent on advertising). It's also a great opportunity to refocus the business and turn costs. On the other hand responses like the rumored across-the-board 10% cut would further slow Microsoft's product delivery, and wouldn't do anything to improve the quality of the offerings. We shall see ...
I think another aspect is just what others were originally talking about too. People have always maintained that Linux makes a hell of a SERVER OS for enterprise. The bottom line is that Linux is stable, cheap, and has an abundance of free and high quality server products that get all sorts of things done well. When you combine that with the fact that users in general don't care (and can't even tell) what software is running on a server they're getting stuff from, then you have a win-win scenario in favor of Linux there.
The GGP though, when referring to Linux in the enterprise, seemed to be referring to Linux on enterprise DESKTOPS. Big difference there. While my organization uses Linux and FreeBSD pretty heavily in the server room, it's still all Windows on the desktop. Big reasons for that include a whole mess of propriety Windows-only software programs for which there are no open source alternatives (if you can find an open source Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal system, Building Permit/Planning system, or Veterans Benefits processing software, please let me know).
I think in that scenario (business desktops), there is a point to be made. There is a lot of REALLY obscure software out there for Windows that just doesn't exist for other platforms. Not to mention that from a job security standpoint, an IT Department sticking with Office rather than OO.o is a smart move. If office has a problem, then everyone blames MS. If OO.o has a problem, they're going to blame you for not using Office. Home users generally don't use the obscure programs and don't care as much about their productivity suite.
Overall though, Linux is still making headway. Once upon a time it was at best a server OS to all but the dedicated hobbyists. Now it's a server OS and rapidly becoming a valid consumer desktop OS. Not a bad combo, even if enterprise desktop still isn't conquered yet. Mac OS X hasn't really captured that market either. Still though, it's acceptance as a viable home desktop means more interest, more developers, etc. An increase in both of those can only bode well for the possibility of more enterprise class desktop apps for Linux (or just written in cross platform manners - I used to be very opposed to that idea after some sour experience with Java's AWT and Swing, but lately I've been seeing some REALLY good cross platform programs written in Python and the like that are quickly changing my mind).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain