Why Eric Schmidt Is Wrong About Microsoft Not Mattering Anymore

First time accepted submitter Gumbercules!! writes "Eric Schmidt said he believes there is a 'Gang of Four' technology platform leaders — Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook — Microsoft isn't one of them. I wrote about why I believe he's wrong and what it might say about Google's weaknesses. From the article: 'It's no secret that Microsoft have utterly failed to make significant roads into the mobile market place. Windows Phone 7 has approximately no marketshare (ok they have live 5% or so) and this has actually gone down over the last year. It's also no secret that Microsoft have failed to gain any semblance of "cool" and that they're also managing to drag Nokia down with them. It's not even a secret that nearly everyone who looks at the new Windows 8 interface-formally-known-as-Metro doesn't like it. However this isn't the whole story.'"

Comments

Google's not even a tech company

[tkprit]

It's an ad company that wants to be an identity service. Schmidt is on crack. Yes, there are lots of Android phones out there; I've got them. But how many people are going to stay enamored with Google as Google continually makes huge horrendous mistakes, like (most recently) putting large, blend-in ads ON the maps/navigation app, right after introducing tap to zoom (you tap, you have good chance of tapping ad, and the app switches to your dialer to call the ad). I uninstalled the shit out of Google Maps (including freezing when it wouldn't uninstall completely), and will never look back.

The good thing about Android is you can de-google-fy the phone, but I came close to upgrading to a Nokia to get Nokia's next maps app. (Maps is a HUGE sell-point for phones, and Nokia's are superior). Fortunately, a friendly AC pointed me to Bing maps and Waze for Android, both of which are more than adequate for my needs. Then I realized Bing's voice search is as good as (maybe better than) Google voice search. No ads; all free.

I hope they get someone smarter in at Google, and re-focus the company from being an "identity service" or ad company back into being a tech company. Until then, I'll stick with the Android phones, my own ROMs, and non-Google apps. (Haven't replaced YouTube quite yet, but I'm looking.)

Re:Ho hum

[SerpentMage]

OMG stop the presses, you are right having an on-premise private cloud is just going to change EVERYTHING. Here is a question, does anybody have an idea what that means? Yes yes the words are obvious. But what it sounds to me is that Microsoft has just invented the idea of having a huge honking data center on your own premises? I mean that must be rocket science and not something we had before, right?

Oh wait, we are also going to have agile cloud based IT. Yupe never had that before, actually asking the question, WTF are you talking about?

Note, yes I am being very cynical and pointing out that Microsoft is completely out of touch on what people need.