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How Does Microsoft Avoid Being the Next IBM? (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For fans of the platform, the official confirmation that Windows on phones isn't under active development any longer -- security bugs will be fixed, but new features and new hardware aren't on the cards -- isn't a big surprise. This is merely a sad acknowledgement of what we already knew. Last week, Microsoft also announced that it was getting out of the music business, signaling another small retreat from the consumer space. It's tempting to shrug and dismiss each of these instances, pointing to Microsoft's continued enterprise strength as evidence that the company's position remains strong. And certainly, sticking to the enterprise space is a thing that Microsoft could do. Become the next IBM: a stable, dull, multibillion dollar business. But IBM probably doesn't want to be IBM right now -- it has had five straight years of falling revenue amid declining relevance of its legacy businesses -- and Microsoft probably shouldn't want to be the next IBM, either. Today, Microsoft is facing similar pressures -- Windows, though still critical, isn't as essential to people's lives as it was a decade ago -- and risks a similar fate. Dropping consumer ambitions and retreating to the enterprise is a mistake. Microsoft's failure in smartphones is bad for Windows, and it's bad for Microsoft's position in the enterprise as a whole.
official confirmation that Windows on phones isn't under active development any longer -- security bugs will be fixed, but new features and new hardware aren't on the cards -- isn't a big surprise
So they tried something, and it didn't work out for them. What's the big deal? I don't see people lining up to bash Apple over the Newton.
Last week, Microsoft also announced that it was getting out of the music business, signaling another small retreat from the consumer space
How many people even knew Microsoft was in the music business? The top companies for purchasing music are Apple, Google, and Amazon. It's highly unlikely there could have been space for a fourth.
pointing to Microsoft's continued enterprise strength as evidence that the company's position remains strong
Good job, you found where the money is. They make more money in a month selling licenses for Windows Server than they likely ever made in music.
Windows, though still critical, isn't as essential to people's lives as it was a decade ago -- and risks a similar fate.
You're simply wrong on the notion of it not being as essential. The vast overwhelming majority of all PCs sold at retail come with Windows on them. The vast overwhelming majority of PCs sold to businesses do as well. It is as relevant to the average person as a refrigerator, only with a vastly shorter life span. As long as they get vendors of relevant software to keep pushing users to newer versions of Windows, they're set for the rest of nearly forever.
Dropping consumer ambitions and retreating to the enterprise is a mistake.
This is also ignoring one enormous cash cow for Microsoft - Office. Yeah, for the majority of consumers the free office suites are more than sufficient, but you cannot convince them of that. And now Microsoft, for all intents and purposes, only sells consumer subscriptions to Office, that users have to renew every year. This is absolutely not abandoning consumer for enterprise.
This also is ignoring all the efforts that go in to XBox development. The Microsoft - Sony duopoly has all but killed Nintendo from the most profitable segments of the gaming market. Why would Microsoft retreat from that - especially when they keep telling us how great the next (strangely-named) XBox console will be?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Microsoft is already the new IBM (old and staid). Apple is the new Microsoft (embrace and extend with proprietary stuff to ensure lock-in). Google is the new Apple.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Since the early '90s, I've been predicting Microsoft's future: it will follow the same trajectory as IBM -- meaning Microsoft will never go away, but will become increasingly less important until it can reasonably be ignored if you wish.
My reasoning is that their corporate behavior pretty solidly mirrors that of IBM's through its various phases. There is nearly no chance that Microsoft (or any other company of its size) could pull off such a complete reinvention of themselves as to change that behavior.
I see no reason to modify my prediction yet.
No problem. But IBM used to be the King of the Hill in computers, much like Microsoft is now. IBM lost that position. Microsoft being "the next IBM" means that it would lose that position as well.
... killed IBM and Microsoft and Mobil Oil.
I worked for Mobil. They bought their own insurance company and became self-insured and got into the business/consumer insurance business. They also got into real estate. They built Reston, Va. from the ground up.
They also bought Montgomery Ward and stuff.
Now they are gone, absorbed by Exxon.
--
Too much money causes businesses to look for ways to spend the cash in pursuit of CEO and shareholder greed.
Today's capitalism calls for asymptotic growth in periods measured in nanosecomds.
In this regard, Apple is next.
Apple has more ash than God and has no visionary (Jobs) to guide them as to how to spend it.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
(ducks)
Look, the problem is how the market exists, and how it will change, not in how it used to be.
IBM rolled into services, having initially come from services.
MSFT started with OS and apps, but is fighting three different wars:
1. Tiny tech. Stuff that is so small nobody will ever pay for an OS for it. It's in the background. Do you ever think "oh, my new fridge and toaster need a fancy Kenmore OS, not some Braun OS". Nope. Wearables don't care. Only Apple (which amounted to a large share of MSFT apps market share, originally) has managed to make people pay for that.
2. Ubiquitous Linux blade servers. Nobody cares what your database and AI runs on. Oh, at trade shows they pretend they do, but IRL they don't. Cheap fast quick reliable wins every day.
3. Cell/mobile vs Desktop/Server. MSFT has never grokked cell or mobile. Ever. Still don't. They keep trying to chrome it up, and they aren't Apple, so it never works.
Thing is, you think MSFT gets most of their money from stuff and services they sell. They don't. They get it from all the bits and pieces of companies they own.
(caveat: many of my friends got rich off of MSFT or Apple or IBM, and my first house was from selling MSFT stock I bought below book value on Black Friday stock crash)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Many years ago, when I was working for a large company dominant in the mobile business, I was discussing my ideas for a new mobile device with a potential venture capitalist. I explained that I could handle the design just fine, I just needed someone to go sell it to the large consumer electronics distributors. His reply floored me:
"Yes, but I don't know any telecom guys..."
Here was someone who, because I worked for a telecom, could not grasp that I could work in any other field. He had a degree in MIS, and had hired consultants, yet couldn't get it out of his head that I could/would work in any field other than the one I was currently employed. I had even done mobile device development for other companies, I just wasn't doing it now.
I then realized that this is part of the reason why large companies ossify and die. The venture capitalists and business types honestly cannot even conceive of doing business in any way differently than they do today. For them, Microsoft will always be a PC company, and as the PC market goes, so goes Microsoft. It's a rule, XBOX notwithstanding.
Even should the executives at Microsoft come up with a revolutionary new idea, the best they'll get from the finance guys is a blank stare when they try to get funding for it. Since they've been so successful with PC operating systems and office, why would they invest in anything else?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Not sure this is a meaningful comparison. IBM is an extremely diverse company with very successful R&D that has generated many patents and new products, and they already staged a major comeback in the late 90s when many had written them off. My impression is that Microsoft's efforts to diversify in some fundamental, meaningful way have largely failed, keeping the vast majority of their eggs in one basket and making them far more susceptible to loss of relevance and revenue.
I used to work exclusively with WM on industrial (rugged) devices and it was huge in a lot of enterprise scale applications like mail service, warehousing, point of sale, etc. Everything was great until MS started flapping around trying to decide if they wanted to have Windows Embedded or Phone or Handheld or whatever the fuck. One thing enterprise customers DO NOT LIKE is uncertainty.
So they started switching to Android because at least they know what they are getting and that it will be supported in the future. Microsoft did NOT understand their market for Windows Mobile. Or maybe they did when they started and forgot, or new blood came in and bollocks-ed up the works.
The troubling trend is not that Microsoft is abandoning the business it never had. It's that it is abandoning the business it still dominates in order to bet on the business in which they are a distant second. They are literally abandoning the desktop in order to benefit their cloud business. They are doing everything they can to make a Windows desktop just a heavy terminal to their cloud solutions. They overburden it with telemetry. They don't let desktop office caches to store templates downloaded from the net for more than a limited period. They are willing to give away MSVS as long as the help is only viewed online (the paid version has a local copy of help). They end of life systems which are less reliant on network and which are more local-media centered. It's all turning a Windows desktop into a Chromebook. Well, guess what? The market hates Chromebook. People like desktop as a self-contained autonomous serverless jack knife solution. If they use a Windows Desktop, they are not looking for an over performing client to the network. They are looking for a network-capable all-in-one solution. This is the niche which made Windows XP (and to a lesser extent Windows 7) the most successful consumer desktop operating system of all time. Windows XP survived for 15 years essentially unchanged. And that's an operating system used by end users. There is a golden middle between too much and too little and it can only be discovered through experimenting -- not through careful planning. Once you've discovered it, it is plainly arrogant to think you can outthink and out-plan the evolution.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
One pesky fact about this fading business...
Quarterly Revenue:
June 30, 2005 10.16B
June 30, 2011 17.37B
June 30, 2017 23.32B
The idea that Microsoft is dependent on Windows revenue at this point is laughably out of date. They gave the last version away!
Of course they still rely on the lock-in that comes from Windows huge software library.. but Microsoft is less dependent on the OS than at any time in its history since it got into the OS market. Unless you count Azure as an OS.. all the eggs are going in that basket now. Office 365 is hugely important as well.
Microsoft has several billion dollar a year products now. Get with the times, people.