Microsoft does not need to plan software obsolescence. The market does this for everyone. Imagine what kind of software we used 10 years ago before the internet became mainstream. Imagine 10 years from now when the net and other connecting technologies are embraced more fully around the world. The requirements people have of software change as we use them, and the only way any entity can incorporate those new requirements are to ask for migrations/upgrades. I don't believe Microsoft somehow is in a unique position in this regard. What is unique however, is that they have the most revenue at risk.
In light of that, what is MS doing to keep their market share? Its entry into new geographical markets is one way of growth. The other is its investment via acquisitions to participate in new market segments such as security. The third, and I think very important step they are making is in the area of Windows CE which has the potential to broaden its reach even more so than it currently stands. I do not see MS standing idly by as the market gets past it - in any case.
One the topic of "creative growth via acquisitions", almost every large and succesful company has followed this mantra. As token examples - witness GE (almost 2 acquistions every week was the norm while I worked there) and Cisco (what and when was the last thing it invented, again?). This strategy of acquistions fueled market exploration is not new - and I would argue that it is indeed powerful.
What may be more concerning is that the developed world has reached a short term saturation in terms of software capital expenditures. This will affect not just MS but other tech companies as well.
The bottom line for growth, as I see it, is 3 fold:
Provide a complelling value in new software whose purchase/ownership costs can significantly cut costs in other areas.
Explore the non-developed world with cheaper goods and services.
Move up the market with lifestyle products that can command higher premiums when marketed right.
Viewed this way, I believe Microsoft is making many moves in at least 2 of these fronts to guarantee its longterm viability and possibly sustain low single digit revenue growth.
As a long time user of both IE and Mozilla I have to say that I prefer IE to Mozilla. It has just been the only browser that worked as expected across all websites. With Mozilla I had to use the user agent swithcer extension on web sites that seemed to be rendering weirdly on it.
More recently, I decided to take Firefox out for a spin having heard a lot of hype around it. Frankly, other than the built in tabbed browsing, there really isnt anything about the browser that stands out from IE. IE users have long done tabbed browsing using facade browsers such as Avant anyway. The speed may be marginally improved on Firefox but on my broadband I cannot tell.
That leaves aspects such as security and privacy as the remaining points that Firefox lovers have been advocating as sufficient reasons to switch from IE. Hmmm, how exactly does one download extensions for Firefox? The process involves makign a manual election to download the.xpi file. This clearly offers a window of opportunity for "extension" writers to put in malware/spyware into my system (just as with active/X0. Infact, with some of the recent SPs, the extension mechanisms for IE and Firefox seem just about the same.
Given that, I agree with the assesment that as Firefox gains market share, so will it gain malware. Unless I have missed something in its composition that specifically addresses these concerns vis-a-vis IE.
Calling general messaging akin to SMTP is a bit far fetched at least:)
Elements of messaging systems now include:
a. Pub/Sub (how would SMTP support this?)
b. Point to point
c. Guaranteed delivery (at least once, at most once etc semantics). Associated persistence strategies need to be employed
d. Message Routing
e. Security
f. Business rules
g. Transformations
h. Multiple protocol support
i. Interfaces for multiple languages
I have left out a couple I'm sure, but this is where ESB is going today on the functional side. Putting in clustering, ease of management and performance visibility in the mix, we have a rather complex system.
I think opensource needs a high volume enterprise class messaging system badly and can't wait for one.
Ok, done pontificating for now
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In light of that, what is MS doing to keep their market share? Its entry into new geographical markets is one way of growth. The other is its investment via acquisitions to participate in new market segments such as security. The third, and I think very important step they are making is in the area of Windows CE which has the potential to broaden its reach even more so than it currently stands. I do not see MS standing idly by as the market gets past it - in any case.
What may be more concerning is that the developed world has reached a short term saturation in terms of software capital expenditures. This will affect not just MS but other tech companies as well.
The bottom line for growth, as I see it, is 3 fold:
Viewed this way, I believe Microsoft is making many moves in at least 2 of these fronts to guarantee its longterm viability and possibly sustain low single digit revenue growth.
More recently, I decided to take Firefox out for a spin having heard a lot of hype around it. Frankly, other than the built in tabbed browsing, there really isnt anything about the browser that stands out from IE. IE users have long done tabbed browsing using facade browsers such as Avant anyway. The speed may be marginally improved on Firefox but on my broadband I cannot tell.
That leaves aspects such as security and privacy as the remaining points that Firefox lovers have been advocating as sufficient reasons to switch from IE. Hmmm, how exactly does one download extensions for Firefox? The process involves makign a manual election to download the .xpi file. This clearly offers a window of opportunity for "extension" writers to put in malware/spyware into my system (just as with active/X0. Infact, with some of the recent SPs, the extension mechanisms for IE and Firefox seem just about the same.
Given that, I agree with the assesment that as Firefox gains market share, so will it gain malware. Unless I have missed something in its composition that specifically addresses these concerns vis-a-vis IE.
Calling general messaging akin to SMTP is a bit far fetched at least :)
Elements of messaging systems now include:
a. Pub/Sub (how would SMTP support this?)
b. Point to point
c. Guaranteed delivery (at least once, at most once etc semantics). Associated persistence strategies need to be employed
d. Message Routing
e. Security
f. Business rules
g. Transformations
h. Multiple protocol support
i. Interfaces for multiple languages
I have left out a couple I'm sure, but this is where ESB is going today on the functional side. Putting in clustering, ease of management and performance visibility in the mix, we have a rather complex system.
I think opensource needs a high volume enterprise class messaging system badly and can't wait for one.
Ok, done pontificating for now