Alistair Croll writes about Microsoft for GigaOM.
Microsoft is fighting a war — one in which it’s being attacked on three sides. … what emerges is the Redmond giant’s three-pronged defense strategy: consumer, enterprise and developer.
What emerges is that consumers who have previously been buying nothing but Windows don’t care about what operating system or productivity software they run.
What emerges is that Vista was a complete mule and we have corporations, including Microsoft, backpedaling away from it as quickly as their stumpy little legs will carry them.
What emerges is that nothing exciting comes from Redmond. Sure – big hoopla about Silverlight (been done) or telescopes (been done) but really, what’s new? A $10000 coffee table to compete with the iPhone? Brilliant. How about something else to cement the fact that you’re burning through tax dollars (via relocation of facilities to other states to avoid taxes in Washington state).
They could have seen these things coming. Look how Apple bungled the music on computers thing. And now they’re the biggest name in that market. Look how long people begged Apple to make a PDA or a phone? They did both and now they’re taking the headlines in that market. Microsoft is the epitome of “Not Invented Here” syndrome, they’re the Typhoid Mary as well as the decomposing body. Build your new infrastructure on Microsoft technology and if you succeed, expect to get Zuned.
Don’t write off Microsoft: We were here once before, when Netscape was going to put the company out of business. But Gates issued an edict, the company turned on a dime, and a few years later IE was the dominant web browser.
Which is, of course, complete tosh. Netscape was never going to put Microsoft out of business because people still needed desktop PCs to run Netscape, desktop PCs running Windows. What put Netscape out of business was canny business deals (which turned out to be illegal) and making Netscape’s revenue source worthless (by releasing a free browser that was “good enough”).
Microsoft didn’t turn on a dime, they ‘bought’ a browser and screwed over a startup company or two.
Microsoft bores me and not even Scoble’s tears can make me look at them with anything but a jaded and cynical eye. Hear that, Microsoft, you’re yesterday, you’re last week, you’re nineteen-ninety-fucking-seven. Just bloody die already, will you?
I think it’s probably important to point out that much of today’s rant was birthed from a conversation regarding open standards and file formats over email.