Following the criticism and perceived failure of Windows VIsta, the latest operating system from Microsoft, it has made me think about the direction in which Microsoft are going and how they fair against competitors in their markets.
The problem
There is no denying that Microsoft is a large company, both in terms of revenue and employees, but I can’t help but think that they are still spread quite thin by fighting battles on several fronts. There is the battle for operating system (server, desktop and mobile device), games console, web browser, MP3 player and search engine to name a few off the top of my head, and it isn’t like they are up against easy competition in those markets.
The operating system market is being increasingly competitive as Apple with their operating system, OS X are beginning to claw into Microsoft’s market share. Granted OS X has it’s own drawbacks and criticisms but they seem less significant as Windows Vista’s. Then there are the Linux distributions that are so vast you can find one for almost every solution (legacy hardware, server setup, HTPC), and with the introduction of the subnotebook (kicked off by the OLPC XO-1) which has helped the uptake of Linux for home users.
One area that Microsoft are doing particularly well in is the games console market with the XBox 360. They have managed to combine a good hardware setup with a good range of game titles which has meant that they hold the lion share of the next-generation games consoles. The fact that they decided to go with the HD-DVD format rather than Blu-ray when the format war hadn’t been decided was perhaps a bit naiive, but the consumers were willing to take that risk.
As a web developer it is an ongoing battle dealing with Internet Explorer. The poor rendering of HTML and CSS compared to other browsers that are available; Firefox, Opera and Safari etc. makes my job a lot harder than it should be, but for the while it’s another market that Microsoft dominates until the general desktop users get wise and decide to move over onto a better browser.
Zune? Who could forget the Zune? Well anyone could really. It was Microsoft’s attempt at recreating the success of the iPod which didn’t really work. I’m not really sure why it didn’t work as it had technical features akin to the iPod plus the ability to sync via wireless capabilities. I guess the iPod is just more fashionable and captured so much of the MP3 player market that it didn’t really stand a chance.
Then there’s the search engine market. It has been widely publicised that Microsoft are trying for force Yahoo’s hand into merging/being taken over by the giant. The search engine market is monopolised by Google and it looks like it will stay that way for a long time to come, for they have produced services that work well and do what the user’s want them to do. Microsoft and Yahoo’s failings I would attribute to them not knowing what they wanted to do. They are both portals that provide search functionality as well as the latest news, weather, stocks and shares info, film reviews etc. and so the focus is split. Google has maintained that it is just a search engine, yes it has branched out into other areas; Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Analytics, but they are supplimentary to the search engine which is where the main focus is at.
The solution
Unfortunately Microsoft have diversified so much that there is no magic bullet that would help them fight all their battles. However I would suggest that they try to narrow their focus and instead of trying to conquer all markets, concentrate on a few, but be really strong in those markets.
As a web developer I would suggest giving up on Internet Explorer, surely it’s a waste of their time (as it isn’t a paid for product) and it’s certainly a waste of my time spending hours sorting out browser quirks. I have already mentioned that the XBox 360 is doing really strong in the games console market, so that is a market I would still compete in as it would be stupid otherwise. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the Zune, which around 3 million units sold compared to the market leader, iPod’s 170 million, I’d give it up as a lost cause.
With regards to the search engine market, I can see why Microsoft still want to compete against Yahoo and Google as it is quite lucrative. Just look at where Google have got to! However in order ro succeed I think they strongly need to redefine their goals and what it is that they want to be. Do they want to be a portal or a search engine? Perhaps portals are a relic of the past which is why Google has become so successful.
Lastly there is the operating systems market. Now if I was in Ray Ozzie’s shoes as Chief Software Architect I would scrap any work that has been done on Windows 7 and bin all the previous work and start from scratch. I would take a leaf out of Apple’s book and develop upon Unix or Linux. I would ensure that all previous Windows applications would work on the new operating system, but not restricting them in to using the new operating system so that they could be used on any Linux distribution. I’d make the operating system free and perhaps charge for additional features, such as IIS, to be added which could be downloaded in a similar fashion to installing updates in Ubuntu. The main change I would enforce would be from generating income from developing the applications that work on the operating system, such as Microsoft Office, rather than generating income from the sales of the operating system itself.
