Microsoft resolve -- evolve or dissolve
Microsoft doesn't get half the credit it deserves from techies and too much from everyone else. Big secret: Software doesn't necessarily get better from more money. Microsoft still has the same development problems that everyone else has: testing, configuration management and testing. When you consider the amount of testing that the company has to conduct for every new line of code that they introduce, it's amazing that Windows works at all.
Bill Gates, like Henry Ford, forced much needed conformity on a complex and messy industry at a time when it needed it most. I remember how memory and serial ports were often incompatible with the rest of the system. The mature growth of the PC industry owes a lot to Microsoft and although it's easy to trash them for proprietary interfaces, they're still and have always been more open than Apple.
What I wonder is what now? Whither goes Redmond? Vista aside, I wonder if Microsoft has become marginalized as an Operating Systems company and commoditized as an Applications company. I think that it's time that they reinvented themselves again. They've done it before. Let's not forget that when they were the world's most valuable company ten years ago; they turned on a dime and drank the Internet Kool-Aid.
One strategy would be for them to get deeper into content. They've tried this and I believe, have been mostly unsuccessful for various reasons, many of which revolve around the fact that they're a geek company, not a media company.
Another possiblity would be to become the "trust" company and provide authentication services as a value-added layer on top of .net. To do this, they might do well to buy Verisign...
At one time I thought that Windows CE would own the embedded OS marketplace for gadgets, but I now believe that Linux has that one locked.
I think that the right answer is twofold: First, the company should break into two or three new companies, mostly to throw worldwide antitrust people off the scent; one for OS and one for applications . Second, lay some money down on some long odds possiblities. This might include grid computing, swarming device control software or identity management.
It's time for evolution.
When you're the biggest fish in the pond, sometimes it's a signal to drop the gills and invent feet.
Posted on January 17, 2006
