“Is Microsoft dying? The health of established firms, especially great ones, is more difficult to diagnose. The balance sheet can give some clues, but, because it captures the recent past rather than the near future, it can fool you. Most veteran reporters look at more subtle clues, like the comings and goings of key employees, slippage in the release dates of new products (or missing features), and subtle shifts in the tone of company news releases, advertisements and executive speeches. But most of all, at least for me, there is the smell test: the faintest whiff of decay that comes from dying companies,” Michael S. Malone writes for ABC News.
“Great, healthy companies not only dominate the market, but share of mind. Look at Apple these days. But when was the last time you thought about Microsoft, except in frustration or anger? The company just announced a powerful new search engine, designed to take on Google — but did anybody notice? Meanwhile, open systems world — created largely in response to Microsoft’s heavy-handed hegemony — is slowly carving away market share from Gates & Co.: Linux and Firefox hold the world’s imagination these days, not Windows and Explorer. The only thing Microsoft seems busy at these days is patching and plugging holes. Speaking of Gates: if you remember, he was supposed to be going back into the lab to recreate the old MS alchemy. But lately it seems — statesmanship being the final refuge of the successful entrepreneur — that he’s been devoting more time to philanthropy than capitalism. And though Steve Ballmer is legendary for his sound and fury, these days his leadership seems to be signifying nothing,” Malone writes.
“Now the company seems to have trouble executing even the one task that should take precedence over everything else: getting “Longhorn,” its Windows replacement, to market. Longhorn is now two years late. That would be disastrous for a beloved product like the Macintosh, but for a product that is universally reviled as a necessary, but foul-tasting, medicine, this verges on criminal insanity. Or, more likely, organizational paralysis,” Malone writes. “Microsoft is still the dominant company in high-tech, the cynosure of all those things people love and hate about computing, the defining company of our time. It is huge, powerful and confident. But if you sniff the air, you can just make out the first hints of rot.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’d like to answer the headline’s question in bit of a sideways manner with a quote from WinInfo’s Paul Thurrott, “A Microsoft executive told CNET this week that Longhorn Beta 1 will ship by the end of second quarter 2005 (i.e., June)… According to my sources at the company, current build 5xxx versions of Longhorn look almost exactly like XP and don’t have many interesting new features. If Microsoft doesn’t pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat soon, Longhorn is going to edge so far into joke territory that no one will be interested.” Thurrott’s full article here.
It seems that the odor of decay has finally gotten so bad that even the Microsoft Kool-Aid drinkers are now starting to report that something smells bad in Redmond. Moo.
BM…. hmmmm…. now THERE’s a convergence of concepts!
I don’t relish the demise of M$, imminent or otherwise – who would we love to hate?
MW – “forces” – as in a future headline: The global marketplace FORCES M$ to reorganize as it sells off assets…
The new iMac will crush Microsoft. Check it out here:
http://www.taylorgifts.com/prodetail.asp?itemNo=23036&ID=NN
May Billy rest in peace.
Interesting take, BuriedCaesar. It’s true: if Microsoft dies or shrinks into obscurity, who will be the next enemy?
I still remember when it was IBM, and Microsoft was considered mainly an early supported, albeit an unruly one…then Apple started using IBM processors, and Microsoft became the enemy…
Maybe Linux would be a good candidate. After all, there is already an existing enmity between BSD and Linux which could be built upon.
Tell the world what you really think about Apple here:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2005/02/11/cx_jp_0211polldujour.html
Don’t get too cocky.
All Longhorn has to do is be good enough.
While OS X has to be exceptional. Apple has little room for error.
It will be a lot easier for the world to convert to Longhorn than it will be to convert to OS X.
Microsoft aren’t an enemy of Apple. They are an enemy of every innovative company in the tech field. I think this is the main reason virus writers target MS. Yeah, Windows is easy to crack into, but it was only when the DOJ were seen as doing nothing to stop their demonic ideas about extreme capitalism (ie competitors must DIE!) that the security problems really started.
Bad karma. They’ve stored up so much, and it’s coming right back at them.
“if Microsoft dies or shrinks into obscurity, who will be the next enemy?”
Dell. (OK they’re an enemy now, but if MS fizzles Dell will be THE enemy).
Microsoft is already dead… though they will keep on making billions – like an ageing rock group. Cause of death? (as always) they thought they were the hosts of the party and found out they were merely guests. Whilst they dance to their tune everyone else moves on to a new beat.
The new enemy? APPLE – long live the enemy!
Computers need to be completely redesigned. We need innovation and acceptance of new ideas. As a society. Apple is better, but the Mac is too complicated and based on awkward interfaces too.
It will be good when MS is shoved aside. Maybe they will rebuilt thier Office suite so Apple doesn’t have to.
Yes MS will die but it would be an AT&T kind of death. The worst kind in my opinion. It will begin selling its divisons and one day people will talk about it like they did about MaBell.
But then again all things must pass. So don’t buy any flowers yet.
“Dell. (OK they’re an enemy now, but if MS fizzles Dell will be THE enemy).”
will be the enemy without a head
Apple are a very good hardware design company, but they price their items as high as they can get away with. They often use older technology to keep margins high. Design though is paramount and keeps us interested.
On the software site though, Apple have much to learn from their hardware design team. MUCH better than Winblows, but still not there. I know it takes a LONG time to build an OS, especially when it has to do so much. That’s the problem though.
Can’t an OS do less, better? OS X is a monster. It’s very very slow on the UI and many other tasks. Apple should do better than this. Tiger will be better, but how much? Quartz and Aqua might not have been such a great idea. I think it was just what they had at the time and now we’re stuck with it. Pretty, yes, but sloooow.
Ah, well, maybe the Cell processor will be the answer to all of this speed and flexibility problem.
—But if you sniff the air, you can just make out the first hints of rot.
Typical understatement — it’s been stinking to high hell for a while now. Gates was naked with Conan.
That’s my point Knock Knock. I hope Apple achieve such a significant market share that ‘fans’ – such as many of the lackeys on here – will begin to feel confident enough to begin offering positive criticism of the company’s many faults (rather than the naff ‘underdog is best’ attitude).
Faults such as the truly appalling inability for the OS X finder menus to live update (causing me hours of frustration opening the wrong files whilst the SLOW finder rearranges itself… and only then after I’ve clicked back into the menu. And faults like the crappy new Apple Mice. I’ve already dumped my new wireless mouse as virtually unusable (slow, HEAVY, and unresponsive), and am now about to replace my replacement ‘Pro’ mouse with my old trusty Apple ‘ball’ mouse. Why can’t Apple realise – with all it’s emphasis on ‘DESIGN” – that a mouse needs a feel of ‘traction’ beneath it for it to be have the same effortless ease as using a pencil? These new mice feel like skating on (thin) ice.
The paradox is, of course, that no matter how zippy the new processors become – it’s all a wasted effort if struggling with flashy – but poorly designed – hardware and software make everything twice as long to do!
Sometimes I yearn for the natural ‘ease-of use’ of OS9 and would trade any amount of much trumpeted ‘search’ facilities, window swopping, widgets etc etc to have this back!
Signed,
An Apple Fan.
“The costs to the developed world will be far greater than the cost of keeping Microsoft on the machines. It would literaly cause economies to grind to a halt”
That’s overstating the case somewhat; OK, a hell of a lot. The global economy really is like an ecosystem; something big dies, there’ll be a hell of a stench for a while, but then the carcass will provide sustenance for multitudes of smaller organisms. If Microsoft collapses dramatically, there would probably some temporary concern, but that doesn’t mean that their products would cease to operate as well. Entities dependent on MS software would continue to use them, then take their time to seek alternatives when the time came to upgrade their systems. This is the vacuum that other companies and technologies would step forward to fill.
But a company of Microsoft’s size, with Microsoft’s managerial talent, and Microsoft’s mountain of cash ($64 billion and growing), doesn’t simply fall down like an old building, or dry up and blow away. If they refused to change and clung stubbornly to their core businesses, they could still afford to lose money for years before they had to fold up the tent. Warren Buffett once said that he would have no idea how to run Microsoft, but that he could put Bill Gates in charge of any division of any of his companies and be confident that they’d make money.
If forced to change fundamently, Microsoft has the talent and resources to reinvent itself as a powerhouse in any of many fields, particularly as a financial instution. This is not as peculiar as it sounds, because in reality Microsoft now, today, is not a software company; they’re a profit machine. They have a truly colossal investment portfolio, with large stakes in many, many other companies, and they know how to manage information.
If Microsoft breaks up into smaller companies, they could still be huge players. Look at what Standard Oil’s fragments became, Exxon, Mobil, Sonoco etc., and how powerful the Baby Bells turned out. During the DoJ’s pursuit of Microsoft, I remember one analyst saying his biggest fear would be if they dismantled Microsoft: “They’re going to break up a shark into a school of piranha.” If Gates maintains shares in the smaller companies, he could become even wealthier than before, as John D. Rockefeller did when he refused to sell his shares in the smaller oil companies. His reply to his advisers was that he was only casting many smaller nets instead of one big one, and he was right.
Remember the ancient Arab proverb and be careful what you wish for. A fragmented Microsoft may well be more powerful and influential than a monolithic one.
Too bad BeOS never caught on. In demos I saw years ago at MacWorld, it was better and way faster than OSX. Maybe Microsoft will buy it from Palm. I would switch from the slow dog Mac OSX to Be in a second.
BeSmart,
Be smart and stop dreaming. BeOS was far from finished, and it would take Microsoft, or any other company, years of further development to turn out a ready-for-prime time platform, as well as lure enough developers to make the platform worthwhile. This was the main reason that Apple chose to buy NeXT instead of Be. NeXT had an extensive and polished developer environment that Be could not match, and Apple realized that it would be easier to build on the NeXT’s BSD core and lure developers to the platform, no matter the technological and performance advantages that Be enjoyed. Be’s fantastic engineering team had the luxury of starting from a clean sheet of paper, so backward compatilibility was not an issue for them, as it is for Apple and especially Microsoft. Apple gambled that they had acquired a system that they could get out the door much quicker than Be, and then take the time to eventually match Be’s performance and features.
A very interesting article from a great source.
I’m finding that people like me,long time windows users, are just becoming fed up with the exponetionally increasing time, money and effort needed to keep Windows running.
I don’t see Windows getting any better for two or three years, if ever considering Microsoft’s track record. After considerable reflection I’ve decided that my present Windows machine is my last. It’s just not worth the effort to continue to use Windows.
A lot of my colleagues have also become frustrated as performance of their Windows machines have deteriorated due to corrupt registry systems or malware. After going through the yearly ritual of reformatting and reloading once to often they have come to the same conclusion; it’s just not worth the effort and are switching to Apple when it finally comes time to replace the old computer.
This is what’s going to kill Microsoft. People deciding it’s time to move on.
Yea Microsoft is dying…revenues of $36.84 billion last year… Apple could only dream of dying like this.
Give me a break.
Well, I don’t think M$ will totally collapse. I DO think they have hit and passed their high water mark on market share though. I would like to see Apple at between 10 and 20 percent market share. Big enough so that every major piece of software/game is ported, small enough that real innovation continues to occur.
Apple had been beleagured for 20 years… why can’t Microsoft be beleagured while doing 36B in business?
normal rational people are not saying that MS is dying.. what they’re saying is that they are becoming irrelevant in terms of innovation. They are becoming the K-Car of computer technology. it works, but with all the excitement of a colonoscopy.
steve jobs said in 1996 ” If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing.”
<http://www.computerbits.com/archive/1997/1000/mac9710.html>
i do believe him when he says stuff now. because its taken 9 nears, and he’s executing better than anyone anywhere could ever have hoped for.
oooh oooh that smell… can’t you smell that smell…
the smell of death surrounds you…….
Maybe the Redmond flavored koolaid has spoiled?? :-\