“When Steve Jobs came back [to Apple], one of the first things he did was run a razor over the product lines, to make them easy to differentiate and easy to choose between,”Mark Webster blogs or The New Zealand Herald.
Now, “Microsoft is looking increasingly like Apple did in the mid ’90s. Which version of Vista would you like? Have fun choosing,” Webster writes. “Another factor may be security. Despite the half-decade struggle by Microsoft to protect Windows against malicious software, it’s spreading faster than ever. The New York Times says “As more business and social life has moved onto the Web, criminals thriving on an underground economy of credit card thefts, bank fraud and other scams rob computer users of an estimated $100 billion a year… There has been a 43 percent jump in malware removed from Windows computers just in the last half year. This is according to Microsoft’s own monitoring.”
Webster writes, “Microsoft’s latest ad campaigns were supposed to seize the initiative from Apple but they don’t look to have succeeded. Despite hiring maverick ad firm Crispin Porter & Bogusky (whose principles are Mac users, by the way) to run the campaign, it doesn’t seem to have made much impact. The agency’s latest idea is … ‘softwear.’ It’s T-shirts, geddit? Microsoft T-shirts. ‘Soft wear’. To me, that smacks of desperation. Where’s that razor when you need it?”
Full article here.
Microsoft ought to try selling Emperor Gates’ clothes instead; they’re still new, never been worn, and they’d generate 100% pure profit.
Let MSFT stew in its own juices.
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The question that people should be asking is can Apple be saved from that pathetic moron Jobs? I’ll say it again: overpriced proprietary machines that don’t work in the enterprise is a recipe for disaster. You MAC lemmings can thank Jobs for that. Dorks.
Besides, Microsoft doesn’t need to be saved, and if it did, Ballmer is essentially Superman without the cape. I wish Microsoft would oust Ballmer then rehire him a few years down the road to show Jobs how it’s done.
I’m a PC.
Your potential. Our passion.™
No one person can save Microsoft. The problem with Microsoft isn’t just Ballmer — it’s their corporate culture, a entangled morass of little fiefdoms that get in each other’s way. The Mini-Microsoft blog was very good in describing how it worked, or rather, how it didn’t.
Any new head of Microsoft won’t change anything unless he’s willing to dive into the depths of the org chart and lop off heads right and left. Microsoft needs to be disassembled down to the ground and rebuilt.
——RM
Microsoft helped Apple out some in the past and gave us Microsoft Office, so I think helping them out would be the right thing to do. Don’t get all caught up in our victory and forget the past, it’ll bite us in the ass later. Also, competition is good.
I’d buy the Bill Gates mugshot shirt …..
…. and add the legend “Wanted for crimes against humanity”
Without a company whose OS is worse than Apple’s would Apple fanbois have a reason to feel justified excusing the flaws of OS X?
MS is like a Frankenstein’s monster — too many disparate parts — all working against each other, controlled with a sociopath’s brain.
The blood (read: money) [yes, I see the pun] would be better used to keeping alive Innovation.
MS-enstein, is riddled with cancer (read: rapacious greed). Let it die. Let something else live.
Competition is good. But, MS-enstein, doesn’t compete. It kills everything in it’s sight. It is an economy of one. And in it’s mind, deservedly so.
Those bags of ‘blood’ need to go to other beings.
None can save M$: it’s doomed!
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DN RIP
Microsoft is in a far far better position right now than Apple was in when Steve Jobs returned as the iCEO.
All Microsoft needs is a leader who is willing to focus on Microsoft’s core business competencies and cut just about everything else. That’s what Steve Jobs did for Apple. For Microsoft, that would be Windows and Office, and maybe Xbox. Above all else, Microsoft needs to release a version of Windows that people actually want to buy when it’s not installed by default on a new computer. “Like Vista, only better” is not going to cut it.
@Larry
If MS don’t provide people what they want or need, they have no right to appropriate time, resources and people into unproductive ends. And MS falling wouldn’t suddenly mean Apple then became the only kid on the block; there would be plenty of competition, whether from new startups, Linux, HP, what is left of Dell (perhaps) and so on.
Companies that no longer produce things people want don’t deserve to be perpetually funded out of nostalgia.
Just think of the numbers of new companies or future tech industry employees MS’s workforce could be part of after the fall!
@kentw
Yeah, if MS shut down the Windows program and concentrated on coding software for other platforms (like in the 80s) it has a chance to survive — there’s no doubt it would be a good strategy for the company.
However, given the sheer monstrous size of the company currently, and how embedded it is in enterprise and government markets, its own licensing agreements have become its greatest burden, as those markets are typically hostile to change and innovation. This means MS won’t be able to back out of its agreements too easily without leaving (potentially) vital infrastructure stranded.
An alternative is that Bill could create a separate company to complete exclusively with Apple et al in the home computer market by following Steve’s philosophy of hardware/software, whilst the ‘old’ MS focuses entirely on enterprise.
“dhdave, you sound like one of those armchair philosophers who get all trippy over questions like “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Microsoft is not a vacuum that needs to be filled.”
Nothing philosophical about it. Companies with no competition become bloated and complacent, like Microsoft. Apple is as good as it is because it fights for every percent of market share it wins. Without MS to be the Ying to Apple’s Yang Apple becomes bloated and complacent. Why bother fighting when there’s nothing to fight for? I have no love for MS, which is why I don’t wish to see Apple become them. Trip on that.
What an request from the Zune Thang:
“I wish Microsoft would oust Ballmer then rehire him a few years down the road to show Jobs how it’s done.”
You mean get rid of the CEO then rehire him again JUST LIKE APPLE did? Hey, we know how it’s done at Microsoft…copy Apple (or some other company).
I’m a PC. You are a PC we are all PCs…except for Microsoft, they don’t make PCs.
A Microsoft copy. An Apple original.™
Could Steve Jobs save Microsoft?
Wrong question. Try WHY would Steve Jobs save Microsoft?
MS is messed up beyond anyone’s means to un-fsck it. MS will have to collapse and die first, then others can pick through the remains.
“loopy_nj,
Apple buy that behemoth of spaghetti code called Office?
Now, that is loopy.”
Nooooo! Gah, I hate Microsoft Office so much. I wish iWork were available on Linux and especially Windows. It’d be nice to give them a breath of fresh air with a productivity suite that (gasp) actually works well!
On second thought, if Apple bought Office, they could turn it into a set of software that worked properly, and their increased market share would bring in enterprise customers and home consumers.
All Microsoft needs is a leader who is willing to focus on Microsoft’s core business competencies and cut just about everything else.
MS already has that leader. Steve Ballmer.
Seriously, what are MS’s real competencies? Re-marketing product and milking legacy!
MS certainly can’t program anything new, they’ve proven that. But they can dress up (i.e. re-market) their old products every few years, witness Vista/Win7 and Office 2007. And that legacy milk just keeps coming via entrenchment licensing.
All Microsoft needs is a leader who is willing to focus on Microsoft’s core business competencies and cut just about everything else. That’s what Steve Jobs did for Apple. For Microsoft, that would be Windows and Office, and maybe Xbox. Above all else, Microsoft needs to release a version of Windows that people actually want to buy when it’s not installed by default on a new computer. “Like Vista, only better” is not going to cut it.
MS’s core, money making products are Windows, Office, and Windows Server and related back office products. XBox is a money loser; kill it, or sell it off / spin it off into its own company. Kill the Zune. Kill the keyboards and mice. Kill the Internet efforts – MSN , Live, etc.
Microsoft needs to return to its core if they wish to survive, and not to go chasing after every new thing where there are already market leaders (Google in search, Apple in MP3 players, etc.) These wild goose chases stem from their desire to control everything. The world is too big a place for them to control everything. That is the lesson they need to learn.
Anybody could save MS except Uncle Fester.
I know this is a Mac fan site and the rule is to preach to the choir.
But just remember, 85% of ipod users sync it to some version of Windows (xp, 2000, vista, server 2003, server 2008).
Second, without microsoft office, regardless of what the advertising folks at Google and Open Office say, alot less students will buy a mac.
lastly, it is rather illogical to say that Apple is to save microsoft, becuase steve jobs personally went to Bill gate’s house to personally beg him to continue making Office for the Mac and for Microsoft to become a major shareholder in Apple. Secondly, what is there to save microsoft from? They just made record number profit in the previous quarter.