“Microsoft cuts 5,000 jobs. That’s the big news of the week. Not just because the layoffs will cut one in 20 of Microsoft’s 91,000 employees. Not only because it signals just how hard Microsoft has been hurt by the failure of Vista and by shifts in the way big customers license and use software. Not even because of the grim sign it represents for the rest of the IT industry,” Frank Hayes writes for Computerworld. “No, it’s big because it means Microsoft has begun to hit bottom.”
“And it’s about time. For the past couple of decades, we’ve been referring to Microsoft as the new IBM. But Microsoft has never learned the lessons of the original IBM — not even the ones that Microsoft forced Big Blue to learn,”Hayes writes.
“It’s easy to understand why Microsoft hasn’t learned that lesson from IBM. This is Microsoft, after all. It has a lock on its markets. It has customers over a barrel. It’s the 800-pound gorilla of the IT world, and it has been for as long as anyone at the company can remember,” Hayes writes. “Of course, all those things were true of IBM, too.”
“Microsoft has been coasting for years on Windows and Office. Those have been the cash cows that enabled the company to fumble its way through years of halfhearted ‘innovation’ and watered-down imitation. Microsoft has lost ground (or never gained a footing) in search versus Google, music players versus Apple, Web browsers versus Firefox,” Hayes writes. “Worse still, Microsoft has forgotten how to improve even those cash-cow products. Office 2007 is a mess for usability. Vista is a disaster in almost every way.
Hayes writes, “And now, Microsoft has begun to hit bottom financially, too. It’s not all the way down yet. There’s a lot more pain to come.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Karma is one seriously beautiful bitch.
As we have always said, even as many short-sightedly waved (and continue to wave) the white flag, the war is not over. And, yes, we shall prevail. For the naysayers: In 1929, Ford held just over 61% of the U.S. market for automobiles. GM’s market share stood at just 12%. Ford was thought to be invincible, with GM regarded as a niche auto maker. Probably, some analyst at the time said, “The reality is, long term, GM will always be a niche player.” But, in 1936, just seven years later, Ford held just 22% of the market for new automobiles while General Motors held a 43% share. No company is invincible. Not even Microsoft. – MacDailyNews Take, January 10, 2005
