“The negative feelings about Microsoft and within Microsoft have many people thinking that this is the moment in time where the giant will finally crumble. Apple will own the media market, Google will become synonymous with the internet, Linux will power all servers and the Xbox 360 will be stillborn in anticipation of the more powerful PS3. Microsoft will be left collecting scraps, eking out a few billion here and there, still profitable, but no longer the ultra powerful corporate monolith it once was,” Chris Seibold writes for Apple Matters.
“Everybody may be scoffing at the ineptness that typifies Microsoft of late but they are making a mistake when they expect that trend to continue. Microsoft has far too large of a head start, too many resources and a market position that is so advantageous that it is just a matter of time before every little thing starts breaking Microsoft’s way again,” Seibold writes.
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft has lost its focus. If it doesn’t figure out what it wants to be and do, and get a handle on its mess of an operating system (security, roadmap, quality), no amount of money is going to help. It’s not as impossible for Microsoft to fail as Seibold ultimately paints, but the article is a good read and thought-provoking.
It’ll be 20 years before MS finally breaks up into little pieces that will be bought up by the same companies that MS tried to destroy.
As much as i’d like to see it. This isn’t going to happen. As soon as they release MadCow or whatever, people will be all over it. It’s not going to be as stable, as virus-free or as user friendly as Tiger but you can bet the press on it is going to be huge. Microshaft lovers will have much to rejoice about and they’ll be back on top again. (in their own eyes of course)
Twenty years? The picture at the end of 2006 will be very, very different for everybody.
MDN’s take is right on – M$ gained its position by Gates’ business saavy – it maintains its position by the illusion that it’s the only viable choice in the marketplace for consumers.
If this illusion is broken, M$ will be forced to compete with Apple and Linux on its merits – game over. Apple’s top priority, now that OSX is such a huge leap ahead of XP, should be to let everyone know about it.
Also what was not mentioned in the article is FireFox the great open-source browser that is dethroning IE. and with IE 7 ppl are gonna find waye to have adware on it so firefox can w=and does use google so it will be hard to overthrow google and firefox. its only a matter of months until IE is a 80% and firefox is at 15%.
Microsoft should focus on there operating system for security and stability. So far to date they have not and are starting to see the results. Having leadership like Steve Balmer is not helping either. He is in this fantasy world all his own. He needs to wake up out of his little dream and start looking really hard at what’s happening. But some how I don’t think that will happen.
Look to IBM for your model of whats happening to MS.
and also Apple just needs to start a HUGE TV campaign like the ipods in a stylish way so that everyone will have one. Then apple should probaly bundle Firefox with Mac os x and safari.
Get real folks. Microsoft still has 90+ % of the desktop market. The average business isn’t going to go with Mac or Linux desktops because it’s not the kind of conservative thing corporate IT managers do. Sorry, but Microsoft is going to be around for a while.
what is it with this axel-F soundtrack in the advertisements here?
it scared the buggery out of me – and it’s late, here in oz, 12.26am – so it’s lucky it didn’t wake anyone up.
adverts i can stand, even pop-ups i can stand, but mobile phone ring tone advertisements with LOUD CRAP MUSIC are really poor form. i don’t come to MDN expecting audio. can we please not have multimedia advertising here? thanks.
“AppleMatter”
Give me a break. I thought this came from a reputable news source.
I agree with taxi. I like to read MDN also @ work. So, it isn’t nice when those Jamba sounds are playing so loud. Hell, everybody knows I’m not working.
agreed-
Don’t under estimate the competition. If they are forced to compete on merit, they just may buy the best programmers and designers out there.
They have the money; they just haven’t had to spend it on good programming or design yet. And don’t forget that they got to market dominance without competing on merit, so why would that change now?
If the majority of computer illiterate people “think” they have to have Windows, that’s what there going to buy even if it does suck. Hence the 95% market share…
You know what well really kill M$ is that Apple really start flooding the market with its ads on their products. The time is now. People are tried of M$ problems, Tried of spending money on companys like Dell to fix their computers, because of M$ patch up system. HO wait look like a another patch is coming. Apple need to show the world what it can do, not to people that knows computers but the millions of people who don’t know one thing about computers. The other day a guy came up to the store person and ask for a good computer for his famliy. Not to say name of the place ( COMPUSA) and the kid said well you got sony, ibm ,dell is very good and hp. I look at him like he had three heads. I look at the kid and said that he was wrong for tell the man about a good computer. Those company are all the same cause of the systems that they use (M$) Why didn’t you tell about Apple and he said he don’t know anything about Apple, just about their Ipods and it a good looking computer. Apple you need to get out there to make a name for you’re self. I’m a mac man for life and M$ hater till death and beyond
Considering that Microsoft, even without any significant new products on the market (OS or applications), is still generating $2 Billion per month in cash flow (on top of their $60 Billion cash already on the balance sheet), I think it is a bit of ridiculous to think they will be in any real trouble in the near future.
Maybe in 10-15 years, if everyone at Microsoft really screws up.
I doubt they will ‘crumble’ but they are looking a lot like IBM in the late 80’s. I doubt MS will ‘go away’ but it may get a lot worse before it gets better.
Micro$oft is not crumbling, it is just no longer the dictating software company.
Microsoft is heading into a period where other companies founded and run by extraordinary people reach a phase where the company founders reach the capacity of their abilites and need to do succession planning.
With a company the size of Microsoft, finding new leadership will be very difficult (as IBM, Apple and others have found out).
Frankly, I see Microsoft eventually breaking into disparate parts because the whole is too hard to manage. Maybe in a decade? In any case, change of some sort is always guaranteed.
All it would take is Balmer to retire, Gates hires some new guy and boom, Microsoft is reborn.
Never count a giant monopoly out. Microsoft has a huge lock on the computer biz.
And never think that Apple is going to be the new monopoly (which it is) to take over the old monopoly.
The whole computer biz is maturing, nothing new out there in computer hardware or software or operating systems, just evolutions of the old, making it better and smaller and more things in one.
Microsoft should give a big part of its huge $50 billion in cash reserves back to share holders.
It is time for Microshaft and the masses to wake up and realize that their current OS is a threat to national security and stability. Imagine how much more secure our information would be if fewer people and businesses used alternative OS’s.
Not to mention the national bandwidth that would be spared without the massive amounts of spam and such…
XBox 360 is gonna be a huge hit. Watch it happen. As for Apple, they have quite the hurdle to jump to get users to switch. People are PROGRAMMED to think that their isn’t an alternative, and the guys at the front lines work at Best Buy and Office Max, etc. They are the MS Clones, robots working for the evil empire, and they are the people that Joe Average thinks knows best. I’d be very happy to see Apple claim 10% before Longhorn. And then who knows how good or easy Longhorn is going to be. If MS screws that up, maybe we’ll see more…
I’m hoping this DOESN’T happen. I’d like to see Apple’s marketshare grow some, but I don’t ever want them to be where MS is now. The company would be forced to grow as well, and, historically speaking, after a certain point, the bigger a company gets the more they lose control over the details. As the saying goes, God is in the details. Apple is better at being a niche player. It’s better for them and better for us. We need MS to be around to provide the unwashed masses with their unwashed OS.
Hmmm….
Wonder how long before Microsoft gets the moniker of “beleagured software giant, Microsoft Inc. …”
Hmmm….
What people dont realise is that we are not in the 1980’s!
In the modern age Microsoft has very little advantage over other companies.
Business and society has been moving to open source for many years (‘Empowerment’). People do not want to be ‘channeled’ into doing everything just one way these days and to be dictated by a huge monoploy.
Prime example: Quark!
Why – They had a monopoly in the design/desktop publsihing market for years and treated their customers like crap, didn’t innovate, losey customer care and buggy upgrades that didnt work.
Along came Adobe with Indesign and have wipped Quarks ass. By far the better program and is 10 years infront of Xpress. All my fellow design colleagues use Indesign.
Sounds familiar?
Look at Microsoft today… the same will happen to them.
Only it will be Apple that will be the ‘Adobe’ in this example.