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Why can' Microsoft get it right?
- Thread starter aditghai
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Speaking of which, I just had a friend switch. It took me ten years to convince him, but it happened. 
He said after Vista, he just gave up.
He said after Vista, he just gave up.
Microsoft was pretty ruthless in it's execution early on. They would just outspend other companies to become the monopoly they are today.
At this point, they are an extremely diversified conglomerate with focus on 20 different areas. They have a pretty tremendous R&D program. I think the biggest issues they have is project creep, code bloat and being able to move from R&D to a successful product.
Windows suffers from everything but the kitchen sink syndrome. With Win 7, they are starting to get back on track. MS was notorious for changing the API's and their frameworks every couple of years, forcing rewrites of existing code for newer OS's. That has slowed considerably since .NET was introduced.
They were caught off guard with the whole internet revolution, but have managed to buy their way back into the game. I think Google just kills them.
There's so many reasons they got things right and wrong...
I think their past is their biggest issue. The buy or conquer attitude has left them pretty hated in most circles. Kind of a necessary evil.
They still have a lot of momentum though, even if they stopped doing anything, they have a huge cash cow in Windows / Office / Internet offerings / Sql Server that they could survive on that alone.
The Monopoly / market share they command is unusual for any company in history. I don't think there's been any company in history that has commanded a 90+% market penetration for a market segment for so many years.
Apple is denting their reputation in the consumer space and MS is now retaliating. They really have nothing to fear from Apple except for mind share. Linux is a much bigger threat to them in the data center than Apple will be for the foreseeable future.
There recent missteps are just that. Late to market in a product segment they know nothing about. The iPod / iPhone was something that Apple had researched to death before they made a move on it. Microsoft was reactionary on both fronts and probably makes a decent product, but they came in so late to the party with no real advantage over what was already out there, its just dying a slow painful death. If they cut the Zune to $99 with the same functionality as the iPod touch, you might see a different story.
Xbox - Nice first attempt on their part. I think they've done a pretty good job of it. Either way, it's a mindshare product, not a huge contributor to the bottom line.
I know it's fun to bash MS, but the reality is, they still have no real competition in any one company, just a bunch of assaults in individual market segments. They've held up pretty well despite that.
At this point, they are an extremely diversified conglomerate with focus on 20 different areas. They have a pretty tremendous R&D program. I think the biggest issues they have is project creep, code bloat and being able to move from R&D to a successful product.
Windows suffers from everything but the kitchen sink syndrome. With Win 7, they are starting to get back on track. MS was notorious for changing the API's and their frameworks every couple of years, forcing rewrites of existing code for newer OS's. That has slowed considerably since .NET was introduced.
They were caught off guard with the whole internet revolution, but have managed to buy their way back into the game. I think Google just kills them.
There's so many reasons they got things right and wrong...
I think their past is their biggest issue. The buy or conquer attitude has left them pretty hated in most circles. Kind of a necessary evil.
They still have a lot of momentum though, even if they stopped doing anything, they have a huge cash cow in Windows / Office / Internet offerings / Sql Server that they could survive on that alone.
The Monopoly / market share they command is unusual for any company in history. I don't think there's been any company in history that has commanded a 90+% market penetration for a market segment for so many years.
Apple is denting their reputation in the consumer space and MS is now retaliating. They really have nothing to fear from Apple except for mind share. Linux is a much bigger threat to them in the data center than Apple will be for the foreseeable future.
There recent missteps are just that. Late to market in a product segment they know nothing about. The iPod / iPhone was something that Apple had researched to death before they made a move on it. Microsoft was reactionary on both fronts and probably makes a decent product, but they came in so late to the party with no real advantage over what was already out there, its just dying a slow painful death. If they cut the Zune to $99 with the same functionality as the iPod touch, you might see a different story.
Xbox - Nice first attempt on their part. I think they've done a pretty good job of it. Either way, it's a mindshare product, not a huge contributor to the bottom line.
I know it's fun to bash MS, but the reality is, they still have no real competition in any one company, just a bunch of assaults in individual market segments. They've held up pretty well despite that.
LOL
I agree.I've been using Windows since Win 3.1, programming in VB in 1991, Access since 1.1, SQL since the beginning.
IMO here are the issues:
<rant>
1. MS is the best MARKETING company in the industry. They can sell the software before it is anywhere near done. The software side of the business gets a C average. Sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse.
2. Their approach to software development seems to be large teams thrown into an effort. While they do get a complex system out, there tend to be way too many glitches. The products interfaces, sdks, etc. often seem to be overly complex. A camel is the result of a committee designing a horse.
3. It seems that they are not taking a software engineering approach. If you have software that you want to be very solid, tight, reliable, etc. then the costs go up. Software for airplanes, the space shuttle, locomotives, and critical equipment costs a lot more to develop and test. But MS seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum.
</rant>
The #1 thing wrong with Microsoft is their leadership, its naked megalomania and absolute lack of vision for its products. This happens when your main corporate mission is to grind the competition into dust, rather than make great products. Sure, you don't really need a "vision" for Windows when it's running on 90% of the desktops in the world, but that lack of discipline leads to horrible products like Vista.
That lack of vision and hunger to innovate leads down to many of their other product lines that don't actually enjoy monopoly status, Windows Mobile being perhaps the most glaring example.
Some of their groups do have the ability to compete and make a decent-to-good product: Xbox 360 is the obvious example. IIRC, that group's leadership is pretty autonomous and doesn't have to answer (much) to Ballmer. That group also produced the Zune, which is not a horrid product by any means -- it just came out way too late to make any difference.
So, yeah: my point is Microsoft's #1 problem is Steve Ballmer. His paranoia and lust for absolute and total dominance of the computing market is the reason they're treading water these days.
That lack of vision and hunger to innovate leads down to many of their other product lines that don't actually enjoy monopoly status, Windows Mobile being perhaps the most glaring example.
Some of their groups do have the ability to compete and make a decent-to-good product: Xbox 360 is the obvious example. IIRC, that group's leadership is pretty autonomous and doesn't have to answer (much) to Ballmer. That group also produced the Zune, which is not a horrid product by any means -- it just came out way too late to make any difference.
So, yeah: my point is Microsoft's #1 problem is Steve Ballmer. His paranoia and lust for absolute and total dominance of the computing market is the reason they're treading water these days.
Windows CE. The CE either stood for "Compact Edition" or "Consumer Electronics". Commonly abbreviated WinCE.
The past is definitely their biggest issue. Because they command such high market share, and so many people depend on Windows for their businesses and livelihood, they MUST make sure that every new version of Windows is backwards-compatible with as much as possible... unfortunately that means that the bad designs and vulnerabilities of the past also tend to make their way in.
Apple, on the other hand, has gone through several transformations in order to ditch old platforms and embrace new technologies. We went from Motorola 68K code to PPC. Then an OS platform change from OS 9 to OS X. Then OS X on PPC to OS X on Intel.
Each time, there were transitions. Fat Binaries, booting into Classic, Rosetta, were used as stopgap solutions. Unfortunately, each time a transition was made, developers had to rebuild their apps. There were always a few people, a few apps, left behind. But with relatively low market share, relatively few developers, Apple could afford to do that, effectively sacrificing the few for the good of the many. Microsoft just hasn't been willing, or able, to do the same.
Judging by the number of people that still go with the Xbox360 after multiple hardware failures, you can't deny Microsoft got it right with the Xbox360 as a whole.
Apple on the other hand has its own fair share of failures as well.
AppleTV
MobileMe
etc.
Apple on the other hand has its own fair share of failures as well.
AppleTV
MobileMe
etc.
IMO, it comes from Microsoft's business model. They supply software. That's what Windows and WinMo are.
That software has to work on a myriad of devices which all work in different ways, so it ends up being a pile of compromise. OEMs also have little control, so they can't design their PCs as they want to. Want a multi-touch trackpad like Apple has? Sorry, wait until Windows 7 before the OS will support it.
It's also made OEMs lazy, IMO. They don't care about making a good product because that's not their business. Their business is to make cheap generic devices that can run Windows, with little room for product differentiation.
They also focus on marketing rather than engineering. Engineers at Apple clearly have a lot of freedom.
That software has to work on a myriad of devices which all work in different ways, so it ends up being a pile of compromise. OEMs also have little control, so they can't design their PCs as they want to. Want a multi-touch trackpad like Apple has? Sorry, wait until Windows 7 before the OS will support it.
It's also made OEMs lazy, IMO. They don't care about making a good product because that's not their business. Their business is to make cheap generic devices that can run Windows, with little room for product differentiation.
They also focus on marketing rather than engineering. Engineers at Apple clearly have a lot of freedom.
im sure any reasonable person would thank microsoft for that, supplying windows to numeropus hardware makers. The whole industry, as well as end users, all should thank microsoft for that.
My suspicion is that exact opposite is true at apple.
clearly have a lot of freedom? how?
Direct answer: Because getting it 'right' is not a top priority for Microsoft. Getting it to sellable state is. And it's worked out pretty well for them so far...