"The more I think about Microsoft, the more I realise that they are, possibly for the first time, seriously cornered (or surrounded, depending on how you want to see it). A little history will clarify why I think so - and why I think that this might really be the beginning of the end for Microsoft."
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Member since:2005-07-08
In the beginning, there was Office. Microsoft put an office suite on every desk as PCs swept the corporate world. Office ran on Windows. Then came Exchange. Microsoft reinvented office communication as networking became more common. Microsoft dominated the corporate market.
Windows became important as the PC invaded the home. The consumer desktop was modeled as a jukebox for applications with Windows as the access point. The profit center shifted from Office to Windows as Microsoft controlled the gateway to the library of consumer applications.
Now media has become more important than applications, and the Web has become the gateway to the library of media. This includes both entertainment and information media, which have diverging business models. The former is based on licensing fees, while the latter is fueled by the advertising industry. Apple and Google have established leadership in these markets.
Microsoft has had problems making inroads in these areas, and neither Apple nor Google depend on Windows in any significant way. Microsoft continues to sell Windows to the vast majority of consumers that primarily use their computers to access Apple and Google services. But Windows is no longer a crucial gateway for the consumer desktop. Windows is now marketed as a product with premium value in and of itself. If it doesn't provide the Wow, then what's the point?
While Microsoft struggles with the media-centric consumer desktop, things are humming along nicely in the corporate world. No radical shifts are happening, which is good for Microsoft. It's expensive for a business to migrate away from Microsoft. But as Linux matures, the lower-cost options become more compelling. Ultimately, Microsoft will have to price their products much closer to commercial Linux vendors in order to hold on to the corporate market.
In both the corporate and consumer markets, Microsoft is increasingly unable to secure their dominance and technical leadership. But as the incumbent, they are in no particular danger of a mass exodus. It will be an slow decline over the next 10-15 years. The less they fight the inevitable by changing their strategy, the longer they will retain their business.
Member since:2005-07-07
I think your idea of Internet Rental word processors and
spreadsheets is more wishful thinking.
The reason pay TV on small satalite dish and cable which I assume is your model for internet based rental software
made it was that there was the compelling reason for people to buy into it such as over a hundred specialty channels rather than three networks and a few local channels of lowest common denominator material under the old over the air "free" TV system.
People are just not going to pay ever increasing monthly satalite/cable TV style rates to use the same types of proprietary software from some server in some other state or even COUNTRY that they are using for a one time single computer unlimited use licensing fee if they don't "upgrade" now.
Companies from Sun Microsystems to Microsoft itself tried this Internet Rental software gimic (It was the ORIGINAL purpose of Sun Microsystems' Java platform and programming language and "Network Computer "concept, and Microsoft's .NET system) and failed at it.
Sun wound up turning into an OSS company (and premere big business supporter of the GPLv3) when this Internet Rental software system failed for them and the same is going to happen to Microsoft
Member since:
2006-01-04
Microsoft is obviously not going anywhere soon, and is not headed for bankruptcy.
For sure, Microsoft is facing problems in important areas.
Firstly, some of their cashcows will eventually be heading into maturity, meaning less growth and more competition. Not competition in the sense that they will lose a lot of marketshare, but more in the sense, that they will have to fight a much harder and much more expensive battle to retain their markets.
Secondly the will have to manage the challenges of desktop applications migrating to the web, and software becoming more and more services (there are some opportunities in this area for them too). Desktop applications moved to the web could seriously undermine the value of their desktop monopoly
Microsoft will not lose to competitors as much as to different ways of doing computing.