Microsoft’s Lost Decade

[biometrics]

Vanity Fair article

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer

Once upon a time, Microsoft dominated the tech industry; indeed, it was the wealthiest corporation in the world. But since 2000, as Apple, Google, and Facebook whizzed by, it has fallen flat in every arena it entered: e-books, music, search, social networking, etc., etc. Talking to former and current Microsoft executives, Kurt Eichenwald finds the fingers pointing at C.E.O. Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates’s successor, as the man who led them astray.

Wow, I didn't know this:

Cool is what tech consumers want. Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft.

No, really.

One Apple product, something that didn’t exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975. In the quarter ended March 31, 2012, iPhone had sales of $22.7 billion; Microsoft Corporation, $17.4 billion.

It's a long article btw.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Microsofts lost decade, that brought Windows XP, Windows 7, Office 2007, Office 2010, Sharepoint, SQL 2005/2008.. need I go on?

Yes Microsoft have made missteps, and Apple is now a bigger company, but Apple were on the brink of bankruptcy 20 odd years ago, and look at them now. Anything can happen in the tech industry, and I for one do not predict MS being anything other than a dominant player for at LEAST the next 10 years.

 

[ponder]

That guy scares me.

 

[MyWorld]

That guy scares me.

And I think he scares a lot of investors as well.

I do not have much respect for Steve Ballmer.

 

[biometrics]

Microsofts lost decade, that brought Windows XP, Windows 7, Office 2007, Office 2010, Sharepoint, SQL 2005/2008.. need I go on?

These are products they originally created in the 80's and 90's. The point of the article is they can not innovate anymore.

 

[Mr.CookieMonster]

Ah Windows, if Game developers also made games for Linux, I would not be using Windows again. I really hope game developers jump to Linux

 

[KleinBoontjie]

It was Microsoft that bailed out Apple in the 90's. Wonder if, givin the chance, will Apple return the favour?

 

[Hamster]

These are products they originally created in the 80's and 90's. The point of the article is they can not innovate anymore.

Not when it comes to "dumb" users, but on the tech side of things they are pretty innovative. You have things like PhotoSynth, Vista's ability to increase it's RAM via USB, TerraServer (which did the map thing before Google did), Media Center Extenders (before iTV), BlueTrack (which Logitech had to respond to with DarkField) and Metro.

All these things that everyone uses but take for granted. Most people will be using something like BlueTrack and never realise it, just that their mouse is super awesome!

We can carry on into the development realm with XNA, Linq etc, but you get the idea.

MS' trouble is that their innovations is just not that "cool" to become the subject of conversation. You can totally talk to a womanz about her iPod or iPhone but try chat to her about map servers and blue lights that are better than lasers. You have a better chance convincing her that Star Wars is the ****! ....and there lies the problem that lead to articles and posts like these.