The Microsoft way
As Microsoft’s battle with Google intensifies, the software maker is emulating some of the products the Web search giant pioneered. This is nothing new, of course. Microsoft has long perfected the art of imitation and used it to achieve financial success.
Microsoft’s detractors say it has never developed an original piece of software. Windows, they say, was copied from the Apple Mac; Excel was a rip-off of VisiCalc and Lotus 123; and Word was an imitation of MultiMate and WordStar.
Mac users deride Windows for being a poor imitation of the Apple platform and, certainly, Microsoft has borrowed many of the ideas pioneered by Apple. In 1988, Apple filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming it had copied the graphical user interface from Apple’s Mac and Lisa computers. Ironically, Apple had borrowed many of the ideas in the Mac operating system from Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, which had pioneered the graphical user interface. Apple lost the case.
Microsoft has continued to emulate the successes of its competitors. It is trying to mirror Apple’s success with the iPod by introducing a rival product, the poorly received Zune, which, like Apple’s device, is coupled to an online music store. Rumours are now circulating that Microsoft will introduce a Zune-branded phone to rival Apple’s iPhone.
On the Web, it’s Google that Microsoft is trying its damndest to emulate. And why not? Google is the undisputed king of online search and advertising and, having recently displaced networking equipment manufacturer Cisco, is second only to Microsoft by market capitalisation of companies listed on the Nasdaq. After a recent strong run in Google’s share price, the company is worth more than US$200bn, not far shy of Microsoft’s $280bn.
There is no doubt that Google is the biggest threat Microsoft has faced, bigger even than Linux and open-source software. Google’s ascendancy represents a sea change in the technology industry — the move from client-server computing, which Microsoft dominated, to an era where software is delivered as a service on the Internet. In the new paradigm, Google has taken the early lead.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admits that the company has a long way to go before it catches up to Google in search. Ballmer compares Microsoft’s search engine, Windows Live Search, to a precocious toddler. “You’re just three years old, and we’ve got you in there playing basketball with a 12-year-old. You’re growing up quick and getting better every day, and you’ve got all the potential in the world, and it may take you till you’re 7, 8, 9, 10, but you’re gonna dunk and you’re gonna dunk on the other guy some day, Johnny.”
Live Search has a lot of growing up to do. Microsoft processes 11% of Web search requests, versus 56% for Google (US only).
But it’s not only in Web search that Google poses a threat to the software maker. Google Docs is an online rival to Office, one of Microsoft’s biggest profit centres. Though still fairly basic, Docs is good enough for most people’s needs and the online-only software makes it easy to move between computers while having easy access to documents.
Microsoft is fighting back with plans to launch a similar product, called Office Live Workspace. Live Workspace, which is based on Microsoft software called SharePoint, will allow Office users to save their documents to the Web, much like they would to their local hard drives. Microsoft vice-president Chris Capossela says users won’t need to own Office to use Live Workspace, making it a direct competitor to (and imitation of) Google Docs. Microsoft’s advantage is that it has hundreds of millions of Office users to whom it can market the product.
Microsoft has shown you don’t need to be great at innovation to win in the software business. You just need to emulate the best. It’s the Microsoft way.
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