An interesting state-of-Microsoft opinion...
June 23, 2005 @ 03:25 AMI read an interesting opinion that I largely agree with regarding Microsoft’s current state-of-affairs. It should be said that while I have little love for Microsoft, I’ve never been naive enough to think they were on the edge of collapse. They have always adapted and have a ton of cash. Nevertheless, consider this… Microsoft has always succeeded by identifying it’s largest competitor and focusing on it until it’s no longer a threat. And this has been successful through-out the majority of it’s history. Example: Windows vs OS/2, Word vs WordPerfect, Excel vs. Lotus 1 2 3, PocketPC vs PalmOS, Windows Media vs RealNetworks, Internet Explorer vs. Netscape.
The interesting thing is what’s happened since Netscape went down. Microsoft has entered into battle with several companies since then, and for the most part they have stalled, or in some cases even lost ground to an advancing competitor. XBox has sold poorly compared to PlayStation, Windows is stalling against Linux on the server end, Windows has lost a little ground to Mac OS X on the desktop, Windows Mobile for cell phones continues to stall against BlackBerry and Symbian, Google is thrashing them in search, Firefox is picking up ground against Internet Explorer, Windows Media has captured less than 25% of the market for digital music sales (compared to 75% for MPEG-4 Audio + Apple’s DRM).
Again, I’m not claiming this spells the end for Microsoft… I’m merely stating that recently their endeavours have been less than stellar compared to past performances.