Microsoft’s new CEO is an immigrant from India who most recently was involved in leading the effort to switch the corporate business model for Office from buying software to renting it. Real Clear politics asks where will the company go from here?<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.realcleartechnology.com\/articles\/2014\/02\/06\/top_five_items_on_microsofts_to-do_list_964.html<\/p>\n
The line that jumped out at me was when discussing the future of Windows – and what can Microsoft do to create a good unified Windows platform for software developers.<\/p>\n
What software developers? Seriously?<\/p>\n
Microsoft systematically stomped out competing products developed for windows. When Netscape started to own the web browser market, Bill Gates realized too late the Internet was not just a fad and rolled out the security flaw called Internet Explorer that just keeps on giving. A company called Nullsoft created a simple streaming audio player called Winamp that started to fuel this thing called Internet streaming. Microsoft responded with windows Media Player, with am over engineered proprietary streaming protocol which they later abandoned, but to this day deliberately won’t support .pls playlists.<\/p>\n
I have visual C++ on my Windows XP machine and learned it well enough to know I didn’t want to learn any more. The complexity of the Windows event driven programming model meant you had to rely extensively on using proprietary DLLs and microsft written “frameworks” to do anything, locking you into a development world where Microsoft called all the shots and frequently changed its mind when products failed.<\/p>\n
Java was one response by Sun (now owned by Oracle) to create a platform independent programming environment so a developer could write applications one time that didn’t care if you were using Windows, Unix or Apple.<\/p>\n
The business world was quickly moving to “thin clients”. As the Internet took off, business functions moved business functions to web browsers on the company intranet. People started to book their flights themselves online, not going to travel agents hooked into networks that required custom software to access. Portable data entry devices still pretending they are a 1970s IBM 3270 80×24 monochromatic character mode screen can be replaced with web servers an inexpensive simple web browsers.<\/p>\n
Microsoft still owns a chunk of the web server business (IIS) and SQl (MSSQL), but where does that give opportunity for 3rd party developers? Apache has a Windows compatible version, but nobody uses it. Oracle dominates the corporate database market. A web browser user interacting with an Oracle database doesn’t care who made the device in their hand or what OS it runs.<\/p>\n
Apple does have a ton of young independent software developers where the application actually still runs on the device in your hand. The software distribution model of the app store with direct revenue sharing to the developer has killed the go to a brick and mortar store and buy software in a box business model. The touch screen replaced the mouse. Microsoft was again outflanked. They missed the market, and are now trying to play catchup with Windows 8 – trying to bridge the gap by forcing a touchscreen interface onto a keyboard\/mouse operating system, leaving nobody thinking this is the future of personal computing or corporate desktops. Windows XP users are being shoved out the door.<\/p>\n
Google is more than capable of stepping in and filling the void. They supported the development of Firefox and developed Chrome. The Android OS which Google developed owns most of the smart phone business not running apple iOS (which is also based on Linux, not Microsoft anything). <\/p>\n
Microsoft’s cell phone platform was such a disaster they ended up buying Nokia to try to salvage something. The Windows (like) proprietary tablet called Surface was not compatible with existing windows software and did little more thn piss off their hardware business partners by taking the open “IBM PC” Intel platform and turning it into a proprietary hardware platform with patents ready to destroy competitors. 4th quarter sales of Surface doubled to $800 million (in a $70 billion global market) as retailers dumped their remaining inventory.<\/p>\n
Microsoft has gone from owning 37% of handheld computing devices to about 3%. As the Nokia merger becomes a reality, the still independent company in the past few days released its first Android based smart phone, and the Indian government is making it clear they will fight Mirosoft inside of India.<\/p>\n
Good luck, Mr Madella. You have quite a legacy on your plate to manage, not to mention Bill Gates looking over your shoulder. You are generation two of the Microsoft empire. Anything you do – you will receive the blame for the failures and none of the credit for the successese. Just remember the Ford family and the Edsel. Try to learn from history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Microsoft’s new CEO is an immigrant from India who most recently was involved in leading the effort to switch the corporate business model for Office from buying software to renting it. Real Clear politics asks where will the company go … Continue reading