Microsoft Has Failed

You IT folks and fellow techgeeks are probably already familiar with SemiAccurate, one of the better news/blog sites for All Things Computing. According to this recent article, Microsoft has finally stepped in the giant cow patty of failure:

Sooner or later, someone will come along and do a better job than the treacle that Microsoft, offers. Actually that happens all the time. How about, sooner or later, someone will come along and do a better job than the treacle that Microsoft offers, and for some reason, Microsoft won’t be able to crush them like a bug. Then the circled wagons have an alternative. Then the decades of built up enmity have an outlet. Then Microsoft is in trouble.

In such a situation, a company has two choices, both of which are quite stark. They can radically change their ways or they can wither and die. Before you point to Windows 8 and say, “But they are changing and innovating”, hold off a moment, it isn’t what you think.

Microsoft has three product lines that underpin everything, Windows, Windows Server, and Windows Mobile/Phone/WART/whatevertheynameitthisweek. On those, the other moneymakers, Office and Exchange, run exclusively. The apps use protocols that are locked down with dubious methods, and will not run on any competition. The competition is likewise excluded from doing what Microsoft can, either directly like Novell, or by raising the cost to the point of it not being profitable. This is how the wagons are circled, with every iteration, the cost of competing go up, and value of alternatives go up too.

The problem is that if you are locked in with a choice of 100% Microsoft or 0% Microsoft, once someone goes, it isn’t a baby step, they are gone. Once you start using Google Docs and the related suites, you have no need for Office. That means you, or likely your company, saves several hundred dollars a head. No need for Office means no need for Exchange. No need for Exchange means no need for Windows Server. No need for Office means no need for Windows. Once the snowball starts rolling, it picks up speed at a frightening pace. And that is where we are. The barriers to exit are now even more potent barriers to entry.

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Microsoft’s mobile aspirations have failed so spectacularly that it is almost impossible to account for. Rather than fix the lock in that excludes the overwhelming majority of the market that does not have a Windows phone, Microsoft doubled down with the new iteration playing the same compatibility games they did before to lock out developers, competitors, and innovators. Laughably they did so in the name of compatibility. With Windows 8, current marketshare rounding to zero, every other bit of software written for Windows is excluded. Windows phone hasn’t paid for the last ad campaign, much less made dollar one, and likely never will.

Then came Windows 8, the all new tabletized UI, and WART. It is a miserable experience for the corporate user, and anyone spending serious time using one finds out the halo wears off surprisingly quickly. To make matters worse, Microsoft dropped the Surface bomb on all of their partners, you know, the ones they have under their thumb and locked down with monopolistic might. They are livid, angry beyond words, and were afraid of angering Redmond. As we exclusively brought you the story, HP dumped WART. They are now much more afraid of what happens if they don’t leave.

Go read the whole thing. He makes a convincing argument that Ballmer & Co. are in the pot for good this time. Windows 8 may end up making Microsoft BOB look like a resounding success.