Whither Microsoft?
A lot of people seem to be asking that question these days. If you believe that computing is moving away from the local machine to online applications, Micosoft’s big cash cows of Windows and Office might seem to be on the road to declining sales. Personally, I have my doubts about some of the blue sky talk about Web 2.0 but clearly there is much shifting of emphasis from the desktop to the Internet. TechWeb has a substantial piece that takes a look at what this might mean for Microsoft. The article begins:
In the summer of 1998, newly promoted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told industry analyst Rob Enderle that Microsoft’s long-term future would be in Internet services. At that time, however, Ballmer said the technology wasn’t sufficiently developed–and the world wasn’t ready–for an Internet services revolution.
That was then. Now, with the increasing use of Web tools like Ajax, JavaScript, Flash, and XML, the technology is ready. The popularity of application services such as Flickr, Google Maps, and iTunes on the consumer side and Salesforce.com with businesses suggests that the world is ready, too. The remaining question: Is Microsoft?
Today, the company faces one of the biggest challenges of its 32-year existence: Risk disrupting a massive installed base of users and developers–and cannibalizing its primary revenue source–by spending most of its energy and resources developing Web services, or get left behind as the world embraces Internet-oriented computing.
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