Microsoft and the cloud
The quote from Bill Gates mentioned in the previous post was brought to mind by all the current Microsoft efforts that fall under the rubric of “Windows Live” and the Redmond chatter about “cloud computing”. It is reminiscent of similar big talk from Microsoft about “Dot-Net”. At the meeting reported in the previous post, Bill Gates also said about “Dot-Net”:
Thursday’s announcement is “more analogous to the announcement of Windows than the Internet strategy announcement of 1995,” Gates said. “This is a new platform that will affect every piece of application code that is written.
And when were all these statements about a bold new strategy made? In June, 2000. That’s right – back before Windows XP or Vista, before Office XP, 2003, or 2007. All of these products have come out in the intervening eight years with little sign of the revolution promised by “Dot-Net”. In fact, the name “Dot-Net” died. Eight years are an eternity in the technical world; yet, if you replace a few buzzwords with more recent versions, Gates’ remarks would look very similar to some current Microsoft pronouncements. So maybe we should consider statements about future Microsoft “cloud computing” with a grain of salt.
I’m not saying that Microsoft isn’t seriously at work on projects that will involve Web 2.0 approaches; the company has already brought out products such as Silverlight, its challenge to Flash. Competition from other companies is forcing Microsoft to really face the fact that its desktop monopoly is losing leverage. It’s not that Bill Gates’ ideas about the browser as the platform weren’t prophetic; they just weren’t implemented. Microsoft’s desktop monopoly has been enormously lucrative and it is hard for a big company to embark on a new path but maybe this time the pressure of actual competition will spur it on. However, as they say in Missouri, “show me”.
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