Forecast for Microsoft
This coming week marks the big day (October 22) for Microsoft when Windows 7 becomes available to the general public. Technology professionals have already had the new Windows for quite a while but this will be the first time that you can walk into a store and see a PC with Windows 7. Naturally the Microsoft publicity machine is hard at work and there will be the usual hoopla. Also, many in the PC world are hoping that Windows 7 will spur the sale of PCs and add to everybody’s bottom line.
However, the PC is not the only kind of computer or technical hardware that is important these days and some are saying that Microsoft may have missed out on the trends in consumer electronics. And then there is the cloud. Using the cloud requires only a browser, and the operating system is secondary. In fact, Google wants to make the browser the operating system.
Looking at the various factors and what they mean for Microsoft is the subject of an article in the New York Times business section by Ashlee Vance. It’s a substantial piece and among other things says:
These days, however, Microsoft has legions of doubters. While it still commands a prominent and profitable position in computing, brand experts say consumers stumble when trying to define what the company stands for and whether it can create a grander technological future.
“Microsoft sort of disappeared from the scene,” says Regis McKenna, a Silicon Valley marketing and strategy expert. “Every once in a while, they have a delayed Windows release or something like that. By and large, I think the marketplace is focused on what Google and Apple are up to.”
Critics of Microsoft say it has hugely underestimated market changes and plotted a long and winding course toward irrelevance. It remains too fixated on its old-line, desktop-based franchises, they say — too slow, too predictable and too, well, Microsoft.
“They are trapped in their own psychosis that the world has to revolve around Windows on the PC,” says Marc Benioff, the C.E.O. of Salesforce.com, which competes against Microsoft in the business software market. “Until they stop doing that, they will drag their company into the gutter.”
Of course, others and Microsoft think Microsoft is still the dominant force:
Mr. Ballmer, Mr. Ozzie and others at Microsoft see things rather differently, and for the last year have argued that coming software releases for PCs, data centers, mobile devices and game consoles will confirm exactly how Microsoft will remain a pivotal force on the tech landscape.
Mr. Ballmer contends that Microsoft is the only company prepared and positioned to merge computing from both ends — the desktop and the cloud. “We’re just investing more broadly than everybody else,” he says, adding that, when it comes to software, “I want us to invent everything that’s important on the planet.”
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