Why Microsoft Will Never Win (they blew their lead on web apps)

http://seekingalpha.com/article/80363-why-microsoft-will-never-win-again

by timr • 18 years ago

12 14 18 years ago

goodkarma• 18 years ago

"But just think about how much further along that understanding curve the company would be now, instead of letting the fear of cannibalization push it away. At some point, the company will have to grab that nettle firmly, and it’s not going to get any easier — if anything, it’s only going to get harder."

I don't think Microsoft CAN catch up.

josefresco• 18 years ago

If MS had introduced their customers to web apps in the early 00's, they would have both shot themselves in the foot and allowed competitors to have a go at the other foot.

By killing NetDocs the average business person stayed ignorant to the possibilities of applications online, therefore extending MS's cash cow several/many years longer.

Beyond the IT savvy I don't see anyone using Google Docs or Zoho, and pretty much every client I interact with still relies heavily on MS Office (I have a hard time even recommending OOO as people are so used to their old tools). I'd say MS's strategy is still working quite well.

eru• 18 years ago

Perhaps http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=210696 is relevant here.

cstejerean• 18 years ago

People keep ignoring the importance of what the early adopters are doing. The fact that the bleeding edge users have all but abandoned MS should be a sign of concern.

axod• 18 years ago

So instead they forced consumers to use their buggy horrible web browser, making developing on the web really hard for everyone else! Great strategy for them to stretch out their monopoly, but not for users.

brfox• 18 years ago

I used Google Docs and Zoho extensively, and both are very fun, but they still are so dang slow it is really unbearable. For example, copy/paste & undo/redo are just tedious. Why is having a nice (and much faster) piece of software running as a binary on your own machine seen as becoming obsolete? It is a much better experience in terms of word processing and especially spreadsheets.

cousin_it• 18 years ago

Virtual Earth and Photosynth prove that Microsoft can make great web apps if they want to.

redorb• 18 years ago

Microsoft still dominates the Desktop, both in OS and productivity office programs. When they do decide to go 'online' they will just ad it into the existing offerings - example:"Office 2010, now comes with free online office as well.. including powerpoint, word, excel... with 30 gigs of free online secure storage" - also a double save feature if your connected to the net, when you save a document local it will ask if you wanted to save to the 'cloud' -

- MS is more trusted for the average business than zoho or even google, and already has a built in market.

helveticaman2• 18 years ago

If microsoft is dying, when will it start paying stockholders dividends?

fortes• 18 years ago

Although it's not super-high, they have been paying 10-11 cents for the past few quarters:

http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chd...;

helveticaman2• 18 years ago

Thanks.

aston• 18 years ago

The mistake people make is thinking that Microsoft needs to be the dominant player in a market to make their participation in it worthwhile. They're perfectly happy to have their hand in any cookie jar that poses massive future revenue, even if they're late to the party (as they generally are).

dmose• 18 years ago

My 2 cents:

Scott Gu, Silverlight, Mesh, MVC, the DLR - if MS can get wide developer adoption (I don't see any reason why they won't..all are quite compelling technologies) they will still be a force to be reckon with.

MS's problem is they are battling on soo many fronts - it's all about market share these days since the web game is moving towards a commodity play now and will be with the "cloud" services in the next few years.

What will happen is the classic coke vs pepsi, molson vs labatt battles we've seen - each just fighting for a few percantage of market share more (which translates into billions).

MS will never die, neither will IBM. They will continue to morph in new ways to increase shareholder value. Google will face the same challenges once the web advertising game slows down (which won't happen for at least 5 years IMO but there is still weakness).

Pick your poison, MS has a massive warchest of cash and is dying to spend it, they if anything, will be a major disruptor in the web game.

antpicnic• 18 years ago

Doesn't it seem likely that MS created Silverlight so they could build web based versions of their applications that don't suck? I wouldn't be surprised to see Office 14 really blur the lines between desktop and web based software.

That being said, Microsoft will probably continue to flounder until they commit to a new BHAG.

Why Microsoft Will Never Win (they blew their lead on web apps)

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