article <\/a>about the financial states of Microsoft compared to Apple and from what I’ve seen and experiences in the last couple of years it seems to me things are not going so good for them lately. Sure, most companies, even big ones have their ups and downs but once a trend begins it is hard for any company to turn it around – especially for a big company. Windows and Office traditionally have been the big cash cows for them but that market is not going to last forever – or it will morph into other more diverse markets. There was a time MS was at the leading edge (even cutting) at some time but lately they are only playing catch-up mostly. Perhaps the whole ‘security’ fiasco that plagued the early Windows XP years distracted them from real innovation – or the stupid anti-trust case in which they actually were ‘wrong’…<\/p>\nThe only ‘cool’ thing to come out of MS recently is Kinect and that has a very small and ‘ninch’ market – in a market already controlled by competitors. They don’t lead in the market with technology anymore – i.e. with big trendy setting things. Sure, they have a cool research lab that comes up with things that sounds very nice but rarely do these things get to an actual market (thinking about things like the optical table here). Perhaps it is the perception of the ‘people’ that MS isn’t producing anything cool anymore – but seeing Apple is the same or even bigger age than them and doing very well with keeping being ‘in’ that is not an excuse. As far as Kinect goes, they launched it into a small already saturated market instead of the ‘big’ market that they already control (PC market). What if they rather launched it into the PC gaming market – a market that was once much bigger but then they went and neglect that too… I can’t help thinking about some military wisdom here – if you choose to fight an opponent do it in an area that you control – not somewhere where ‘he’ has the upper hand. Sure, in the movies the heros can take on the bad guys at the things they are best at and win, but this is real life! Is MS living in some kind of fairy tail world or something \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
Then there is the whole ‘thing’ around the leader of the MS pack. I’m sure Mr Balmer is good at what he does (marketing) – but being CEO of a big software company wasn’t it. I’m not saying he is some idiot that does not have a clue, rather that his skills would suit another role better. His notorious outbursts with chairs and so on isn’t exactly helping making the company’s image better. Mr Gates wasn’t perfect but he notoriously and ferociously pursued things that he set his mind to – even to the point of hurting his friends\/partners apparently. Yes, times were a bit different then – a smaller less mature market and so on, but back then MS was kicking butt!<\/p>\n
Sometimes MS is its own worst enemy as well. The whole backwards compatibility thing was\/is a big innovation killer. Apple seems to have a different strategy which is working for them. The issue should not be functionality tied to software\/OS versions – in other words, software may be compatible with only one specific OS but if you want to do the same kind of thing on the next version of the OS the new software must have the same or better functionality even though it may not be compatible with the old OS. Yes, in theory it sounds easy but in practice its not. Perhaps they should rewrite Windows\/Office keeping only the knowledge and list of requirements of the previous version. It could shut up the security freaks that keeps on complaining Windows is ‘insecure’. But, ‘us’ developers would like to shoot them for breaking all our programs \ud83d\ude09 Just an idea…<\/p>\n
If I could add my 2c to suggest something they should try – do new and exciting things in the market that you are already good at and then perhaps even steer it in a new and exciting direction! Think along the lines of new exciting tools\/toys for the PC gaming world.<\/p>\n
So am I right or am I right? (or wrong at being wrong… \ud83d\ude09 )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following is purely an opinion so don’t shoot or quote me – since my opinion apparently doesn’t matter much to most people anyway. Reading an article about the financial states of Microsoft compared to Apple and from what I’ve …<\/p>\n
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