

Is it too late for Microsoft?  - gabriel34
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/microsoft-new-company/

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ssully
I get that Microsoft has made some missteps lately, but I find it insane that
there seems to be this mindset of Microsoft being on some big downward spiral
to oblivion.

They are still making boat loads of cash, they are still making things people
want and do use, and they are making a lot of exciting changes. No, it is not
too late for Microsoft.

~~~
TwoBit
That mindset of them being on a downward spiral is based on the idea that they
don't lead any more, they only follow. And in the long run followers are
irrelevant.

~~~
craigvn
Azure leads. AWS is good but Azure is better.

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einhverfr
I think that the larger problem is not "too late" so much as the trap of
success. Let's assume that corporate growth can be modelled on a sigmoid
curve, with small companies growing exponentially and large companies growing
asymtotically in mature markets. There are a couple of really big problems
that large companies necessarily face:

1\. Real, disruptive innovation is never worth it. Not only do you have the
issue that exponential growth in small units will not contribute to
exponential growth to the business as a whole but if you disrupt your support
structure, you lose on the whole. So, large companies have to be conservative
and only acquire disruptive players when they reach a certain size. However
this furthers the problem because at that point those players will not
continue exponential growth for very long.

2\. Large companies are far more reliant on streams of income and partner
supports that are subject to disruption than small companies. This again makes
it harder to pivot.

3\. Large companies have much more inertia than small ones, making pivoting
even harder.

I don't know if it is "too late" for Microsoft because I don't know what "too
late" means. Too late for what? Too late to do what? The company is large and
changing remarkably rapidly these days (though I saw the beginnings of change
starting when I worked there a decade ago).

But the future will certainly be painful for Microsoft. Everyone knows this,
even everyone who I know that still works at Microsoft. Is it too late for
them to survive? Certainly not. But success on the scale of Microsoft in our
market is too often a dead end, and getting out of that dead end is never
pleasant.

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gkoberger
There's no way Microsoft could have created Office for the iPad since Satya
Nadella took over as CEO; same goes for a lot mentioned here. I bet he'll be
great for the company, however we can't give him credit for everything.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Several news stories claimed it was ready and that its release was being
blocked for political/strategic reasons, so he could well be responsible or,
at least symbolic of, the change in politics/strategy.

~~~
rhizome
Classic transition/change-management launch-the-new-guy technique.

~~~
danieltillett
Yes especially since this was not a coup.

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Kuytu
It is hard to imagine anything is too late for a company that made over 20
billion profit last year. Even if Windows has done worse aren't Office sales
increasing on OS X for example. Microsoft is a company that sells Office first
and foremost.

~~~
shmerl
No, that's actually quite easy to imagine. MS reputation is severely ruined by
years of crooked behavior (which still continues into the present really).
They are now seen as a dangerous thug which can not be trusted. To change that
perception they'll have to work really hard. So these new developments are
steps in the right direction but they are way not sufficient yet.

~~~
danieltillett
I think that Microsoft realise this and they will be going out of their way
over the next few years to be on really good behavior.

~~~
latch
Two different thoughts:

First, It'll take me a while before trusting MS again (people often forget or
don't know the depth of what the anti trust case revealed). But I can't even
_start_ to consider it as they continue to be a part of the patent-problem.
(I'd say a big part, but big or small, it's old MS as usual as far as I'm
concerned).

Second, when I was closer to MS, it really felt like there was company wide
blindness. I'm not sure that's gone yet. I especially look at Xbox and Azure
and I can't believe the cheerleading that's going into these massive money
losing projects. Azure in particular..there was a Gartner report that showed
Microsoft spending 5x more than Amazon yet having relatively no market share.
It's like Bing all over again. Absolutely and totally disillusioned. (the
report could have been wrong I guess).

~~~
shmerl
Besides patents problem, MS is still into lock-in and sabotaging open
standards where possible. Until that behavior ceases, all these new
developments won't even start looking sincere.

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andrewjl
Microsoft is a company suffering from the innovator's dilemma. Releasing
Office on iPad was a good first step. I however believe that they will
ultimately marginalize themselves in the consumer markets (if they haven't
already, for example look at the Windows Phone share, Surface RT issues, etc).
They will likely remain a formidable force in the enterprise market for years
to come.

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mantrax4
So this is not exactly news, is it.

It's just the ramblings of a blogger, based on a bunch of hypotheticals and
old info (i.e. again "not news").

Which part of this "editorial" is actionable here? Should Microsoft have
thought "hey, if it's too late we better just give up"?

Does it mean you should abandon all Microsoft products because it's "too
late"? Office is still a good product, and becoming better, and available on
more platforms. There are challengers, but Office is keeping up.

What exactly does "it's too late" mean anyway? Too late for what? Is Microsoft
about to go bankrupt? No. Is it too late for it to be 1995 again? Who cares?

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diminish
I guess, Microsoft's final stage will be either like an exploding supernova
(like Sun, the company) where it will emit a lot of open source software in
the wild and die, or like a red giant (like IBM) where it will focus on
business customers and get more of them.

~~~
clef
Do you think Linux is the last ever OS (or kernel) that will ever be? Sure
windows and you and I and everyone will die one day..including. Linux...and
Apple..and everything.

~~~
malandrew
Personally, I'm looking forward to an OS based on rust myself. It seems like
the language with the right mix of features that will prompt systems
developers to re-invent lots of the base pieces of operating systems.

