
Microsoft, Past and Future - locusm
http://daringfireball.net/2014/02/microsoft_past_and_future
======
beloch
What I find surprising is that, in the process of writing a historical review
on Microsoft, anyone would ignore the fact that MS has repeatedly identified
areas of profit, moved in, failed spectacularly, iterated aggressively, and
ultimately become dominant, at least for a time. e.g. What killed Netscape?

Microsoft's surface tablets are signs of big things to come. They're currently
too expensive for what they are, but they could find a huge niche. They're
portable tablets meant for content creation, not mere consumption. If you want
a tablet that will let you draw, take notes, etc. as easily as on paper, iPads
aren't even close to the current Surface. The surface pro would have been
_exactly_ what I wanted in undergrad physics for a lecture-hall machine. Many
artists probably feel the same way now.

Tablets have long been too underpowered to tackle real creative tasks. The
surface proves that the hardware has changed, although the cost is still high.
I expect the next few generations of surfaces to get cheaper and more refined
rapidly. People who love tablets are soon going to want something more than a
glorified phone, and the Surface is going to be the go-to option.

Yeah, so MS might dominate the content-creation/student/artist tablet niche.
Big whoop. Well, success in any consumer hardware niche might do for MS what
it did for Apple. Namely, make them a huge pile of cash and jump-start their
supply-chain so they can move into other areas. It might not play out this
way. Apple has been looking for ways to make the iPad more content-creation
friendly beyond just marketing them as such. Still, iOS on an iPad is a _huge_
step behind Win8 on a Surface pro for creative tasks right _now_. All MS has
to do is keep iterating the Surface and avoid another Vista-style PR blunder
with Win9.

~~~
sillysaurus2
Which problems do Surface tablets solve?

For example, iPhone completely changed my life overnight, mostly due to its
navigation features and ability to look up phone numbers.

I think Surface will only be dominant if it solves a problem for people. So,
which problem does it solve, and why is it useful for people?

~~~
codeulike
Contractor problems. I have a second hand Surface Pro. Its much lighter than a
laptop, but more powerful than the laptop I had before. It runs Visual Studio,
Eclipse and all the other tools I need very well. When I'm at a client site or
at home I can use the USB port to dock into monitor, keyboard and ethernet.
When I'm in meetings I make notes with the pen. When I'm in between on the
train I can use it in tablet mode or mini-laptop mode.

I figure that in a few years I'll be able to do all of that on a smaller 8"
form factor - even better.

~~~
JohnBooty
I've done a bit of development on a 7" tablet and it's kind of painful, even
if you're using "just" a text editor (or an IDE like Eclipse with most of the
chrome hidden).

At some point you start hitting some physical limits of the human body. At 7"
or 8" you can't have a full-size physical keyboard and there are only so many
lines of code you can fit onto the screen, and so forth.

Personally (and I do mean this is personal preference and not the One Right
Solution For Everybody) carrying around a 3-5lb notebook isn't a big deal
because I'm already going to be carrying pen, paper, a few medications, and a
charger or two. Even if my main computing device weighed zero pounds I'd still
be carrying a small bag.

~~~
codeulike
That's why I dock it via USB

------
onli
> The world is in need of high-quality, reliable, developer-friendly,
> trustworthy, privacy-guarding cloud computing platforms.

That's the thing for me: That doesn't work anymore. _Privacy-Guarding_
destroys that. Normally, I would fully agree that this is a good vision for
Microsoft, continuing to be on the Desktop (especially corporate), trying to
be on other markets and failing mostly, but becoming a big cloud player. But
for me, the cloud is dead, and the NSA killed it - I try not to use it if it
is not really helpful and without obvious privacy issues (like
[http://rsspusher.eu01.aws.af.cm/](http://rsspusher.eu01.aws.af.cm/), appfrog
was fine for that, I still think that even if it predates that thought). And I
know I'm not alone with that attitude.

Maybe that doesn't mean that the cloud is dead, rather that there is a
minority for which it is. I'm not sure how to predict the influence of the
surveillance on the techological future. But what it means for sure is that
for me and a few other guys, a Microsoft being a big cloud player would be as
dead as it was before. We will see whether that matters.

~~~
smokinn
What about recycling the "private cloud" into something actually useful?

Microsoft has amazing expertise into taking any computer a 3rd party provides
and making it work with their software. What about providing "cloud services"
that can be guaranteed to never exit your own corporate firewall? I imagine
this is going to be a huge need in the near future. I wouldn't be the least
bit surprised if it were a standard EU regular within 5 years.

This seems like an amazingly huge opportunity they could capitalize on. Become
the standard software cloud solution of all software the way they they own
email in the enterprise with exchange. Plenty of companies are large enough to
own their own racks of virtualized servers and would pay good money to run
well integrated Microsoft software on them.

~~~
arethuza
I think you might be straining the terminology just a bit by referring to
cloud services installed _inside_ a corporate firewall. What would make that
different from traditional internally deployed applications like SharePoint?

"Plenty of companies are large enough to own their own racks of virtualized
servers and would pay good money to run well integrated Microsoft software on
them."

They already do - that's where a significant proportion of Microsoft's revenue
comes from.

~~~
smokinn
You're right. I was purposely straining the term.

What I'm saying is that CIOs of pretty much every medium to largish company
needs to justify their salary to the other C*s.

If he can justify it in terms of cost savings he justifies his salary. Right
now, big companies either buy appliances (at huge cost and medium support
cost) or build their own networks at small (or maybe huge) cost and huge
support cost.

And what I really mean by "cloud" is the fact that pretty much any CIO will
call a rack of servers with any virtualization vendors' software running on
the bunch of them as the cloud. And honestly it's not wrong. If your company's
culture is built right whether your "cloud" is "private" or otherwise
shouldn't matter.

If Microsoft can turn the enterprise into the desktop, every enterprise on our
software as a new goal. Which mean abandoning huge margins, they could make
huge dents into SAP, CGI, IBM, Accenture and all these huge terrible
enterprise software vendors. All of them combined are a huge opportunity for
Microsoft to steal all market share from and honestly I think Microsoft could
definitely pull their 90s tactics and be successful.

~~~
arethuza
"any CIO will call a rack of servers with any virtualization vendors' software
running on the bunch of them as the cloud"

Not if they are responsible for the CapEx, administration, upgrades, data
center space etc.

I would state that the defining characteristic of "cloud computing" as far as
senior managers go is that these things are all _someone else 's problem_ and
all you are left with is a predictable monthly/yearly fee, application support
and making sure your users have a decent internet connection.

------
tempestn
This piece seems pretty spot-on all around. That said, I don't know anything
about Mr. Nadella, but I have spent a significant chunk of time trying to use
the Bing API from the Azure market, as well as competing products from Yahoo
and Google. I found the Microsoft API to be _significantly_ behind both
competitors in features, performance, documentation, terms of use, and price.
Even with Yahoo BOSS using Bing's index, it manages to offer significantly
better search features, a lower price, and less restrictive terms. (You can't
use the _paid_ Bing search API if you run any ads other than the Bing
network!) And neither one holds a candle to Google in most cases.

Anyway, but experience with Azure was deep rather than broad, but it was
enough to give me a strong belief that if this represents the great hope for
Microsoft's future, things aren't looking so bright.

~~~
gnaffle
I think it is spot-on right up to the conclusion, which I disagree with.

> The next ubiquity isn’t running on every device, it’s talking to every
> device.

I don't see how Gruber can come to this conclusion unless he has suddenly
changed position and thinks the open web will eventually win out over native
apps.

The problem, of course, is that for a company that wants to be Microsofts
size, they _need_ to own the platform, because the platform owners have an
incentive to limit their dependence on you and make sure that their cloud
services work better on their platform. iMessage and Hangouts? Integrated.
Skype? Not so.

The only way to "own" the platform owners is to have an essential, popular
product that customers demand. As much as Microsoft would want to, they don't
have such a product (perhaps Office in the business market, but that's about
it).

Edit: Wanted to add "How Microsoft Lost the API war" which is another
interesting take on the platform thing and how Microsoft lost it:
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html)

~~~
netnichols
> I don't see how Gruber can come to this conclusion unless he has suddenly
> changed position and thinks the open web will eventually win out over native
> apps.

How does his statement have anything to do with 'open web' vs. native apps?
How many native apps do you use that have no 'cloud' component whatsoever?

Gruber isn't talking about Microsoft making a bunch of web applications, he's
talking about them becoming a key player in the data services arena, i.e.
offering a platform for providing data to both web applications and native
applications alike.

~~~
gnaffle
I know he's not talking about web apps. But how is Microsoft going to be a
dominant player providing services to apps running on platforms that are
controlled by others?

Both Apple and Google want to control their own cloud platform, and they can
make sure that their cloud solution is better integrated than Microsofts
offerings on their own platforms. And at least Google knows how to do this
kind of thing really, really well.

So my point is, unless one expects platforms / operating systems to overall
become irrelevant (which some web proponents believe), I can't see how he can
draw this conclusion in earnest. It's exactly the same argument he's
criticized others for making time and time again with Apple, the only
difference being that "Apple should give up their operating system, bundle
Windows and only focus on hardware". Of course it's obvious today why that
would have been a terrible idea.

------
gfodor
Apple won by not fighting the last war. If Microsoft wants to stay relevant,
they need to do the same. What's next? The smartphone, tablet, and cloud
services ships have left port and are pretty far out on the horizon. Can
Microsoft see what is around the corner the other guys cannot? They are, for
the first time since they were founded, the underdog. They have a stellar
research group whose output they seem to rarely take advantage of. It's time
to get some stuff out of the lab and take some risks. The Kinect shows me the
mojo is there -- and it was almost certainly Ballmer's narrow-mindedness that
has prevented Microsoft from taking enough risks. I hope now that they have a
technical visionary at the helm we'll really see them shake things up, and
this is coming from someone who has loathed Microsoft products for quite some
time now.

------
Zigurd
Microsoft's malaise is part real, and part illusion:

The illusion part is mostly obvious. Microsoft makes oceans of money. Heck of
a malaise, right?

The real part of the malaise stems from Microsoft not being objective about
itself. For example, Microsoft could easily make vastly more money if they
looked at Windows as a legacy product and raised prices on the people who
really need Windows.

Looking at Windows as a Product of the Future means they won't actually ship
any Products of the Future, because that might contradict the dogma. That's a
real malaise. That's what keeps the great ideas of the very smart people at
Microsoft funneled through Windows product management. The new products that
get through are mostly reactive, like IE, MSN, Bing Search, Bing Maps, etc.

The malaise is even more basic than "Should Microsoft be a consumer and
enterprise business?" Dividing Microsoft that way would probably help, but
fail to see the underlying cause, and that would leave the consumer part
vulnerable to a continuation of what ails it now.

------
stormbrew
> No company today has reach or influence anything like what Microsoft had
> during the golden era of the PC. Not Apple, not Google, and not Microsoft
> itself.

I think Google is pretty close, really. They obviously don't have an operating
system for laptops or desktops that everyone uses, but using a computer
without Google products is something that people just don't really do anymore.
iOS, Android, OSX, Windows, Ubuntu, etc. no matter what you're probably using
something Google wrote on it.

Which is really a very old-school Microsoft strategy brought up to date to the
early 21st century. Google recognized that the OS doesn't matter anymore and
Microsoft continued to believe it was everything.

~~~
csmithuk
_using a computer without Google products is something that people just don 't
really do anymore_

This is rather naive. In certain circles yes but by far the majority of people
use just their search.

~~~
stormbrew
Is there some particular reason to exclude that? Because most of those people
who 'just' use their search use their search a lot.

~~~
josteink
People use Google-search because it's the default in all browsers.

That's why Google is still paying Mozilla money to make it the default in
Firefox and it's why Google made Android and Chrome to be able to control what
web-services people use by default, also on their mobile devices.

If the defaults switch from Google, most people wont notice. If you have any
doubts about that, observe all people which has their search hijacked by
malware.

Their search page has been diverted to a scummy non-Google page and nobody
notices that anything is wrong.

Google definitely has a strong hold on the web, but they're a lot more fragile
than you think.

~~~
stormbrew
And most people used Windows in the late 90s/early 2000s because Microsoft
effectively paid every single OEM to do so and locked them in to restrictive
covenants against shipping anything else. For the purposes of comparison it
doesn't really matter _why_ everyone uses their products, all that matters is
that they do.

I'm not really sure on what you're judging my thoughts on their fragility. I
made a pretty simple claim, that the vast majority of people use something
Google made regardless of who made their OS. Could someone topple them out of
that? Of course. Just like someone toppled Microsoft and IBM before them. It
will cost a boatload of money, but someone will eventually do it.

I just don't see how an arbitrary exclusion refutes the claim, or what
relevance it has to the price of rice in china. It'd be like saying "Not
everyone uses a Microsoft product every day because Windows doesn't count" in
1999. Well... ok then.

------
CamperBob2

       Steve Fucking Jobs said that (the desktop PC was dead and 
       innovation had virtually ceased). He was exactly right. 
       And who knows where we’d be today if Jobs and Next had not 
       been reunified with Apple the next year.
    

As a Windows user, I suspect I'd be about where I am today, except that I
wouldn't have to install ClassicShell to get rid of Metro.

~~~
valleyer
You don't think the success of the Mac over the last 10 years has pushed
Windows to become better than it would have been?

~~~
CamperBob2
Honestly, no, not really. I can't think of any features from the Mac that
Windows copied, that I personally benefit from.

However, Microsoft under Ballmer thrashed around trying to copy other things
from Apple, things that did not belong on a desktop PC, and made life more
annoying for a great many Windows users as a result. Like another poster above
suggested, another five years of that approach would have brought Microsoft
down to the lowest level Apple ever reached.

------
jitl
I think this is an interesting contrast with PG's "Microsoft is Dead (2006),"
because it points to a _reason_ why Microsoft lost their hunger and dominance:
they had no driving company goal after they got to "a computer in every home
(running Microsoft software)." Both read true to me, as a 20-something who
never really appreciated Microsoft during its dominance. By the time I got to
high school, Apple had already switched to Intel, and I purchased the first
iPhone for $600 in 10th grade. I've never used Outlook, and I don't think I
ever will.

~~~
NDizzle
It's going to take a hell of a lot from MS in order to have someone like me
buy back in.

I'll present one of the other perspectives.

I was all-Microsoft, from MS DOS up through Windows Server 2003. Late 90s
MCSE, nothing but MS. Most of my time was spent building and maintaining NT4.0
installations and then migrating to 2000.

I got tired of keeping pace with the amount of changes in all of the services
somewhere between Server 2003 and Server 2008 and have since jumped ship.

Now I use entirely open source software and a mix of AWS instances and
dedicated servers in various parts of the country for heavy lifting. (I work
with multiple small companies rather than one large company that would benefit
from the perfect AWS deployment.) This is after having spent time and
personally maintained dozens of machines in half a dozen different data
centers stretching back to 1998.

It's going to take a hell of a lot.

~~~
csmithuk
I did the opposite. I was a Unix/netware guy for years. Netware fell off a
cliff and so did commercial Unix. Left me with Linux and FreeBSD.

Whilst I rather like FreeBSD, when I have to throw an architecture together
that will survive over a decade, Microsoft wins every time. They're the only
company which provides certainty. RedHat are close but their support sucks.

~~~
acqq
I'm sorry but I just can't believe you're real. Red Hat has the most stable
(measued in the years of support without the change in the underlying
technologies) OS configurations of all commercial offerings.

What was that that you got better supported from Microsoft than from Red Hat?
Specifics please.

~~~
csmithuk
Actually no. We get 13-14 years out of Microsoft offerings which is enough
lead time for test, provisioning and an 8-10 year lifecycle. Plus due to
overlap we have enough time to test v.next.

With respect to support you get a very narrow configuration of supported
software and hardware with RH. Keeping it rolling isn't as easy as it looks.
The developer support is awful as well. Documentation is shitty,you're tied to
C++/JDK versions that are ancient etc. Also no MSDN, no partner support (which
is pretty awesome). My few dealings with RedHat support have left us without a
solution.

For ref - platforms: Exchange, Windows Server, IIS, SQL Server (the latter
I've got an installation that has been cleanly upgraded since 1996 though TWO
versions)

~~~
72deluxe
I hadn't thought about it but you're very correct about documentation for
development. Doxygen generated pages are one thing, but the MSDN is another
and it's excellent.

Well done Microsoft.

~~~
matwood
I worked with MS technologies for years at a previous job and you are right
that MSDN docs are the best out there. Javadoc, doxygen, etc... all pale in
comparison. Now that I mostly work with OSS technologies I usually just read
the source and any comments/docs that happen to be included.

------
no_gravity
"Microsoft services, sending data to and from every networked device in the
world"

There already are servers sending data everywhere. For example the servers of
Google, Facebook and Wikipedia. How would Microsoft convince those guys or new
companies to get rid of their solid, free and open stack and pay for
Microsofts closed stuff?

This is much different from "A computer on every desk and in every home
running Microsoft software". Back then, there where no computers on desks and
homes to begin with.

~~~
josteink
_How would Microsoft convince those guys or new companies to get rid of their
solid, free and open stack and pay for Microsofts closed stuff?_

They don't have to. They can keep on using their free and open stack, but
moving to Azure instead of using Google compute engine or AWS.

~~~
no_gravity
Then Microsoft would be just another provider of virtual servers. I dont think
thats a good future goal for a 300 billion dollar company.

Conversely to Gruber, I see Microsofts future in client software and hardware.
Apple and Google have put computers in every pocket. But only the consumption
part of it. The race for the production tablet has just started. And with the
Surface Pro, Microsoft has the first product out there.

~~~
josteink
Just like Amazon they are adding their own custom services to the package
which is easy to consume.

This can be storage, authentication, federation, messaging, queueing, etc.

And like Amazon they are building their own services (like AD in the cloud,
Xbox Live, hosted exchange, Office 365, etc) on top of this infrastructure, so
like for Amazon, the infrastructure they are selling literally comes for free.

------
bane
"Steve Fucking Jobs said that. He was exactly right."

Well it's good he said that, otherwise Gruber would twist himself into a knot
trying to argue otherwise.

Though this is interesting

"If we include all iOS and Android devices the “computing” market in Q3 2008
was 92 million units of which Windows was 90%, whereas in Q3 2013 it was 269
million units of which Windows was 32%."

Actually doing the math, Q3 2008, Microsoft was about 83 million units. Q3
2013 Microsoft had just over 86 million units. So I guess it's still a growth?
I'm sorry, revealing the actual numbers punctures Gruber's thesis. Rude of me.

I mean, nobody really conflated these categories when it was just Blackberries
and video game consoles. Do I get to add Xbox units to this too?

Of course Microsoft missed the mobile boat and it's largely Ballmer's fault.
That's well known and this kind of weird conflated analysis isn't insightful
or interesting.

"Here’s my stab at it: Microsoft services, sending data to and from every
networked device in the world.

The next ubiquity isn’t running on every device, it’s talking to every
device."

Ugh, please no. Data transmission has been hopelessly commoditized and I
really don't want an Apple or a Microsoft inserting themselves into a low
margin game and trying to figure out how to make it a high margin one.

~~~
jasonpbecker
> I mean, nobody really conflated these categories when it was just
> Blackberries and video game consoles. Do I get to add Xbox units to this
> too?

Did Xbox or Blackberry serve as direct substitutes for traditional PCs? No.
Have Android and iOS phones and tablets serve as direct substitutes for
traditional PCs? Yes.

~~~
bane
> Did Xbox or Blackberry serve as direct substitutes for traditional PCs?

Yes. If you don't think a Blackberry served as an entire mobile office, almost
replacing PCs for most use-cases, for millions of road warriors, then you
never had one or lived through that time.

The Xbox line has replaced PCs as both a gaming platform for millions as well
as a media center and emulation platform for many many others. XBMC after all
means "Xbox Media Center".

------
TorKlingberg
His vision of a future Microsoft sounds an awful lot like "Don't you dare
compete with Apple in any area". Server backends platforms and cloud computing
are the areas that Apple don't care about owning or controlling.

------
temuze
> Here’s my stab at it: Microsoft services, sending data to and from every
> networked device in the world. The next ubiquity isn’t running on every
> device, it’s talking to every device.

That sounds more like Google to me!

~~~
23arboo
Microsoft can can do in the enterprise, they are entrenched pretty deep!

~~~
gnaffle
Microsofts enterprise business is founded on the fact that everyone runs
Windows, so no, that doesn't work well in the long run (ask Novell).

~~~
testrun
or IBM

------
codeulike
I think the Windows 8 gamble could still pay off. We're starting to see 8"
tablets that run full Windows. Give it 12 months and the 8" form factor will
be powerful enough to cover a lot of enterprise needs. 8" tablet + docking
station is a very compelling way to get work done.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Only if your data and apps are on that device you carry about, and not in the
cloud so you can access them from both at once. And they just made the cloud
guy CEO so he might be thought to favour that way.

~~~
mattmanser
Enterprise don't have their stuff in the cloud.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Then maybe Microsoft shouldn't have promoted the guy in charge of Azure (in
their own word's "Microsoft's Cloud Platform") to CEO.

------
rollthehard6
What is missing in this article is any mention of Amazon and AWS. Surely that
is the biggest roadblock in the way of Microsoft in the cloud?

------
dkrich
I don't see why people always compare Microsoft to Apple besides the fact that
they are two of the oldest and highest-profile companies in the technology
industry. This comparison always leads to them making the false claim that
Microsoft "missed-out" on mobile.

Microsoft has always been a software-first company. Their strategy has always
been to create the OS and license it to hardware manufacturers and capture the
largest share of the market. Apple began as a hardware company that chose to
pursue a strategy of building its own software so it could control the entire
stack, bottom to top.

One wanted to cast a wide net with limited quality control, the other wanted
to produce products of the highest quality.

But here's the thing- neither is necessarily "wrong" and you can't possibly
simultaneously employ both strategies.

As of today, Microsoft has a $297 billion market cap. Enterprise software
sales (read the large multibillion-dollar entities that quietly purchase
billions of dollars of Microsoft products without blog entries or TechCrunch
critiques) aren't going anywhere for a long time. Anybody who works in one can
tell you that.

What's more is that Microsoft actually has a large and growing number of
evangelists for their mobile products. The claim that _Prices come down, chips
get faster. Software evolves._ cuts both ways and should apply as much to
Microsoft as to Apple, especially now that the mobile device market is
"mature."

~~~
10feet
I know, it is like comparing Apples and Oranges, two other similar fruits that
are very comparable.

------
dewiz
A computer on every desk. A computer in every pocket. A computer in every
body. A computer as everybody.

~~~
mmcconnell1618
A personal robot in every home running Microsoft OS?

------
yoodenvranx
> The world is in need of high-quality, reliable, developer-friendly,
> trustworthy, privacy-guarding cloud computing platforms.

No, no, no, that is exactly what I do _not_ want! I want all my computing
devices to work completely offline in all circumstances. I want to install
programs to my local computer so Incan be shure that I still can use them if
the company goes bankrupt. I want to be able to install old versions of
programs in case I don't like a newer version...

In my opinion it is wrong to put applications to the cloud because then I
become dependent on the provider of this service. For me the cloud should only
be used for one thing: to synchronize data between my computing devices!

~~~
tsax
Personal Cloud, perhaps, will be the answer. No real vendors for that yet
though. Urbit maybe but that has a year or so to go before it becomes usable.

------
grrowl
I hope Nadella is adjusting strategy closer to a Google-Amazon-Microsoft
hybrid; beefing up Hotmail, Office, SharePoint(?) and running them everywhere
on Azure, while Windows platform fragments into Phone and Surface/Desktop.

------
higherpurpose
The idea that Microsoft would be "privacy-guarding" is completely laughable to
me, when they have so much poorer security than even Google right now, and
Google already has major privacy issues on its own. Microsoft would be one of
the last company to trust with my privacy. At least when Google says they
aren't giving direct access to their servers to the governments I somewhat
believe them, but I wouldn't believe Microsoft at all if they said that to me.
They've had too many Skype privacy blunders to trust them on this.

------
quesera
> Here’s my stab at it: Microsoft services, sending data to and from every
> networked device in the world. The next ubiquity isn’t running on every
> device, it’s talking to every device.

Yikes. If anyone can find Microsoft-sized margins and volume in that business,
it will be more destructive than an OS monoculture ever was.

"Cloud" is a low-margin high-volume business, perfect for players like Amazon
and Google, with little boutiquey heroku bits thrown in to vacuum up the
value-add-at-any-price edge case customers.

~~~
gtirloni
Microsoft doesn't seem to be dreaming about Windows/Office margins with Azure:

 _That’s why today we are also announcing a commitment to match Amazon Web
Services prices for commodity services such as compute, storage and bandwidth_

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2013/04/16/the-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2013/04/16/the-
power-of-and.aspx)

------
canistr
In Canada, we have a campaign to "win" the Olympics called "Own the Podium".

I liken this to Gruber's Microsoft strategy as being "Own the pipe". Not in
the literal sense of becoming an ISP or backbone, but in the networking sense
of being the middleman to all communications a la Cisco. They need to figure
out something with the ARM architecture and servers to really advance the next
decade.

------
forgotAgain
Microsoft's future will be determined by its past profit margins. To maintain
it's historical margins it must succeed with devices. Cloud services are a low
margin business. Their online applications will never generate the profits
that their packaged software has. The fact that they are losing money on every
Surface they sell is not encouraging.

------
mwmeyer
> Here’s my stab at it: Microsoft services, sending data to and from every
> networked device in the world. The next ubiquity isn’t running on every
> device, it’s talking to every device.

Funny, that seems to be what dropbox is going for with their new datastore API

------
amaks
What a great post from Gruber. I generally don't like his posts because they
are always fanboyish, but this one just nails it.

------
mathattack
This article paints a strong argument in favor of the new CEO. I think he
stands a chance of pulling this off!

------
corresation
One angle that I expected Microsoft to eventually leverage is playing to their
traditional strengths -- diversity, openness, freedom (and what that meant for
the platform. GPUs, storage, media -- Microsoft and the Windows platform made
that evolution happen): The classic montage through the computer age sort of
thing, culminating in the Microsoft platform of today. Instead they fell for
the trap of cargo culting off of what Apple was doing, essentially becoming a
desperate wannabe, the Microsoft store being the ultimate demonstration of how
utterly self-defeating that can be.

Microsoft is still great -- even outside of raw financial might, they continue
to make great software and tools (as one aside, it is quite remarkable how
enormous of an impact Bill Gate's trustworthy computing manifesto had) -- but
from an influence perspective they have had little for quite a few years.

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blahbl4hblahtoo
For a dead company people sure do like talking about it...

