I'll agree that Microsoft hasn't had a stellar record for the past 10 years or so, but this is just ridiculous.
+ I'll give you MSN search vs. Google, which is of course what the whole Yahoo bid was about.
- Hotmail was the first widely-used web mail client, and still has a very significant market share vs. Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
- The xbox has a very good market share of consoles, particularly considering the history of its competition in Sony and Nintendo.
+ The Zune is admittedly an also-ran. Then again, there are a lot of also-rans to the iPod. Microsoft isn't the only company who tried to mimic it and failed.
- Silverlight is still extremely new, and is more a competitor to Flash than AJAX. It has potential, but the jury is still very out.
- You're kidding, right? Maybe in the server market, but the desktop market is still completely dominated by Windows.
+ Vista was a huge mistake, and OSX beats the crap out of it.
- .NET works just fine as a competitor to Java. You need to substantiate this more if you want to make sweeping claims like that.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but it irks me when people blindly bash them. I know it's trendy to be anti-Microsoft (it has been for years), but it's tunnel vision.
I didn't intend to "bash" them. (Well, maybe a little.)
I'm just playing stockholder's advocate, questioning the people who are supposed to represent my best long term interests. $40B on the left side of the balance sheet covers for a lot of missteps, but sooner or later, someone's gotta start asking the hard questions like, "What is our focus?", "How do we position ourselves for the massive tech shifts about to happen", "What business are we going to be in in 10 years?", and "Why should I keep my dollars here?"
Bullys have a tough time with those questions. Visionaries don't.
Microsoft is doing extremely well with the XBox. It has produced a leading product across multiple generations of the console market and ensured that commercial game development uses DirectX instead of migrating to OpenGL.
+ I'll give you MSN search vs. Google, which is of course what the whole Yahoo bid was about.
- Hotmail was the first widely-used web mail client, and still has a very significant market share vs. Gmail and Yahoo Mail.
- The xbox has a very good market share of consoles, particularly considering the history of its competition in Sony and Nintendo.
+ The Zune is admittedly an also-ran. Then again, there are a lot of also-rans to the iPod. Microsoft isn't the only company who tried to mimic it and failed.
- Silverlight is still extremely new, and is more a competitor to Flash than AJAX. It has potential, but the jury is still very out.
- You're kidding, right? Maybe in the server market, but the desktop market is still completely dominated by Windows.
+ Vista was a huge mistake, and OSX beats the crap out of it.
- .NET works just fine as a competitor to Java. You need to substantiate this more if you want to make sweeping claims like that.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but it irks me when people blindly bash them. I know it's trendy to be anti-Microsoft (it has been for years), but it's tunnel vision.