Andrey Vystavkin Blog

The polemics on the topic of Microsoft’s death reached its more less structured level even though in many different portals like Slashdot, Techmeme etc. this subject has been discussed in any possible way, but let’s get a bit detailed about it.

Paul Graham in his article says that:

When did Microsoft die, and of what? I know they seemed dangerous as late as 2001, because I wrote an essay then about how they were less dangerous than they seemed.I’d guess they were dead by 2005.

So, how dead is Microsoft? Giving his opinion, Duncan Riley wrote an article in 901am blog:

Micorsoft is alive and mostly well. Has it clearly failed in a range of endevours? absolutely, Microsoft’s internet strategy sucks and most people will take that for a given. Zune? do most people even know what a Zune is? probably not. Was the Vista development program a shambles? yes.

Main reasons, Paul mentioned in the post were:

• Google killed Microsoft
• Ajax
• Broadband Internet
• Apple

So lets check it out step-by-step.

Google, Ajax and dead Microsoft

Microsoft didn’t pose itself as leading web company, and the rise of Google killed not only Microsoft with its msn.com search engine, Google became the leading search engine on the Web, and it was one of the first companies pushing the idea of Web applications and promoting Ajax. Definitely, Web 2.0 bubble moved desktop apps development in the shade, giving more opportunities for the developers to launch their start-up companies. At some point, it’s easier to create a web application with less OS or hardware dependencies. Everything is based on the Web standards and your own Broadband. Since I’ve mentioned Ajax here, the XMLHttpRequests was originally implemented by Microsoft, but only now they got involved in Ajax community.

Apple Products vs. Microsoft

Apple. What’s about Mac computers? Or all the services Apple Inc. produces. Yesterday, Apple Store declared that they’ve sold the 100 millionth iPod. Of course, it’s an impressive number for this market, where iPod dominates without no doubts, and the Zune mp3 player couldn’t equally compete with Apple’s product. For sure, it’s hard to produce devices which do more less the same things and differ at few dozen dollars and the company label at the back. The simplicity of the device was the key of success for iPod.

Talking about OS X killing Windows – you must be kidding me! According to the stats, it’s hard to say that Mac really made Microsoft worrying about OS domination on the market:

It would be more correct to say, that other Operating Systems got more attention because of overestimated expectations for Windows Vista and the increase of antitrust policy in the EU about Microsoft. Other operating systems just increased their market share, like .Nix based Os, BSD based OS X, at the same way not counting the number of PC’s which has two or more OS installed.

Broadband and Web development mess

It’s really hard to believe that strategic management of Microsoft couldn’t expect the growth of Internet Broadband. But, I assume that focusing on the OS development they’ve underestimated it, and lost the Web Browser market with IE 6.x, which they’re trying to get back with the Internet Explorer 7. Web is all about standards and compatibility, which Microsoft couldn’t admit with IE 6. Always coming up with alternative solutions like ASP versus Perl/PHP, or ISS vs. Apache servers, they were continuously cleaving the Web, while they could have got more income on implementing some support services for existing Web development solutions in my opinion.

Going back to the main question of Microsoft’s death, you can see that they aren’t so true. Microsoft has a huge financial potential and ability of winning back lost positions at the market, but it will be harder year after year.