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Microsoft Is Spread Too Thin. That's it. That is the reason most of their products are half-assed. They have database systems. Server, desktop, and tablet/phon

Microsoft Is Spread Too Thin. That's it. That is the reason most of their products are half-assed. They have database systems. Server, desktop, and tablet/phone operating systems. Web, desktop, mobile development environments, all in multiple languages. They have their IaaS and PaaS offerings. They have end user services like Skydrive and Outlook. Then there is everything Office. And games, both PC and Xbox. Also, Bing. And Skype. Edit: And hardware: Xbox, peripherals and the surface. ... This is probably an incredibly incomplete list. Try making this list for Apple, and you'll get my point.

jiggy2011 13y ago
Microsoft's business model is basically "we are all things to all men". It's all about vertical integration. They aren't attractive because their products are necessarily that compelling on their own, it's that if your entire computing is Microsoft (as it was for many people late 90s-early 2000s) a lot of problems go away. The killer app for Windows server is that it is designed for managing Windows desktops for example. If you are running OS X desktops, why bother with it?
- arethuza 13y ago
  "If you are running OS X desktops, why bother with it?" Because you want to run applications that only run on Windows Server?
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    But a large chunk of the really compelling Windows Server applications are about management of Windows desktop.
    - rednukleus 13y ago
      > If you are running OS X desktops, why bother with it? If you are one of the small minority of people running OS X in a business environment then of course Microsoft's vertical integration is less useful. But well over 90% of business desktops/laptops are Windows based, so Microsoft has an attractive model for many businesses.
      - jiggy2011 13y ago
        Yah, but that's kind of my point. They are spreading themselves thin because their business model is all based around vertical integration.
        rednukleus 13y ago
        I'm not sure I understand your point. How does making the Xbox hurt Windows Server or Windows Phone?
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        It doesn't , if anything it's the opposite.
        rednukleus 13y ago
        So in what sense do you think they are spreading themselves too thin?
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        I don't really, they need the verticals to maintain their current position. They can't really "hunker down" on a few core products in the same way that Apple does.
        rednukleus 13y ago
        Aha, looks like I misinterpreted your original comment. I knew one of us was being dense - turns out it was me.
    - arethuza 13y ago
      The really compelling applications are at a business level - ERP, CRM, finance, engineering etc. - and might not come from Microsoft. There is a huge world of specialised business applications out there that are ignored on HN (often for good reasons) that any large enterprise will have hundreds of - a lot of these run on Windows.
      - jiggy2011 13y ago
        True, but third party vendors can shift platforms a lot more easily than an entire enterprise on Windows 7 desktops.
      - vetinari 13y ago
        Yes, there are many business applications, that run o Windows. However, there are two trends now: 1) Move the application to the web. Many of them are getting HTML frontends, and the backends are OS-independent. 2) Those, that are not getting ported, are being thrown into Citrix XenApp (or into other desktop virtualization environment). It is actually very interesting to see using your business app on device like Asus Transformer. And then you start question yourself - why do you need Windows on client and all the heavy infrastructure in the server room it needs?
        arethuza 13y ago
        "why do you need Windows on client" I was only addressing why people want Window Server - clients are something else entirely. In my experience, in large enterprises almost all "business" applications (except for Office) are served over Citrix or RDP.
jacques_chester 13y ago
> This is probably an incredibly incomplete list. You've actually hit Microsoft's five business units. In order of revenue: Business Division (ie, Office): $24B Windows & Windows Live: $18.8B Server & Tools: $18.7B Entertainment & Devices: $9.5B Online Services: $3B. With the exception of Online Services, each of these business units alone is doing enough revenue to qualify for inclusion on the Fortune 500 list. Entertainment & Devices makes more revenue than Yahoo does in total. More than Hertz and Barnes & Noble. I would love -- love! -- to be spread so thin.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  The speed with which one technological company can fall is amazing as history has shown time and time again. According to joel spolsky Excel 4 made lotus 1-2-3 obsolete virtually overnight and that was the beginning of the end for them. The fact that MS is strong now means nothing in the long and even midterm. The total share of world computing that Microsoft controls now is lower than in the 90s. They have trouble getting good products out except in Server and Azure divisions. They are bleeding developer loyalty and they are turning into Apple style control freaks without having the charm of Apple.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > Excel 4 made lotus 1-2-3 obsolete virtually overnight Isn't that the benefit of being "spread thin" though? Xboxone might die but at least they have the other stuff.
  - adventured 13y ago
    Actually, their substantial diversification beyond Windows means that it's very, very unlikely Microsoft is going to fall (easily or quickly). Microsoft could lose the entire consumer Windows business and be just fine (despite the hit their stock would take), particularly as they keep growing in other sectors while Windows becomes less important by the day (and is clearly done growing as a business). Consumer Windows is about 1/3 of Microsoft's profit these days. Apple by comparison gets about 3/4 of its profit from the iPhone. Google is even worse, 95% of their profit comes directly from search.
fhd2 13y ago
Agreed, seems like way too many fronts to fight on. Back in the day when they were the evil empire (TM), this probably made sense - they were able to steamroll into new markets, right over the competition. Now that they're playing catch up in many of those areas, probably not so much. Also, there's more: They're quite a bit into hardware, making input devices and, lately, Surface. They're also a big name in the enterprise software world, offering their own CRM and, I'm sure, tons of other things. They really do everything.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  When you are in so many markets, your efforts will sometimes be ahead and sometimes behind the competition. It's the sort of normal Poisson distribution you'd expect to find anyhow.
hackinthebochs 13y ago
So Xbox is half-assed because you don't like their all digital model? Come now. You may not agree with the model, but nothing I've seen from this generation xbox can be honestly called half-assed.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Well, except the entire dashboard and game purchasing system on the actual console. It's incredibly terrible. The cycle of update and reboot (I've watched my Xbox360 reboot 3 times for updates after turning it on once) is silly. The dashboard is extremely slow. You select something like "download game", and you can count several seconds between the rendering of every element on the screen that pops up. It's terribly half-assed.

jiggy2011 13y ago

Microsoft's business model is basically "we are all things to all men". It's all about vertical integration. They aren't attractive because their products are necessarily that compelling on their own, it's that if your entire computing is Microsoft (as it was for many people late 90s-early 2000s) a lot of problems go away. The killer app for Windows server is that it is designed for managing Windows desktops for example. If you are running OS X desktops, why bother with it?

arethuza 13y ago
"If you are running OS X desktops, why bother with it?" Because you want to run applications that only run on Windows Server?
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  But a large chunk of the really compelling Windows Server applications are about management of Windows desktop.
  - rednukleus 13y ago
    > If you are running OS X desktops, why bother with it? If you are one of the small minority of people running OS X in a business environment then of course Microsoft's vertical integration is less useful. But well over 90% of business desktops/laptops are Windows based, so Microsoft has an attractive model for many businesses.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      Yah, but that's kind of my point. They are spreading themselves thin because their business model is all based around vertical integration.
      - rednukleus 13y ago
        I'm not sure I understand your point. How does making the Xbox hurt Windows Server or Windows Phone?
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        It doesn't , if anything it's the opposite.
        rednukleus 13y ago
        So in what sense do you think they are spreading themselves too thin?
        jiggy2011 13y ago
        I don't really, they need the verticals to maintain their current position. They can't really "hunker down" on a few core products in the same way that Apple does.
        rednukleus 13y ago
        Aha, looks like I misinterpreted your original comment. I knew one of us was being dense - turns out it was me.
  - arethuza 13y ago
    The really compelling applications are at a business level - ERP, CRM, finance, engineering etc. - and might not come from Microsoft. There is a huge world of specialised business applications out there that are ignored on HN (often for good reasons) that any large enterprise will have hundreds of - a lot of these run on Windows.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      True, but third party vendors can shift platforms a lot more easily than an entire enterprise on Windows 7 desktops.
    - vetinari 13y ago
      Yes, there are many business applications, that run o Windows. However, there are two trends now: 1) Move the application to the web. Many of them are getting HTML frontends, and the backends are OS-independent. 2) Those, that are not getting ported, are being thrown into Citrix XenApp (or into other desktop virtualization environment). It is actually very interesting to see using your business app on device like Asus Transformer. And then you start question yourself - why do you need Windows on client and all the heavy infrastructure in the server room it needs?
      - arethuza 13y ago
        "why do you need Windows on client" I was only addressing why people want Window Server - clients are something else entirely. In my experience, in large enterprises almost all "business" applications (except for Office) are served over Citrix or RDP.

jacques_chester 13y ago

> This is probably an incredibly incomplete list. You've actually hit Microsoft's five business units. In order of revenue: Business Division (ie, Office): $24B Windows & Windows Live: $18.8B Server & Tools: $18.7B Entertainment & Devices: $9.5B Online Services: $3B. With the exception of Online Services, each of these business units alone is doing enough revenue to qualify for inclusion on the Fortune 500 list. Entertainment & Devices makes more revenue than Yahoo does in total. More than Hertz and Barnes & Noble. I would love -- love! -- to be spread so thin.

venomsnake 13y ago
The speed with which one technological company can fall is amazing as history has shown time and time again. According to joel spolsky Excel 4 made lotus 1-2-3 obsolete virtually overnight and that was the beginning of the end for them. The fact that MS is strong now means nothing in the long and even midterm. The total share of world computing that Microsoft controls now is lower than in the 90s. They have trouble getting good products out except in Server and Azure divisions. They are bleeding developer loyalty and they are turning into Apple style control freaks without having the charm of Apple.
- DanBC 13y ago
  > Excel 4 made lotus 1-2-3 obsolete virtually overnight Isn't that the benefit of being "spread thin" though? Xboxone might die but at least they have the other stuff.
- adventured 13y ago
  Actually, their substantial diversification beyond Windows means that it's very, very unlikely Microsoft is going to fall (easily or quickly). Microsoft could lose the entire consumer Windows business and be just fine (despite the hit their stock would take), particularly as they keep growing in other sectors while Windows becomes less important by the day (and is clearly done growing as a business). Consumer Windows is about 1/3 of Microsoft's profit these days. Apple by comparison gets about 3/4 of its profit from the iPhone. Google is even worse, 95% of their profit comes directly from search.

fhd2 13y ago

Agreed, seems like way too many fronts to fight on. Back in the day when they were the evil empire (TM), this probably made sense - they were able to steamroll into new markets, right over the competition. Now that they're playing catch up in many of those areas, probably not so much. Also, there's more: They're quite a bit into hardware, making input devices and, lately, Surface. They're also a big name in the enterprise software world, offering their own CRM and, I'm sure, tons of other things. They really do everything.

jacques_chester 13y ago
When you are in so many markets, your efforts will sometimes be ahead and sometimes behind the competition. It's the sort of normal Poisson distribution you'd expect to find anyhow.

hackinthebochs 13y ago

So Xbox is half-assed because you don't like their all digital model? Come now. You may not agree with the model, but nothing I've seen from this generation xbox can be honestly called half-assed.

MichaelGG 13y ago
Well, except the entire dashboard and game purchasing system on the actual console. It's incredibly terrible. The cycle of update and reboot (I've watched my Xbox360 reboot 3 times for updates after turning it on once) is silly. The dashboard is extremely slow. You select something like "download game", and you can count several seconds between the rendering of every element on the screen that pops up. It's terribly half-assed.