4 ms·
What you describe in your first sentence is absolutely their MO. I don't think anyone making any sort of serious attempt to understand Microsoft ignores that or
by mwfunk 13y ago
What you describe in your first sentence is absolutely their MO. I don't think anyone making any sort of serious attempt to understand Microsoft ignores that or is unaware of that. The whole uncertainty surrounding Microsoft for the last 10 years (fair or not) is the fact that that approach doesn't work for them anymore and hasn't worked in years, their lack of dominance in the mobile industry being the prime example of that failure, despite having a significant head start (likewise for tablets). Yet, in a lot of ways, they still to this day cling to that strategy. You cited Netscape as an example, but Netscape is the most recent example I can think of of this strategy working for them.
I actually want Microsoft to succeed; I want them to do much better than they have been. Microsoft does certain things really well that their competitors don't, and I would especially love to see more competition in the mobile and tablet space. Their own processes and business strategies seem to have calcified around 2003, which have since dragged down a lot of things that could have been great products.
Totally tangential, but this is ignoring the fact that they actually have been doing really well in the one area that you would think would be the only thing people care about: profit. But no one seems to care about that, even though I personally don't think that that profit is going to dry up anytime soon. They could keep going like this forever, and people would still talk about how they're dead or dying. I understand why this is, it's just unfortunate that simply being a successful business isn't enough to avoid being branded a failure.
- mwfunk 13y agoAlso, I think a big problem with Microsoft's strategy is it's based on attempting to replicate the same level of success they enjoyed with Windows and Office. Microsoft's strategy isn't to become a strong competitor, Microsoft's strategy all too often is to attempt to become the overwhelming market share leader. They see that things like Windows and Office enjoy 90-95% market share in their respective market segments, so new products are designed with that goal in mind (achieving monopolies rather than trying to simply put great products on the market and having those products compete solely on their own merit). This is why everything they make tries to be everything to everyone, but such products usually end up appealing to no one. I think a lot of Apple's success (one possible example of many) is due to the fact that they consciously don't try to please everyone. In fact, they make many decisions about such things knowing full well that those decisions will turn off many potential customers and put a ceiling on their potential market share. Their goal is to make what they think will be very desirable products for some target audience, as opposed to making something that they think will appeal to every customer in every segment of the market. IMO, Microsoft is constantly forcing itself to strive for an ambitious but impossible goal that tends to water down whatever the original product vision was.
- mturmon 13y agoOne example of this effect is the packaging parody http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k which was made by a MS team as an illustration of their frustration.