The Odds Are Increasing That Microsoft's Business Will Collapse

[urlwolf]

The world has changed radically in the past few years.  The Internet has continued to free app-makers from dependency on Windows or any other desktop platform (and, thus, from dependency on Microsoft).  Apple's iPhone has revolutionized the mobile business, unleashing a whole new wave of personal computing devices.  Apple's iPad seems on its way to supplanting the low-end PC business.
Importantly, none of these trends depend in any way on Microsoft's original monopoly and cash cow, Windows.  None of these trends generate so much as a dollar of revenue or profit for Microsoft.  (Microsoft is nowhere in mobile.  Or tablets.  And it is reasonable to think that, in these two huge growth businesses, nowhere is where Microsoft will always be).
Google, meanwhile, is trying to do the same thing to Apple that Microsoft did to Apple 15 years ago: Separate software and hardware and create a ubiquitous software platform for the world's developers to build on.  This is a smart strategy, and it's resonating in the developer and consumer communities: Google's Android and Chrome started slow, but they're gaining momentum rapidly.  What's more, Google is not just undercutting the alternatives on price--it's giving away its products for free.
Once again, the Chrome/Android momentum has nothing to do with Windows.  Once again, it doesn't benefit Microsoft in any way.
Now take a look at what Microsoft's biggest Windows customers--Dell, HP, and the other big PC manufacturers--are up to. Dell is in talks with Google to begin developing devices designed to run Chrome (and who can blame it--if it doesn't do this, it will be left behind in the next wave of consumer devices). And HP just bought the wreckage of Palm so that it would have a better mobile operating system with which to compete against Apple.  From Microsoft's perspective, these last two developments are disasters.

read more.

They make good points. Thoughts?

[Curt]

I trust that Microsoft some day will stumble and be in danger, because the leadership is conform and whatever. However, I don't imagine they will actually collapse. It is not as if you are in immediate danger of loosing everything if you have more than a quarter of a billion customers...

[40hz]

@urlwolf - Interesting.  

Nothing there is really all that new as far as I can tell. But it's still worth reading if for no other reason than to be aware of what a lot of other people are reading. And for better or for worse, Mr. Blodget does get read.

Unfortunately, Mr. Blodget is a former financial analyst. He thinks like a financial analyst. And he talks like a financial analyst. His perspective on technology is skewed to primarily see "tech" as a business investment rather than something that gets used by real people with real jobs.

There is nothing Google or Apple are doing that Microsoft couldn't do if it felt the need. To a certain extent, Microsoft is in a unique position to benefit so long as Apple and Google and Adobe and Amazon continue to bicker. With luck, they'll all sue each other out of existence leaving Microsoft as the only player with a piece still on the board.

I dunno. I don't think Microsoft is as much a bumbling elephant as most of the Wall Street crowd seems to believe. Maybe it's just sour grapes because Microsoft no longer affords them the opportunity to make a quick buck on their shares. Or maybe it's because they really don't understand technology despite the fact they can trot out all the current buzzwords or fake a little expertise by rehashing and rewording opinions they've read over at SlashDot.

If the biggest threat to Microsoft is losing the OS and Office suite to a web-based product, they'll simply put more effort into RDP and Office Live (which Blodget seems to be unaware of) than they already have.

But there are also other alternatives which I blathered at length about over on a thread that Zaine started to discuss OpenOffice. Link here if anybody isn't sick of listening to me by now.

[Eóin]

Apple's iPad seems on its way to supplanting the low-end PC business.

Ha, what utter nonsense. I'd even be dubious it will replace netbooks given the lack of a keyboard.

In fact, it's not hard to envision a future in which the "desktop PC," as Microsoft currently defines it, becomes an oddity--a strange throwback to a world in which a single local hard drive (or a box of floppy disks) constituted the center of someone's work life.

Personally I find that very very hard to imagine. Most of the article reads as one dubious hypothesis after another. And when someone words their personal notions and theories as fact they lose all credibility in my eyes.

[steeladept]

+1 for each of the comments.

He obviously doesn't understand tech, or market segmentation.  Anyone who equates Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Live as the same product doesn't even follow Microsoft at all.  He is just snapping up readers by following the popular Microsoft bashing and making a headline out of it.

The ONLY thing I read that even made sense was that Microsoft will not be the stock rocket that it has been for the better part of 3 decades.  The will still be a good "new" blue-chip for a long time.  At least as long and as well (if not better than) his beloved Apple.  Looking at shortcomings the way he does, you would think Apple and Google have no weakness, and Microsoft has no strengths.  I give him that Microsoft is not as bleeding edge and always right (business sense compared to the competition) as it used to be, but that is hardly reason to believe they are down and out.  Before the Macintosh was released by Apple, people were saying the same thing about them.  More recently, some were proposing that Apple stagnated until the release of the iPod blew that thought out the window.  No, I am convinced this is just a slower time for Microsoft where they will do a lot of introspection before busting out again just like Apple did in the 90's.

[40hz]

^ One of Microsoft's biggest assets is that it doesn't have a man with second class talent and a first class ego (plus a major messiah complex) at the helm. Ballmer, at his looniest, is still saner than Steve Jobs on a good day. Displays more variety in his wardrobe too.


I'm sure Microsoft has it's share of lunatics.

Fortunately, they dont let them be in charge of their asylum.

[superboyac]

40hz, you bring up good points that never crossed my mind before.  Much food for thought!

[mouser]

it does seem like maybe microsoft will need to trim the fat in the company and focus a bit more..
but after so long i'm afraid that the majority of the company might be considered extraneous "fat".  

however.. at this point, after observing greedy google and a-hole apple, the idea of a lean, mean, focused, and efficient Microsoft would be just what the doctor ordered.  i'm not saying it's likely, but it would be refreshing.

[rgdot]

One thing which I don't understand but I have seen numerous people be quite happy with is doing everything with smaller screens. I am surprised to see how many people are happy to watch movies on screens as small as those on an ipod touch.
The future will be about what people accept, for so many reasons I do not want to do any computing on a netbook, even if future generation netbooks come with high end processing power I still don't get small screens.

[zridling]

What rgdot said. Anyone counting on Microsoft going down in the next 10-15 years doesn't know Microsoft. What the company needs is for Ballmer to retire and move on to the next great thing. While there are billions to be had, an OS and an office suite is only going to take you so far in a landscape where Linux and Google Docs/Zoho, etc. are "good enough" for many. Losing low end users to online apps and high cost users to Apple is leaving Microsoft squeezed for now.

[Paul Keith]

One thing which I don't understand but I have seen numerous people be quite happy with is doing everything with smaller screens. I am surprised to see how many people are happy to watch movies on screens as small as those on an ipod touch.

It's not so much small but the age of the extremes.

People either want "big, clear, hi-def" or "small, portable, just so I can watch it"

Really the more interesting headline that no one wants to tackle but is really the only way to tackle this subject in detail is to ask: "Which fell first? Microsoft or America?"

There's too many parallels and metaphors that can be done with that subject right now but I haven't read anyone sinking their knowledge tooth into it.

[cmpm]

Speaking of just what the doctor ordered.
A ton of this technology is in health care.
I think that would be a concern of a collapse or crazy intrusion by developers.
Propriety software may become the rule for that business if developers screw up with their programs in the health industry.

Just thinking out load.

The possibility of an OS embedded in the mind is not too far fetched....maybe...lol...

A holographic desktop by blinking your eye a certain way.
Not sure about a mouse and keyboard, maybe just voice recognition....

Like I said, just thinking.
As far fetched as it may sound it could happen.

[steeladept]

One thing which I don't understand but I have seen numerous people be quite happy with is doing everything with smaller screens. I am surprised to see how many people are happy to watch movies on screens as small as those on an ipod touch.
The future will be about what people accept, for so many reasons I do not want to do any computing on a netbook, even if future generation netbooks come with high end processing power I still don't get small screens.

It is simple and can be explained in one word.  Portability.  When was the last time you saw someone toting around a 65" portable screen?  No? How about a 17" laptop? Yes?  But were they happy about it?  Lugging around a 17" laptop is very heavy and annoying over time, but no one complains about a cellphone sized device.

You did hit on one observation I have noticed over the years though.  People gravitate to the extremes based on position.  They want the biggest or the smallest depending on what is important about that device.  If it is stationary, they want the biggest, most powerful widget available that fits their constraints (size, cost, etc).  If they want portability, they want it as small and lightweight as possible without compromising on purpose - again within their other constraints (primarily cost).  This is why netbooks are so quickly replacing laptops in the general consensus and why 65" widescreen LCD TV's (or bigger) are taking over the living room.  It is also why I think Mouser is having such a hard time finding viable ebook readers that fit his criteria.

<Had to put in that nod to his other post >

[zridling]

After even thinking of getting in the phone market, much less attempting the "kin," (and then killing it soon after launch), I'd like to reiterate that Microsoft needs new management. $500mn doesn't grow on trees anymore.

What the hell is going on at Microsoft? | ZDNet
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/what-the-hell-is-going-on-at-microsoft/8827?tag=mantle_skin;content

“The sudden rise and fall of the Kin is a clear pointer to the fact that Microsoft has no clear mobile strategy. The company is flailing wildly, throwing money about like it’s a solution to everything. It isn’t. the phrase that lingers in my head to describe Microsoft’s current mobile plan is “here today, gone tomorrow …”.”