Microsoft is Dead And They Have Themselves to Thank
On August 12, 1981, Microsoft won a bid from IBM to provide an operating system for IBM's personal computer, and a new king was born. Throughout the 80's, 90's and into this century, Microsoft has remained dominant, but now that rule is failing.
Who killed Microsoft? It might be easy to point at Google or Apple or other likely choices for Microsoft's successor, but in truth, Microsoft killed itself. In fact, you could almost say that Microsoft's death was foreshadowed by that very same agreement that brought them to dominance.
Microsoft had won the bid from IBM, but they didn't have an operating system, so they turned to Seattle Computer Products and licensed 86-DOS, which they modified and released as MS-DOS. If there is one key factor in Microsoft's dominance over the past few decades, it is their cut-throat business sense, the very same business sense responsible for them securing the rights to redistribute the operating system from IBM and then buying the rights to 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, thus shutting off any possible legal battle.
Let's review: Microsoft won a bid from IBM and then turned to another company to provide the technology.
Now, let's go one step forward by skipping ahead to Microsoft Windows. While Windows seems synonymous with PCs these days, it was actually a failure in the marketplace. Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0 both failed to sell well to consumers, and Windows 3.x was headed down the same route when Microsoft stepped in and used business sense (rather than technology) to turn things around by forcing manufacturers to include Windows on any desktop that included MS-DOS. In other words, the consumers weren't in love with it, so Microsoft force fed them.
Simply put, it wasn't technology that brought Microsoft to the top. It was business savvy.
And it is the combination of cloud computing and mobile computing that is proving to be their undoing.
Cloud computing, which uses the web as a platform for applications and services, makes the operating system irrelevant. As we step into the next era of computing, consumers will actually have a choice over operating systems, which means more and more people will turn to the best operating system to fit their needs. To further complicate matters, computers don't need to be nearly as powerful since the web is doing the heavy lifting, so "slim" operating systems will become more attractive, while the 'bloated' Microsoft Windows becomes less attractive.
Mobile devices are also playing a key role. It is in the mobile world that we are really seeing the future of the web, and the mobile world is one in which Microsoft is losing ground rather than gaining it. Not only is Windows Mobile a rather kludgy operating system when compared to the iPhone and Google Android (among others), but the mobile version of Internet Explorer ranks far behind browsers like Safari, Skyfire and Opera.
Here's the crazy part: Microsoft knew this day was coming and used all of their business savvy to position themselves for continued dominance. Predicting the idea of 'cloud computing', they man-handled manufacturers into putting the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, tied Internet Explorer into their operating system, and created a proprietary web engine that flew in the face of web standards in order to force the web into a "works best with Internet Explorer" world.
So where did it go wrong? Technology.
Internet Explorer simply isn't a great browser. Even under the shadow of Microsoft's dominance, Firefox has been nibbling at that share of the market, and Google's Chrome browser is further igniting a new browser war. In the last few years, Internet Explorer's share of the browser market has slipped from 90% to 70%.
And Microsoft is fighting a war on two fronts, with Apple's iPhone blazing a new trail for mobile devices, Google's Android operating system providing a free alternative to Windows Mobile that is much more in touch with the marketplace, and various other contenders to the throne in the mobile arena.
None of this is to say that Microsoft has two left feet when it comes to technology. But they haven't been so technologically advanced that they've held the computer industry mesmerized by their pure awesomeness.
Microsoft will remain relevant simply because they do have many good products. But now that consumers are increasingly being given a choice, Microsoft will no longer be able to strong arm them into choosing their products.
Which, in the end, spells good news to us consumers.
What is Cloud Computing?
What is Mobile 2.0?
More about Google Android
How do they remain relevant if they are dead? LOL good title
I agree they wont be as dominant as they once where, but the level of dominance they where able to achieve in the OS and browser market was unprecedented especially considering they where once the underdog in a game that already had a major player. But as you said they do have many good products as well as brand recognition which will keep them alive and kicking for a long time to come.
Wardell,
I strongly disagree with you that they have a good brand recognition.
Lots of years have passed and lots of throat’s have been cut and the market knows about it, you can hide it for a few years or decades but if your business strategy is not fair play you will end up paying it SOONER or later.
More and more people know about the doddgy deals MS have been doing in the last two decades and there is lots and lots of resentment out there.
And I would agree with Paul Graham when he says that Microsoft is dead
but I would add something to his list of 4 reasons: INTEGRITY.
Jobs around the world were under deadly threat with the advent of personal computers. Microsoft allowed computer-aided technologies to be as inefficient as their paper-based predecessors and provided a lot of fun at workplaces. They succeeded in making computer “human” – irrational and capricious being. People love that.
I have tought of this again and again and that is why my search parameters on google were “cloud + microsoft + dead”
And it returned me this article which reveal to me i weren’t at all wrong.
It is obvious that cloud computing would rather kill microsoft because nobody would ever want to put a heavy operating system on his PC if this can function without any or with something a hundred times lighter. All features we have with microsoft are available over the internet and a good look at google (google document excel and word) and many other futures I wouldn’t mention are clearly revealing the collapse of microsoft.
Microsoft didn’t win the virtualization battle and failed to impose himself in the OS battle either, leaving ground for Linux, HP, Unix and all other great distributions to convince CIOs and CTOs that the deal is with open system. This resulted in eying Windows like a blackbox interesting only for newbies. This perception is even likely to persist because open OS are actually beating microsoft in terms of GUI, but given that this is no more the battle field everybody is concentrating on the new revolution of computing world which is virtualization and cloud