Microsoft Over The Decade – Mistakes Opportunities Challenges
An interesting look at Microsoft over the past decade. This article by Gavin Clarke for the Register looks at how the landscape has changed with the OS, browsers, software development languages, cloud computing & mobile software, the successes, the mistakes Microsoft made and the opportunities it still has.
It was a confident – some might say complacent – Microsoft that entered the decade. Microsoft was the PC. Such was its grip on the desktop and laptop ecosystem that it could force OEMs to ship its browser by threatening to cut off access to its operating system…
As Microsoft moves into the next decade, the confidence it displayed when it entered the Millennium is gone. The certainties of the old PC world have evaporated while the tactics of Microsoft used in that world – picking a leader and spending furiously to beat them – are challenged in a world where the competition is diverse, fragmented, free, and open.
Opportunities exist for Microsoft in the next decade and the company can succeed again. It might be late to cloud computing with Azure, but most everyone is still on the start line, so it still stands a chance.
And when it comes to rich media, Microsoft’s got a winner with Silverlight as an alternative to Adobe’s Flash – at least as far as .NET developers are concerned…In other areas – particularly mobile phones, browsers and search – the missteps of the past will need to be rectified before Microsoft can move on…
One thing is certain. Microsoft will see 2010 as a chance to re-set the clock – and put a painful ten years behind it…
