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Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

mobileopportunity.blogspot.co.uk

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Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#51

Post by bluedino »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #6

Microsoft isn't nuts. They simply missed mobile. Microsoft almost missed the Internet, and retained some of their dominance only after decisive top-down action and investment. By the time Microsoft understood what was happening in mobile, it was too late. The fiasco was compounded by Ballmer's indecisive reaction, but it was already set in motion. Anything Microsoft does with mobile, perhaps short of something that l…

> Microsoft isn't nuts. Yep. Their spectacular mediocrity is only now being revealed, that's all. Look, they've been great simply by virtue of being in the right place at the right time. There was an incredibly TREMENDOUS hidden demand for a PC and an operating system for it, and MS happened to be there at the time. A half-blind monkey in the same place at the same time would have made a truckload of money too. It wa…

>> Good riddance, MS. You've kept the whole industry back far too long.

Don't be so harsh. The industry wouldn't exist as we know it without Microsoft.

There'd still be 10+ different platforms.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#52

Post by tstrimple »

nailer wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #6

Microsoft isn't nuts. They simply missed mobile. Microsoft almost missed the Internet, and retained some of their dominance only after decisive top-down action and investment. By the time Microsoft understood what was happening in mobile, it was too late. The fiasco was compounded by Ballmer's indecisive reaction, but it was already set in motion. Anything Microsoft does with mobile, perhaps short of something that l…

I think this is true, but before they missed mobile, they conquered it. The main mobile computing vendor in the early 2000s was Palm. Microsoft destroyed the existing entrenched competitor with genuinely better products and a wider ecosystem. And then forgot to innovate. Then got out innovated by competitors. Just like with the browser.

It's a pattern I see over and over unfortunately. As soon as something is dominant, they put focus into something else allowing competition to eclipse their lead. Suddenly they are in a position of having to become relevant in the market again. I see the same thing happening now with Skype. Skype is/was the dominant voip platform, but it's stagnating under Microsoft. The mobile applications are terrible. The only "innovation" I've seen around Skype is the inclusion in Xbox One which is is actually very good in limited scenarios.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#54

Post by Arnor »

tptacek wrote: post #6

Microsoft isn't nuts. They simply missed mobile. Microsoft almost missed the Internet, and retained some of their dominance only after decisive top-down action and investment. By the time Microsoft understood what was happening in mobile, it was too late. The fiasco was compounded by Ballmer's indecisive reaction, but it was already set in motion. Anything Microsoft does with mobile, perhaps short of something that l…

> They simply missed mobile.

This might be a bit premature. Mobile isn't done yet. There's still plenty of time for Microsoft to develop a successful strategy. I don't think we'll ever see Microsoft as dominant in the mobile space, but I doubt there was ever a strategy that would have led to long term mobile domination by Microsoft.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#55

Post by huxley »

shin_lao wrote: post #17
tptacek wrote: post #6

Microsoft isn't nuts. They simply missed mobile. Microsoft almost missed the Internet, and retained some of their dominance only after decisive top-down action and investment. By the time Microsoft understood what was happening in mobile, it was too late. The fiasco was compounded by Ballmer's indecisive reaction, but it was already set in motion. Anything Microsoft does with mobile, perhaps short of something that l…

I think you are underestimating the quality of Windows Phone devices. We'll see what I happens, but I wouldn't write Microsoft off the mobile market yet. Edit: market share is around 10% in five European countries according to this: http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/global/News/news-articles/Ap...

I seem to recall that Kantar does consumer surveys to generate their marketshare estimate, so it wouldn't be a direct measure of sales and there might be distortions depending on their methodology.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#56

Post by jimbokun »

jfoutz wrote: post #15
tptacek wrote: post #6

Microsoft isn't nuts. They simply missed mobile. Microsoft almost missed the Internet, and retained some of their dominance only after decisive top-down action and investment. By the time Microsoft understood what was happening in mobile, it was too late. The fiasco was compounded by Ballmer's indecisive reaction, but it was already set in motion. Anything Microsoft does with mobile, perhaps short of something that l…

They could make Visual studio better than XCode for iOS apps. They could make a really nice Android toolchain too. If they could grab a good fraction of mobile developers (5-10% ?) they'd be in a good position to launch some sort of device. Well, they could try.

"They could make Visual studio better than XCode for iOS apps. They could make a really nice Android toolchain too."

Wouldn't this just lead to more and better iOS and Android apps?

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#58

Post by tstrimple »

duwease wrote: post #41

Isn't this just a continuation of Microsoft's recent-years strategy of waiting until other peoples' innovations created a market, and then trying to drop their entry into it? Zune, Xbox, Windows Phone, Windows Tablet, etc.. hell, didn't Ballmer explicitly state that was his strategy?

I don't think that's true at all. Zune, Windows Phone, Windows Tablets and Xbox are all more innovative than the competition. The phone and tablet are suffering from being so late to the game, and Xbox is "suffering" from grossly incompetent marketing and PR. All of those products get fantastic reviews from people who actually own them.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#59

Post by r00fus »

nailer wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #6

Microsoft isn't nuts. They simply missed mobile. Microsoft almost missed the Internet, and retained some of their dominance only after decisive top-down action and investment. By the time Microsoft understood what was happening in mobile, it was too late. The fiasco was compounded by Ballmer's indecisive reaction, but it was already set in motion. Anything Microsoft does with mobile, perhaps short of something that l…

I think this is true, but before they missed mobile, they conquered it. The main mobile computing vendor in the early 2000s was Palm. Microsoft destroyed the existing entrenched competitor with genuinely better products and a wider ecosystem. And then forgot to innovate. Then got out innovated by competitors. Just like with the browser.

Microsoft seems to only want to compete, and the existence of a salable product seems (from this outsider) to be simply a byproduct.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#60

Post by pmelendez »

> "I think a more interesting licensing strategy for Microsoft would be forking Android"

Sure, what we really need is having another flavour of Android. That wouldn't be confusing to users at all and will make developers happy (specially because it will be ditching the easier development environment for mobiles )[/sarcasm]

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