Hans-Christian Andersen
hans.andersen at phulse.com
Tue Sep 10 21:36:01 CDT 2013
I honestly don't see a brighter future for Microsoft - especially if they promote a CEO from within, like Stephen Elop. Even the mere suggestion that they are considering Elop raises some serious questions about what really happened at Nokia and Elops/Microsofts role in the matter. Never the less, Microsoft is so stuck on the old business model of the Microsoft OEM tax and MS Office, that, unless they break the company apart, everything will always be held back by those concerns. The Xbox division of Microsoft is a perfect example and a rare one too. From what I've read, they were given a lot of freedom to make their own decisions compared to other parts of the company. Ballmer or any of the other usual misfit executives were not directly involved in that division and, as a consequence, the Xbox did quite well and has an enthusiastic fan base. Now compare that to mostly every other new consumer market Microsoft has pushed into lately? MP3 devices, pre-iPad tablets and the Surface, smartphones (before and after WP7), etc. Rather than a DEC, I can imagine Microsoft becoming like IBM. What MS does well is software and integrating software. They don't do hardware well and they are even worse as a platform monopoly. It's is part of why they are struggling in this brave new world. Best regards, Hans-Christian Andersen On 10 Sep 2013, at 11:12, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote: > Microsoft for many years played it safe. > > Safe, in that it did not get invested heavily in commodity market (selling hardware). It has done well with the XBox but so far its latest ventures can not be said to have been that successful. > > In the late seventies and early eighties, I worked exclusively with the two largest computer companies in the world. IBM and DEC (VAX). DEC made the first 64bit PC computer and our office bought one for only 15K...a UNIX box. For a short time, while in my own business, I even sold Compac computers (I even sold AST). In the mid-nineties DEC crashed, was sold off to Compac which followed suit shortly after. Even today I still find that amazing...amazing that a company, originally so large and successful (with an excellent virtual OS) should just crash, burn and then disappear. > > In the following link, the article draws close comparisons between Microsoft and DEC and the author feels a note of caution should be seriously observed. IMHO, Microsoft should be taking some serious courses and learning lessons from recent history. > > http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242253/Decline_of_Digital_Equipment_offers_lessons_for_Microsoft > > Aside: Do not get me wrong; I do not dislike Microsoft, in fact they have been very very good to me, but I truly believe that Steve Balmer was the worse thing that could have happen to MS and the damage he has done to the company may have not run its full course, yet. I still believe Microsoft will survive all this but it is going to be a bumpy ride. > > Jim > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com