The dirty little secret at Microsoft (and at Red Hat, for that matter) has been the rise of the iPhone within employee ranks.
It's one thing to try to impose one's technology on an unsuspecting market, but Microsoft employees know that the iPhone makes their Windows Mobile devices look like Tinkertoys, which is why it's so easy to find iPhones at Microsoft's Redmond campus.
Or has been. In a relatively recent move, as The Business Insider reports, Microsoft has cut off reimbursements for data plans other than those linked to Windows Mobile devices. The move was ostensibly made to cut costs but likely also intended to save face by ensuring company employees use company technology.
It's a noble attempt to impose change through legislation. Perhaps Microsoft has learned something from European regulators.
Not that Microsoft is alone in trying to restrict choice. Microsoft enthusiast groups like the JCXP site are calling for a ban on the Opera browser to protest its involvement in recent European Commission antitrust proceedings. It's unclear whether the protesters will actually be able to find any Opera users to persuade away from the browser.
But good luck all the same.
There was a day when Microsoft was so impervious to competition that actions like this would have been unthinkable. Those days are gone. Microsoft is still dominant, but it's becoming clearer every day that there are mainstream alternatives to Microsoft technology that are clearly better than its own offerings.
Rather than legislating change, Microsoft could try innovating change. Those who can, compete....
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
That's the message coming out of the European Commission as it grumbles about Microsoft's decision to strip Internet Explorer from OEM and retail versions of Windows 7 in Europe, as CNET reports.
The EU wants Microsoft to bundle a range of competing browsers with Windows 7. Microsoft, apparently in an act of defiance, said "Let them eat cake!" and is offering no browser at all.
Before you join the EU's protest, however, consider that this could well be Mozilla's best chance to increase its 31.1 percent market share in Europe.
Microsoft's Dave Heiner indicates that it will "offer (IE) separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users." For such people, Firefox will be as hard (or easy) to get as before.
But what about those left without a browser? As Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, articulated to me, most people download Firefox...using IE, which means leaving them browser-less (even without IE) is tantamount to cutting off their access to Firefox.
I disagree.
Mozilla has done a masterful job of marketing itself. From Asa Dotzler's early Spread Firefox campaign to its campus representatives, Mozilla rightly earns kudos from Advertising Age:
Mozilla competes against Microsoft, Apple and Google -- arguably the biggest and most valuable brands in the world -- and it succeeds with no traditional advertising (or big budgets) to speak of.
How? It's the community, stupid. In a ground war--that is, in a war of foot soldiers and hand-to-hand combat--I think Mozilla would beat IE. When your neighbor in Colmar, France, complains about her lack of Internet access on her new PC, are you going to install Firefox or IE for her? I'm guessing that Mozilla's army of enthusiastic community volunteers would be over in seconds with a Firefox-laden USB stick.
In fact, I can see the Firefox community taking up residence outside retail computer shops, offering to install Firefox. I can see the same community figuring out clever ways to add Firefox installation to other programs, giving Mozilla the same inside track on installations that Microsoft presumably will have.
Necessity is the mother of all invention, and it may well prod Mozilla's community to get deeply engaged in proselytizing and distributing Firefox in ways far beyond what it has hitherto done.
Sure, Microsoft's tactics (providing easy FTP access, etc.) will give it a healthy handicap in the competition, but community, not government, could make this one of Mozilla's single-best opportunities to leapfrog IE in Europe.
For those that like the idea of government and community helping Mozilla, just remember, as these Wall Street Journal readers do, that the hand that feeds today can quickly become the hand that takes tomorrow. What happens when Firefox gets too big for the EU's comfort? Will it coddle Opera into a competitive position next?
Even so, Mozilla's Shaver suggests a valid concern, noting that "if it takes a non-profit with a global community to overcome the (browser market's) barriers,...the market is fundamentally non-competitive." He may be right.
But that's not the question for me because I think government involvement here can end up hurting the market as much as it helps it. The question is whether Mozilla could win this war through superior marshaling of community ground forces. I think it could. Do you?
Update @ 12:45 PT: Mozilla CEO John Lilly offered this statement on Microsoft's actions in Europe:
It's impossible to evaluate what this means unless and until Microsoft describes -- completely and with specificity -- all the incentives and disincentives applicable to Windows OEMs. Without this it's impossible to tell if Microsoft is giving something with one hand and taking it away with the other, and more to the point, it's impossible to tell whether this does anything more than change the technical installation process of the OEMs and make life more difficult for people upgrading to Windows 7.
It's a good point. Microsoft's decision to remove the browser completely could well be a sneaky way to try to undermine the European Commission's case, and may have the effect of making the OEMs push Microsoft and Google bid against each other for inclusion.
In other words, same ol' same ol'. Microsoft will undoubtedly offer financial incentives, documented or not, to OEMs to include IE. In a fair fight Mozilla wins. But Microsoft doesn't have much incentive to fight fairly...unless forced to do so.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Mozilla's Firefox has long breezed past Internet Explorer, which is fast becoming the Buick of browsers: comfortable, safe, but little pizazz.
Google has upped the ante, as ExtremeTech discovers, blowing past Firefox 3, Apple's Safari, Opera, and IE in a recent performance test.
Given that ExtremeTech didn't review Mozilla's cutting-edge Minefield (Firefox alpha) browser release, which has been pegged as 10 percent faster than Chrome, Mozilla may still be the speed champion, but Google Chrome does push past its Firefox 3 browser.
Importantly, ExtremeTech didn't do a one-dimensional drag race between the browsers:
When you see speed tests for (a) browser that claim "Chrome loads faster," it's important to ask a few questions: loaded when, over what broadband speed, with what other apps running, on what machine?
With this in mind, ExtremeTech put the browsers through a battery of tests, including how the browsers performed with Flash, compatibility, JavaScript, and more. The conclusion?
Based on our arbitrary score assignments, Google Chrome is the speed king...Google uses its own knowledge of search and browsing habits to optimize Chrome, but Chrome is still in early development. It's also clear from our testing that Microsoft really needs to get IE 8 out the door--IE 7 not only has compatibility issues, but is substantially slower in many ways. Firefox 3.1 should also improve Firefox's scores.
What does it all really mean? For one thing, take a close look at your browser usage. Are you still using the default browser that came with your system? You may want to re-examine that. The end result may be a much more pleasant and productive Web experience.
Interestingly, IE 7 and Safari didn't even place in the competition, with only Firefox and Chrome really competing across the board. Microsoft needs to step up--big time--with IE 8, and Mozilla will, of course, continue to improve Firefox in its more iterative approach to innovation.
But for now, with Google Chrome expected to ship preinstalled on some desktops, Microsoft and Mozilla have a real fight on their hands. Who has the advantage? Consumers.
Opera has launched a complaint against Microsoft with the regulation-happy European Commission, charging Microsoft with (gasp!) beating it mercilessly in the market. Opera failed to mention that other browsers like Firefox are doing just fine. Instead, it wants to turn its failure to be relevant into a case of victimhood.
My heart bleeds for Opera.
I have no love for Microsoft. I think that's clear from my writings. But I respect it as a competitor and despise companies that ask governments to rectify their own inability to build products that anyone wants.
Opera disagrees, insisting:
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