Steve Ballmer needs to brush up on Roman history. Otherwise he seems doomed to repeat it, as two recent Microsoft campaigns suggest.
Microsoft has been dominant for so long that it has grown soft. As Edward Gibbon wrote in his exceptional "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," it is not outside enemies that crushed Rome so much as its own effete greatness:
The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.
Two new Microsoft directives suggest that the writing is on the wall for the once-great company. And this isn't even to mention Microsoft's tactics to squash Linux's growth in the Netbook market.
First, Microsoft has kicked off a "Get the Facts" browser campaign that is long on hyperbole and short on facts. Reading Microsoft's browser comparison chart, one would think that using Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome is a fast track to leprosy: IE apparently dominates in security, privacy, ease of use, healing the sick, and causing the lame to walk.
Speaking of "lame," IBM's Savio Rodrigues warns us to not be fooled by comparison tables that dramatically favor one product over others. Internet Explorer has gotten better over the years (It only had one way to go), but Microsoft's claims aren't even credible when it skews the results so dramatically in its favor.
Mozilla's own marketing for Firefox is very, very different.
Not content to let false advertising do the trick, Microsoft has also resorted to paying people to use its browser and calling users "idiots" if they opted to try something else. As TechCrunch reports, Microsoft has backed down from the ad hominem attacks, but the company is starting to look desperate.
(In need of charity itself, Microsoft is contributing to charities for every download of IE8. Awww....)
As if this browser desperation weren't enough, Microsoft has kicked off a second initiative that reveals just how unloved its "innovation" has become. Microsoft has confirmed its 18-month Windows 7 to XP downgrade policy.
There are very good reasons for software vendors to prod customers into staying current with software releases, but it is amazing just how hard Microsoft has had to work to convince Windows customers to leave XP. Apple and Linux customers seem to upgrade to their latest and greatest operating systems, while Microsoft customers seem to be pining for the good ol' Windows days.
It's one thing to have an upgrade policy. Having to articulate a downgrade policy is a signal of Microsoft defeat, not victory.
Gibbon wrote that "instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long." I feel the same way about Microsoft. It has done so much for the software industry--some very negative, much very positive--but it seems to have lost the plot. It is telling when the company's best product in years is the XBox, a hardware platform, as Bob Rosenberg noted to me over email.
Microsoft is a victim of its own desktop success, a fact that Google is using against it. Unless Microsoft can break out of its downward spiral of negative advertising born of stifled innovation in its products, it will fall. Sort of like Rome. Because of immoderate greatness.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
According to The Register, the "Taiwanese Consumer Foundation...claims [Microsoft] is effectively using its monopoly to force sales of Vista."
How? Well, as the TCF reasons, since most buyers would prefer XP, as demonstrated by their installing XP even after buying a Vista-enabled computer, forcing them to buy Vista in the first place is tantamount to an exercise of monopoly power.
The problem with such reasoning is that the same could be said of any software vendor (perhaps minus the monopoly power). Microsoft already supports its products for a very long time, and expecting customers at some point to move to the latest and greatest (and more cost effectively supported) is not a bad policy. Any vendor should be hoping the TCF loses on this one.
Microsoft, for its part, had better pray Windows 7 comes without the complaints that Vista has delivered. Two bad product releases in a row? Even Microsoft may not be able to survive that.
Allegations abound that Microsoft is logging calls to measure demand for "Coke Classic" (also known as Windows XP). Why, well, apparently 165,000 people have already signed a petition to keep "Coke Classic" around.
Perhaps Microsoft is a victim of its own success with XP (which I never liked - I'm a Windows 2000 guy if I'm forced to use a Windows machine at all). Or, more likely, it has simply failed to offer much of value in Vista. At least, not enough to justify upgrading to a bloatware system like Vista.
Will Microsoft persevere in forcing the world to Vista? Perhaps. But the Windows ship is starting to leak as more and more people desert for the Mac.
Or will it capitulate to its customers and simply ride out the next few years on XP until Windows 7 comes along? Doubtful.
I stumbled across this fascinating Microsoft tutorial today entitled "How to Justify a Desktop Upgrade." It's an attempt to coach IT professionals on how to sell desktop upgrades internally. Apparently the value of Vista is not readily apparent, requiring detailed instructions on how to connive and cajole into an upgrade from XP.
The most intriguing thing about the tutorial is its implicit rejection of Microsoft's older technology. Just a few years ago Microsoft was pitching the world on how secure and cool XP was. Now it's telling us largely the opposite:
[M]anagement may not be aware that the most compelling reason to migrate to a newer operating system, such as Windows Vista, is to take advantage of the latest security features.
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As reported on the MoneyforJam blog, Microsoft is heavily discounting Windows to keep market share in the face of cheaper Linux offerings. Reuters notes:
In a significant development, Asustek said it would also offer a version of the ultra low-cost PCs with Microsoft's Windows operating system, after initially saying that all the computers would carry the open-source, free Linux system. Windows versions of the computer would cost about T$1,000 more than Linux versions [T$1,000 = US$30.00], leading many to say that Microsoft had offered the Windows systems at a big discount from its usual price of T$2,000 to T$3,000 for mass buyers.
So now Windows is worth $30.00. That seems about right. As MoneyforJam notes, XP (which is what ASUS will ship) is now the Vista Poverty Edition.
Indeed.
You've got to hand it to Microsoft. It hates ANYTHING and ANYONE that gets in its way of selling its software.
Including, apparently, itself.
In a very funny turn of events, Microsoft is out preaching to the industry that XP is a bloated expense hog, while svelte Vista will cure world hunger (or, at least, cost less), as Paul Krill notes:
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