I want the old Microsoft back

Microsoft's business has never been better. Ironically, that may well be the problem.

I will admit to a love/hate relationship with Microsoft. I tend to respect Microsoft's technology but not the business practices wrapped around it. In fairness to Microsoft, it has traditionally been the latter that really drives its business, pushing the company into new markets.

Of late, however, Microsoft's successful business strategies seem to be stifling, not stimulating, the company. The company's success at hoarding existing monopolies seems to have made it intellectually lazy in seeking new ones. Even SharePoint, which has been phenomenally successful financially, is little more than a lightweight portal designed to prop up Microsoft's existing businesses: Office, SQL Server, Windows, etc.

This may be good for the industry, but it's certainly not good for Microsoft. Whatever Microsoft may think of itself, it has never been much of a technology pioneer, preferring instead to copy others' ideas but deliver them more conveniently and at better pricing.

Not anymore.

Microsoft has failed on the Internet, and will continue to fail so long as it tries to impose old rules on this new medium. Microsoft makes oodles of money on the desktop and can't afford to disrupt its monopoly there. Microsoft will continue to make massive amounts of money on the desktop until...it doesn't.

Heck, not only does Microsoft struggle to leave the desktop behind, but it also struggles to reinvent that Windows desktop experience. Some suggest Windows would be better if it were more like the Mac, but Microsoft is a prisoner to the calcified expectations of its XP customers, as Vista's failed experiment shows. In consequence, developers are abandoning Microsoft's future, preferring instead to cozy up to its past. This isn't good for Microsoft.

I miss the old Microsoft. I miss the Microsoft that swaggered around the industry, playing hardball and creating compelling products. I miss the Microsoft that competed based on its products, for the most part, rather than on legal strategies.

In my particular market - social computing/Enterprise Content Management and Collaboration - Microsoft is a worthy competitor, and I love it.

But I find Microsoft tedious in many of its other markets. The patent FUD in its competition against Linux demonstrates Microsoft's own fear, uncertainty, and doubt vis-a-vis Linux. It's a weak-kneed admission of a failure to compete. Microsoft doesn't know how to compete with Linux, so it resorts to patent saber rattling.

Microsoft's legal challenges of Google's DoubleClick acquisition and the Google-Yahoo! partnership are more of the same. When Microsoft has to turn to the law/government to fight its battles, it is clearly on the decline. You don't ask the government to compete for you if you're capable of doing it on your own.

I'll speak heresy here: I want the old Microsoft back. I want the old ambition back in Redmond. I want the swagger and bare-knuckled competitor. I want the boxer, not the befuddled giant desperate for its denture cream to shore up its bite.

Google will be better for having a real competitor. We all will. Come back, Microsoft. Stop pandering to your old dominance and attempt to forge new areas of dominance. Please.

[kojacked]

You don't want the old Microsoft back. You just want to continue spreading your Microsoft hate and FUD. Nothing Micorsoft would ever do would please you. You have but one mission here and that is to push the Linux and open source adgenda. Spinning FUD and hate seems to be your favorite tools. Just listen to your own double-speak in this article alone:

"Even SharePoint, which has been phenomenally successful financially, is little more than a lightweight portal "

and then you say:

"In my particular market - social computing/Enterprise Content Management and Collaboration - Microsoft is a worthy competitor, and I love it. "

You can't have it both ways.

It's also funny how one hand you open source boys complain to no end on the Microsoft Monopoly and how they don't play fair and then you try this spin of wanting the old Microsoft competition back.

At least you are transparent Matt.

[Matt Asay]

Well, I do *love* open source but I'm sincere in what I said about Microsoft: I have never been one to cheer the antitrust actions. The market takes care of monopolies. Google didn't need regulators to win. Neither does open source.

I'm very transparent, to your point. Go back and read my last four years of posts on Microsoft. They're very consistent, and 100% back what I just wrote. So, thanks for commenting, but next time be sure to get some context before arguing against a straw man argument that bears little resemblance to my position.

[Matt Asay]

P.S. @kojacked: Did you notice this is an open-source blog? Are you surprised to see pro-open source sentiment here?

[hawkeyeaz1]

Microsoft has enjoyed it's day in the sun. Microsoft is one of the small number of companies who have survived so long, it is time they faded into the background, if not into history. Yes, Google needs competition, but that will come up, and Yahoo does provide a reasonable amount, but the focus will shift soon regardless.

[jamesurquhart]

What you are hinting at here is exactly why Mesh makes me nervous for Microsoft; it is a blatant attempt to bring the desktop metaphor to "the cloud". They could have done a million things from a cloud perspective (SQL Server Data Services being a good example), but they chose a consumer centric, lock-in-every-device-you-have approach--reminiscent of the Windows days.

At its very core, the problem seems to be that Microsoft has forgotten how to be disruptive...

[Sumatra-Bosch]

Oh, hey, and I miss the old Jeffrey Dahmer!

And the old Charles Manson!

[oxtail01]

How stupid is this guy? Google will be better with a real competitor? Since he's new to this planet, someone needs to tell him that MS has had no competitor to it's dominance in OS and office software longer than anyone else. He can have the old Microsoft and DOS, I choose to move forward.

[trentreviso]

There was a time when I, too, liked Microsoft. Apple and Atari and Amiga all required that you purchase their hardware, which I never could have afforded. But with the PC clones, I could cobble together a Frankenstein system from other people's cast-offs. A monochrome video card someone didn't want after upgrading to color. A printer card from a flea market vendor who had no idea what it was. A case someone had tossed in a dumpster. Eventually, I managed to assemble enough pieces for a working computer. A local Radio Shack agreed to sell me just the DOS software from a Tandy PC clone (I still think the clerk pocketed the cash from that deal himself). I was a poor student who had no business owning an "expensive" computer. But somehow I managed - against all odds - eventually to put together a working PC. I was elated! I could not have done that with an OS from any vendor other than Microsoft.

For the next 15 years, I used nothing but Microsoft Operating Systems. MS-DOS, Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, ME, and 2K. I knew that Microsoft wasn't selling me anything innovative or technically sophisticated or even particularly stable. I noticed that each successive OS became a little more bloated and demanded a little more hardware than its predecessors. But always, I appreciated the value that Microsoft represented. Only Microsoft let me use my own cheap (and chronically outdated and underpowered) hardware. Only Microsoft offered a solution I could afford. Only Microsoft cared enough to give a worthless soul like me access to the tools of the digital gods.

Then along came XP. It was kinda expensive. I couldn't install it on my home brew PCs without calling up Microsoft for permission. I couldn't transfer it to another computer without another call. I couldn't upgrade my motherboard without XP deciding I was a pirate who must be attempting to steal the property for which I had paid so much. I was offended, but I tried to understand.

Then I got internet access. That was amazing, but Windows didn't work so well on the internet. I had to install a firewall and virus software. That was even more expensive, plus I had to pay an annual fee to keep the virus definitions updated. Using Windows wasn't so cheap anymore. Despite the new defenses, somehow I still would occasionally get infected. I didn't think I did anything unusual or unprofessional or unsafe. But still problems would occur, albeit rarely. Microsoft assured me this was my own stupidity. I had failed my obligation to protect their fragile property from harm. I really should send them some more money, so they could help me protect their OS a bit better. I was slightly more offended, but still I tried to understand.

Then along came Vista. I didn't buy it, because I honestly couldn't afford it. I didn't have any hardware that could run it. Even if I could have afforded Vista and all new hardware and software, the logic of spending all that money without any added functionality escapes me. I was getting pretty annoyed with Microsoft.

Then I found ubuntu. Ubuntu was free. Ubuntu came with lots of software that was also free, and which even upgraded for free! Ubuntu could run on my tired old hardware. Ubuntu didn't ask me to pay an annual fee to update my virus definitions. It didn't ask me to pay extra for "Ubuntu Defender." It didn't care if I upgraded my motherboard or my video card. It didn't care if I installed it on one machine or hundreds. I didn't need to call anyone to get permission to experiment or play with ubuntu. Ubuntu reminds me of those days, more than twenty years ago, when I first discovered computers. It makes me feel like a kid again. Ubuntu makes me happy.

Goodbye, Microsoft.

[yoramn]

Instead of looking at the past with Microsoft look at the future with open source solutions. They are mature enough to meet everyone needs at lower CPU and memory consumption, better performance and free. The best solution I found is TITAN by Affordy (www.titanlaptop.com) which includes operating system that looks like Windows and includes 120 applications that enable most users perform their daily tasks easier and more productive at best cost performance

[drfrost]

When the chihuahua bares it's teeth people are amused. When a pitbull bares it's teeth, they reach for a gun and the dog is put down. Microsoft didn't "lose" it's teeth. They've been painfully pulled over the last 2 decades. I, for one, remember how many smaller companies were destroyed by Microsoft and I have absolutely no desire to see them return.