Microsoft A.B. (After Bill)

The Economist's Ludwig Siegele opens up one of the most important questions for the next 10 years of software: What happens to Microsoft after Bill Gates leaves?

In Ray Ozzie's (and, perhaps, Microsoft's) view, Microsoft's new goal is the same as the old goal: dominate everything. But the battle has shifted to the "cloud" now. Complicating the matter further, Microsoft no longer has a technical leader, one who combines vision, tenacity, and introspection. Instead it has an aggressive, sometimes bumbling bloodhound of a CEO, Steve Ballmer.

Can Mr. Protect-My-Desktop-Monopoly-By-Whatever-Means-Necessary really push Microsoft to the future? Can Ballmer deliver on this goal? According to Siegele, Microsoft's goal:

...is to become the dominant force in the forthcoming era of cloud computing--or, to refresh Microsoft's original mission: "to supply services to every desk, to every home and to every hand."

To understand what that means, and the difficulties it poses Microsoft, start with the idea that computing is undergoing one of its great periodic shifts....Now communications is catching up with hardware and software and, thanks to cheap broadband and wireless access, the industry is witnessing a pull back to the middle. This is leading much computing to migrate back into huge data centers. Networks of these computing plants form "computing clouds"--vast, amorphous, delocalized nebulae of processing power and storage.

This is a huge opportunity for Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and others. But only Microsoft brings a massive ball-and-chain to the party called the Windows desktop business, which accounts for the vast majority of its revenue and pervades its company culture. The very thing that makes Microsoft so successful may well ensure that it will play a bit part in the future of computing.

Ballmer doesn't help. The future is a loose federation of open standards and protocols--a game that Ballmer simply doesn't understand. His continued aggressive antipathy toward open source is but one indicator that in a world brimming with clues, he has yet to discover a single one.

In his article, Siegele quotes from long-time Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley's book, Microsoft 2.0. She is already pining for the days of Gates, according to Siegele:

"If Microsoft were still the company it was 10 or 20 years ago, with the simultaneously ruthless and cautious Gates at the helm," she would have "no qualms" about predicting its success.

But with bull-in-a-china-shop Ballmer in control? She's not so sanguine.

Perhaps Microsoft's Vista failure--companies like Intel are snubbing it to stick with XP while developers are mostly taking a pass on Vista--will clear the way for Microsoft to care about the cloud. Yes, it "cares" today but it has too much at stake in preserving the status quo. It has not yet learned how to eat its young.

And then there's Ballmer. There is no doubt he is a shrewd, intelligent man. There's also little doubt that he's so obsessed with trying to succeed how he always has that he's bound to miss the train to future opportunities.

Microsoft needs a new future. For that, it needs new leadership. Ballmer has to go.

See also:

Special Report: For Bill Gates, the next phase begins

[zarrik]

Ballmer is a liability to the company. I think with Gates out of the picture, Ballmer's days are numbered.

[john55440]

Intel "snubbed" Windows XP too, so their Vista move doesn't mean anything. Ed Bott of ZDNet has an interesting blog on the subject. On the consumer side, Vista-preinstalled dominates the market. It's silly to call it a failure.

[Penguinisto]

The only reason Vista even exists in the OEM market is by contract and the razor-thin margins that OEM's live on. Even still, Dell (and HP in the enterprise space) are well on their way to cracking that one.

[shmooth2]

why does cnet never remember me? is this rocket science?

in other news, how many times does Gates get to retire?

and thank goodness someone is finally calling for Ballmer to quit. he's run what's left of that company into the ground. let's see if Techcrunch has the guts to do an about face and call for firing Microsoft's execs instead of Yahoo's execs.

[TheManInDboX]

HMMM... Microsoft, Lets see, Xbox360 had a mass recall for hardware failure, Vista doesnt like hardware, Windows mobile is about as stable as a "one legged ice skater"... Balmer, cancelled XP support, and sales, which puts them in some serious trouble as to mac and Linux are both increasing sales and stability. "Windows 7" doesnt look promissing for the hardware compatibility either. 2k8 should be stripped down and packaged as an OS for desktops... but that would mean balmer would need to admit that Vista is worse then ME... Yeah i would think MS is in need of some new "fresh" talent to run its company, as balmer is wrecking what Gates built....

[Penguinisto]

The funny thi9ng is, I seriously do not think that Microsoft can compete with what's coming. Ballmer is chasing Google instead of coming up with innovative ways to compete against it (see also his lust to own Yahoo). In the 1990's, consumers and businesses alike perceived all of the exciting and attention-getting news as coming out of Redmond. Nowadays, that is certainly not the case, as the public sees all of the excitement coming from nearly every other quarter, while Microsoft is moribund and floundering, in spite of (or IMHO because of) their size and power. five years ago, Microsoft had the chance to take the lead - instead they handed the opportunity to Google, Linux, and Apple. Apparently Microsoft was too busy throwing up barriers to their competition, when they should have been busy advancing the state of computing in ways that would have made their competition irrelevant. Their blinkered view meant that they lost sight of what it is that made them money in the first place. Instead of being proactive, they became reactive. Zune is a reaction to the iPod. OOXML is a reaction to ODF. Vista is a reaction to a whole massive host of internal failures. "Shared Source" is a reaction to the strength and nearly-unstoppable power of the Open Source Movement. Looking to buy Yahoo is a reaction to Google. Even Office 2007 is a reaction to the fact that office app suites have become mere commodities. If Microsoft expects to survive, they'd best be getting on with shifting towards proactivity... even a pile of money as large as theirs will only last but so long on a reactionistic mindset... If they need a parallel, they can look to IBM and Apple. These two corporations learned from their failures. They managed to shift their entire corporate outlook from a defensive and embattled bunker mentality into a force that is proactive and innovative. IBM got to survive. Apple got to survive. Both are thriving. Microsoft may not do either.