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[News] Microsoft -- When the Future Looks Grim, It's Time to Depart

The Way of All Flesh, erm, Software

,----[ Quote ]
| In case you haven't heard, Prime Minister Tony Blair has set a timetable 
| for his leaving office. Well, OK, it?s highly unofficial and the Sun 
| newspaper reported it...
| 
| [...]
| 
|At a certain level, apparently Bill Gates understands the "way of all flesh"
| too. According to the Economist, he is obsessed with the fate of Digital
| Equipment Corporation, a giant that was reduced to nothing, and is very
| concerned that Microsoft doesn't suffer a similar fate; that apparently was
| a reason why he appointed Ray Ozzie. A good choice, but probably too late.
| 
| Item: consider how Microsoft has been trying to diversify into everything
| from MP3 players into video games consoles. This is indicative of a
| company which is trying to find an additional revenue stream on top of a
| core business which could become dangerously vulnerable.
| 
| Item: consider how that core business, operating systems, has reached a
| point of absurdity. I find new ones every single day. Yesterday, for
| example, I found out Internet Information Server 6 comes with a feature
| that limits the size of a download. Some fiddling can make it right, but
| for those who say, have to import a huge list of addresses for a mass
| mailing campaign, it is absolutely absurd. Microsoft apparently never
| thought of this. They also never realised that the cycle of making their
| operating system ever larger and building in more functionality was
| going to make it ever more difficult to debug and deploy.
| 
| Item: consider how Windows users are being bombarded with viruses and
| trojans, to the point that "zombie" PCs are a genuine internet menace.
| Yet we have little visibility on how Vista is going to be less vulnerable
| to this problem, on the contrary, it may be even worse.
| 
| All these factors in isolation would not be fatal; they only become so
| because Microsoft does not realise that they are problems at the heart
| of their business model, and they are not willing to face up to the
| truth. They lack the introspection to realise their hour of total
| dominance has passed. They want to keep hold of the days when they set
| the pace of the IT market, and the idea Mac OS challenging them was
| laughable and Linux on the desktop was the preserve of a few enthusiasts.
`----

http://www.linuxextremist.com/?p=103

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