Bloomberg.com: U.S. — The following clip from the article pretty much summarizes the problems at Microsoft. Development at Microsoft has been a four-step process. 1) No vision, wait for something to happen; 2) See what the competiton does; 3) Panic!; 4) Do a rush job.
Microsoft has lost any proactive initiative and creativity. The company has never been more vulnerable to competition. While some may see this observation as Microsoft-bashing, I can assure you that it’s just a simple and honest analysis.
Microsoft has had the ability to develop a satellite map service for MSN since 1998. Chairman Bill Gates decided in April [2005], the same month Google released its version, to rush the project. He gave his engineers a deadline of 100 days. Stephen Lawler, who runs the Virtual Earth group, and his team figured they would need about a year to get the satellite mapping technology ready.
“It wasn’t a commercial priority” for Microsoft, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Kirkland, Washington-based research firm Directions on Microsoft. “Now Google is creating this network of services that help you find stuff and so now MSN has to do that or lose ads.”
Google’s ability to beat MSN in unveiling maps, new search and e-mail functions has helped boost its market share. Google now has 55 percent of the market for search queries, up from 47 percent a year ago, according to Internet researcher ComScore Networks Inc.
Google Maps users increased 18 percent to 7.2 million in June from the previous month, according to Reston, Virginia-based ComScore. Visitors to Microsoft’s MapPoint site, which lacks satellite imagery, rose 8 percent to 5 million.
32 years ago, I owned a state-registered trademark on the word, “innovation”. Maybe, I should offer to sell it to Mr. Bill?
M$ is adrift. It still thinks it in the good old 90’s when it could do no wrong and just mention of the name M$ would generate buzz. Now with almost 3 years since a new OS, waining popularity of IE, viruses, spyware and weekly patches to windows, M$ is in trouble.
I spent much of yesterday playing with MS Virtual Earth and for me, MSVE has at least 3 advantages over Google maps: (1) MSVE topo maps are much better – the Google base maps are pretty weak; (2) MSVE can overlay legends on the satellite photos – with Google, you can get lost and their weak base maps don’t help, (3) MSVE defaults to a B&W photo when looking at an area without hi-res photography – Google defaults to a blank page. OTOH, Google’s tiling navigation feature sure is neat.
Didn’t Microsoft use to run a domain with satellite photos about 6 years ago? I think it was called terraserver.com or something. The site currently does not appear to be run by Microsoft.
It is all too painful to see MS’s folly in their recently released “Virtual Earth”, their version of Google’s excellent googlemaps/GoogleEarth. One only has to look at the downtown Manhattan view featuring the intact twin towers to release just how out of date their content is.
Pathetic.
JoAnn
Most of Microsoft’s development in the last few years has been under the hood so most users would not perceive the difference. I was a fan of their products, but in ’99 I switched to developing with Java because I found it to be clearly superior. However, Microsoft strongly answered the competition with the .NET framework, the C# programming language, and ASP.NET. I was so impressed I rapidly switched back to developing with Microsoft products.
As it stands now, I find Java seriously struggling to keep up with the developments at Microsoft. So many of Sun’s projects have been rolled over into open source with messages pleading to the community for completion. To me that is a very weak platform.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has steamed ahead with Visual Studio Tools for Office (my favorite), managed DirectX 9, SQL Server 2005, Windows Driver Foundation (a new device driver architecture allowing user-mode DDs), Avalon (a new GUI), and Indigo (new technologies for distributed systems). The latter four are to be commercially launched in the next year or so. All these products are interconnected to an extent I have never seen before and they share a unified development platform.
I hope IBM buys Sun and actually gives their framework some direction. Because, at least in the desktop PC world, there is Microsoft and then there are discreet, scattered technologies and companies that cannot seem to gel together.
“Google now has 55 percent of the market for search queries, up from 47 percent a year ago”
The only reason Google does have an even higher market share is that MSN.com comes as the default homepage on most default installs of Windows, and most people leave it there (until some spyware hijacks it, at least). I cannot tell you how many times I have witnessed novice to intermediate computer users type the address they want to go to into the *MSN ‘Search the Web’* field instead of the address bar.
I teach computers to K-8 and do computer tutoring to all ages, so I know this. Fred Noob wants to go to Amazon.com to look for a book. He launches his web browser and types http://www.amazon.com into the MSN search field, then finds that website top of the search results list, one more click, and he’s there. These users do not use Favorites, they only know searching for a site, and MSN is the most common place it’s done.
THAT’s the secret to MSN’s success.
I’m not one to go and bash Microsoft just for the fun of it, but is there anything Microsoft has brought to the table in the past year (internet wise) that Google didn’t achieve first?
I like you John can’t figure out why Microsoft didn’t use their Terra Server (TerraServer? (sp)) division to create something like this a long time ago. It would seem to be a pretty straight foward project when you already own the images.
Here’s something I wrote over at slashdot concerning the lack of passion for MS products, which is highly relevant here:
The thing that really bugs me about Microsoft’s products is how they’ll fuck over paying customers.
Here’s an old but great example. Back when Win95 was released you could not natively use long file names with 16-bit apps. However, there was a product called “Name-It!” which did allow that function. In other words it was possible, but Microsoft chose NOT to implement it. Why? Because long file names was a great feature and it would give incentive to users to upgrade to their new 32-bit programs.
Another example is Messenger, the chat program not the service. Microsoft has made it nearly impossible to get rid of in XP. Even if you edit your sysoc.inf file and uninstall Messenger, it’ll suddenly come back. Even if you delete the subfolder under Program Files, it’ll mysteriously come back. Obviously Microsoft considers its chat war against AOL more important than ease of use for users. And don’t respond with a tip on how to get rid of it. That’s not the point. The point is that Microsoft INTENTIONALLY made it difficult for the user for its own advantage, not ours.
And of course there’s product activation. We were told it was to stop piracy, but that was bull-shit. You can easy obtain pirated copies of XP. Let’s face it, if product activation really worked, then why is Microsoft implementing its anti-piracy feature for people downloading software? And even more importantly, if piracy has been decreased, then why is XP Microsoft’s most expensive consumer OS? Why aren’t they passing the savings back to use? Once again, the real purpose of product activation is to screw over the paying customer who wants to install XP on both of his systems.
And let’s not forget how Microsoft’s Office products are constantly screwing with file formats to make the later versions incompatible with earlier versions to do nothing more than to force upgrades. Once again, this is NOT done to make it easier for paying customers. It’s merely leverage to get those customer paying again and again.
It’d be really hard to be passionate FOR Microsoft’s products. It’s hard to be passionate for anything that nickel and dimes you at every turn. That treats you like a criminal. And sees you merely as a cash cow to be milked at every chance.
That brings back memories! I’m pretty sure it was you (Mr. Dvorak) who first directed me to Google’s excellent search engine six or seven or eight years ago when it was still “google.stanford.edu”. As I recall, webcrawler.com and altavista.-?-.com were the kings of the day.
(As an aside, if you’re not blessed with total recall, it would take you 10 seconds to find the article I’m referencing if you switched to OS X Tiger’s “Spotlight.” I should divulge, and hereby do, that I own a little Apple stock.)
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ToeKnee:
“The only reason Google does have an even higher market share is that MSN.com comes as the default homepage on most default installs of Windows, and most people leave it there (until some spyware hijacks it, at least).”
Har!! Thanks for the best medicine!
Way to go M$ (out of business that is)
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys
Risk adversity always follows federal lawsuit
Look at IBM
Also notice the chilly reception you get from MSs web site when you are only running an alternative browser. Either browser is free but that’s not enough for MS. MS wants their browser so you are looking at the web their way.
I completely agree with the article. I don’t think Microsoft has lost focus as it is widely believed. The guys at Microsoft may not be so Tech Savvy, but they are very very Market Savvy. Most of their rivals simply don’t know how to do business, that’s why Microsoft has existed up till this point. Pure and simple. I don’t think M$ sees Google as a serious rival yet.
I lied – this is all a big joke – I’m not really Jim Dermitt – it’s me Ana Thema.