Has Microsoft Lost Focus?
So Microsoft is now vying for Google‘s top stop with their own new search engine. Not all that long ago Microsoft decided to go after some of Apple‘s iTunes Music Store sales with their competing service. What ever happened to the software giants biggest seller, their OS?
Is Microsoft too busy trying to gobble up shares of services they know not that much about and in turn forgetting about what made them #1 in the sales of computers in the first place? Their operating system. The next version of their OS, dubbed Longhorn, keeps getting pushed back, and back… and back.
Do not get me wrong here, I like the fact that it appears Microsoft may be shooting themselves in the foot. I am by far not a Microsoft supporter, having worked on Macs since the mid-80s. And these recent forays Microsoft is taking into other areas is why I am not a supporter of them; they bite off more than can chew and are unable to manage their assets properly.
Take Longhorn for example. An OS that was supposed to be released in 2005 probably won’t be released until 2006, and it will be as a stripped-down version of what was originally promised. Some speculation is that 2007 will be the year of release. Meanwhile security vulnerabilities continue to plague XP and all of Microsoft’s earlier OS releases.
So, instead of concentrating on their bread and butter Microsoft is bound and determined to screw over their customers by not offering a 21st century operating system (we have been in the 21st century for years now…) that is safe and secure, but rather to gamble with a search engine and music store that only benefits Microsoft, not their customers. How can I claim this? Simple. While they are trying desperately to compete with the giants in their respective industries, Google in search and Apple in downloadable music, they are continuing to loose the confidence of their loyal customer base by releasing patches to their outdated OS and IE browser in the hopes that it will “tie ‘em over” until Cow is released, I mean Longhorn. Whatever. It is all a bunch of bull anyway.
“Yeah, but I will be able to download music and play it on my Dell music player and perform internet searches using Microsoft’s searching service. It does benefit more than Microsoft, don’t you see!?” This might be a sentiment out there. I am sure it is. What those people might not see is that there are plenty of ways to download music on a Windows machine (iTunes being the best, but many other ones that are compatible with the WMF file type) and incredible search engines already in place, like Google. I say again, “How does Microsoft benefit their customers by spending time and money developing these ‘solutions’, that they know nothing about, when, in the meantime, their OS sucks and the one in development keeps getting pushed back?”
Waiting…
Then there is the issue of Microsoft’s usability. Regardless of when Bovine is released it will be woefully inept compared to whatever Apple has at that time, and Unix, and Linux… It will assuredly be unintuitive, lackluster in appearance and, as good as its security may be when released there will be, in a very short amount of time, security holes; gaping huge monstrous holes will be found by hackers and they will be exploited immediately, pissing many, many people off. The pissed-off people will, again, wonder why they trusted Microsoft once more. “Why don’t I learn? Why why why…?!”
IMHO, the biggest thing Microsoft does wrong is not being the “responsible giant”. I do not have these serious misgivings towards Microsoft just because they’re the biggest or because they’re Apple’s biggest rival, it is because they are irresponsible and uncaring. They are so big and powerful they feel they don’t need to give a crap about their customers because they will continue to use and support them. They have gotten this way because people have blindly followed them in the past and Microsoft seems to be confident this trend will continue. And why not? Nothing has proven them wrong… yet.
Perhaps with the imminent doom of Microsoft’s music store and search engine and with the rise of Mozilla’s Firefox browser, Apple’s OS X and Linux OSes, people will start to get the idea that they are truly only a number to the Washington giant and jump ship. Join me now and let’s all collectively cross our fingers.
One Comment
Since when did Microsoft *ever* have focus outside of simply trying to gobble up every niche market it could find? They don’t need to improve windows. Everyone already uses it. ;o)