What happened to Microsoft?

Some stats about Microsoft's current market position:<p>* Microsoft holds almost 90% of the operating system market share <a href="http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8" rel="nofollow">http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-shar...</a><p>* MSN Messnger is the most popular IM client in the world, 60% market share <a href="http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2006/04/3557.ars" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2006/04/3557.ars</a><p>* Internet Explorer is still the most used browser, 65%+ market share <a href="http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0" rel="nofollow">http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qp...</a><p>* Microsoft Office is still the most used Office suite (95%+ market share?)<p>* XBox is selling great and they are taking a market leader position <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jan09/01-05XBoxBigYearPR.mspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jan09/01-05XBo...</a><p>* Hotmail is the most used web-email with 250 million users+ (GMail does not have 100 million yet) <a href="http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statistics.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statist...</a><p>* Microsoft are a big player in web-backend market. IIS and ASP are catching up with Apache <a href="http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2009/04/06/april_2009_web_server_survey.html" rel="nofollow">http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2009/04/06/april_2009_web_...</a><p>* .Net has the largest market share amongst developers <a href="http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=.net%2C+java%2C+c%23%2C+ruby%2C+python&#38;l=" rel="nofollow">http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=.net%2C+java%2C+c%23%2C+ru...</a><p>* Even in one of the biggest financial crisis, Microsoft still makes shit loads of money (almost $15 billion in revenue for Q1 2009) <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/23/microsoft-revenue-plunges" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/23/microsoft-rev...</a><p>Taken from <a href="http://amix.dk/blog/viewEntry/19446" rel="nofollow">http://amix.dk/blog/viewEntry/19446</a>

This article is filthy with mis-information. Just to give a few...<p>* Microsoft did make mistakes in it's early days. To make that point I need only cite all the Microsoft Execs who were quoted saying "OS/2 is the way of the future and We'll be phasing Windows out"<p>* Vista isn't popular with "die hard Windows fans". In fact, a big part of the reason Vista is failing is because there are a lot of things you can do in XP that you can't do in Vista (try right clicking on a network drive and looking for "Search" if you don't believe me)<p>* I don't see how you can have this sentence "Today’s Microsoft is impulsive and sloppy." and then follow it immediately with this "It has become massive and complex with too many layers of management, committees, and bureaucracy to produce anything great " You're either bureaucratic or impulsive but you can't really be both<p>* Microsoft did not "rest on their laurels" after IE6. What did happen is that Jim Allchin decided Windows = IE and disolved the IE team by integrating them into the Windows team. So when Vista's development timeline went to hell so too did IE. But there were always people working on it.<p>* Microsoft did not "get lazy" and miss the Internet boat in the mid-90s. What they did do was "get proprietary" and back MSN as a competitor to the Internet (remember that back then AOL was the competitor to beat and they didn't even have Internet access integrated yet).<p>I could go on but the point is made I think. You should know a little something about Microsoft before you write a post on how the company went wrong.

These days more and more I realize that none of the people who comment on Microsoft are generally biased against microsoft and have no clue about Microsoft's business strategy. First the greatest fact of Microsoft is not innovation it is perseverance.<p>Generally they don't come up with any innovative products but they try to simulate other existing popular products but make them better over lots of versions by eating into competitors market share. (You can look into the history of microsoft products which will be easily proven)<p>The reason Microsoft can do is because they have lots of cash and they can take losses on the products for couple of versions. The greatest example is SQL Server with 1% market share in late 90's and close to 38 to 40% market share in 2009.<p>The revenues are generated for Microsof is because of volume of licenses. Every body knows that microsoft is microsoft because of Bill Gates who will be there for another 20 years to guide Microsoft just in case if it is needed. This is not true for Apple (Pancreatic cancer for Steve jobs) and also true for other companies.<p>--R

I would not dismiss Microsoft that easily, they are still a dominant force in software world and probably will be for a long time to come. Maybe they just lack focus here and there, which comes along having battles on so many fronts as they do have. Microsoft is a gigantic battleship with lots of bad and good stuff, for example Microsoft is a way to go if you want to be at the bleeding edge of 3D research these days, and that is just one very small segment of what they do - and lead in.

"The report of my death has been grossly exaggerated." - Mark Twain<p>Much like the endless stories of the death of Apple in the 90's, this article exudes an arrogance unsupported by the facts. Certainly, Microsoft has made many mistakes and are not at the top of their game right now. But to suggest that "Internet Explorer’s marketshare will probably dip below 50% within three years." is a sign of their decline is comical. Below 50%.. within three years.. the horror.<p>Microsoft continues to be a dominant force in the business world and will for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, they now have competition again on many fronts that will only serve to push them to refocus and improve the products that have declined in recent years.

I have a point of view, I hope you don't down vote it and understand it first.<p>Most of HN users are web developers. In web developement, MS was a stupid company, they try to make "their standards" and not respect the other standards; which leads them to a big failure, now they are changing (with Microsoft Expression), but their visitmix.com is still missing a lot to compete even products like wordpress.com, also the tools provided their (I tried them) are buggy... So MS needs lot of monetization to get in the right track.<p>This happen with me also, I didn't learn ASP.net although I'm a dot net developer. I learnt PHP, PHP servers are cheap, fast, simple and do what I need. So why go with the very costing ASP.net and SQL Server??<p>In Windows Developement, I beg to differ and I consider MS had succeeded. why? Because Dot Net (whether it has good shares or not (and it has)) it a GREAT product. I use Vista and I'm very satisfied with the results.<p>WPF and Dot net are little buggy, but that's normal for anything that goes big to have problems here and there. The Dot Net FrameWork is an important evolution in the domain of programming, is there any other competent framework? If you didn't tried it and want to develop OS applications then you should. Yes, Dot Net is for any OS, Windows, Linux, MAC. With the mono project (although I didn't tried it) I think only few tweaks are needed and your application is cross-platforms.<p>That's for the developers. MS didn't succeded online but did Offline.<p>Now when I come to the office, Office 2007 is much more advanced than 2003 and worth buying, there's a lot of whole new features to create nice documents (on word) the best feature I liked, is that i can convert my document to PDF and then it can be viewed by my clients whatever their OS!<p>MS is not good on all things, just few and what's wrong with that?<p>Is google good on all things? Was google good in his "knol"?? did google succeed with "orkut"?<p>Every company fail and succeed that's normal and every company is an "EVIL" and try to show us that they are "GOOD" people.<p>The future:<p>I think in the future MS will stay a power, but no longer a dominance, Market will be divided between MS, MAC and Google, but as the internet, computers and technology are getting wide spread, there will be a big market for each and no matter each one to work with, just the one you like most

It's telling that the article has no mention of Windows 7 which, unlike Vista, has been widely praised for it's polish and performance. The rollout through to RC has also been handled in a slick but low key manner.<p>Seems a little premature to write off Microsoft at this point.

Xbox 360 is doing well against its similar competitor, the Playstation 3. The problem is that the Wii is doing even better - not be <i>being</i> better, but by changing the basis of competition.<p>That is the one of the few ways that successful wll-run companies can die.

Does google really have the much higher a success rate with moving into new markets? How often do you really use Knol, Lively, Google Base, Checkout, Sketchup, etc.?

These days, I could care less about Microsoft. When I hear that they're about to announce a new product or enter a new market, I don't consider it important because innovation and quality just isn't in their genes. IMHO, they're living off past successes while companies like Google and Apple continue to innovate and make Microsoft a marginal player.

What happened to Microsoft last quarter was about thirteen billion dollars in revenue.

Wishful thinking.

<i>"Microsoft’s entry into a market previously meant imminent death of any other players, but now it’s usually a source of comedy for the tech press."</i><p>As always, a sad end for the bully.<p>Geeks have never and will never tolerate bullies, ever.<p>Progress can not be caged and tamed, no matter how much money is spent on locks and chains.