The Empire is GOING to FALL
I may be a naive, idealistic dreamer, but there does seem to be a fresh scribble on the wall of rather enormous significance. I had my back turned to the television a few minutes ago, when I overheard an ad for Intel declare (and I paraphrase):
“For years Intel chips have been trapped inside dull, grey boxes… But all that is going to change.”
From there, the announcer goes on to describe how Macintosh computers will soon be sporting “Intel Inside” stickers on their polished, exceedingly well-designed exteriors.
I may be out of line here, but… I’d say this sounds alot like another hammer meeting coffin-nail.
The image of Microsoft as Exciting Innovator has been dead for years now. The shift in consumer attention away from what has become utilitarian hardware, has re-glamorized the medium. The staggering popularity of the Macintosh School of Technology Design Principles, coupled with the equally staggering popularity (and success) of the i-pod, have positioned the Apple brand in a decidedly “cool and hip” light that is perfectly compatible with other movements that have been gaining popularity during the last 2 years — namely, blogging, RSS and opensource.
As far as I have read, learned discussions on the pairing of Intel and Apple have focused primarily on the implications to the PC manufacturing sector. I think they are missing a much bigger picture. Perhaps, sensing that Apple is about to participate in its second radical transformation of consumer technology, Intel is hedging a bet. Perhaps, the truth is even more dramatic than that. That Apple TV spot I just watched sure didn’t sound like it was produced by a concerned supplier to Microsoft.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:01 am
I don’t know about that, to be honest. They’ll get more competition, yes, and they’ll lose the monopoly, but I don’t see them really falling any time soon.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:03 am
That and most computer users are simply not too tech savvy to use anything else. It’ll take decades before MS goes down; cuz’, well, it took decades for more and more VCR clocks to stop blinking “12:00″.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:04 am
Microsoft isn’t going down, that’s just ignorance talking right there…
February 8th, 2006 at 5:04 am
They can lose money a lot faster than that, under the right conditions. A failed product line combined with new, strong competition, for example, could do billions upon billions of damage. And new competition is a distinct possibility. For example, Google is planning to hire people to aid the free and open source OpenOffice, which could be killer competition for MS Office. Worse, if MS Vista fails to meet expectations, Google may be tempted to start thinking about its own operating system.
Aside from that, the XBox and MS Media Center Edition and its successors may well lose the fight for dominance as the all-in-one home entertainment center. That would be a huge blow to them, and could even destroy their future markets. And it isn’t an unlikely thought, either, if you look at how MS has failed with almost everything other than its OS and Office.
The real reason I think MS will last for quite a while is that their margins right now are still insanely huge, giving them an almost infinite war chest to conquer new markets, while at the same time they are acquiring new patents by the thousands, giving them such a capital of intellectual property that exploiting that could turn out to be a solid business in itself.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:05 am
Microsoft isn’t going anywhere for a very long time.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:06 am
I think your all wrong.
Everyone is quick to bash M$, but our industry exists because of their products and software. Without M$ where would we be? And without M$, what would have we have used? Would it have been better or worse?
Then factor in that Windows is the defacto standard. Imagine the billions in re-training if Microsoft was suddenly replaced.
Not sure about everyone else but I’ve been running Windows XP on this box for the past two years without any problems.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:06 am
You’re totally missing the point. Ford was one of the first companies to popularize automobiles, and definitely the first to make them available to the masses. Nevertheless, standards changed, and while at one point half the cars in America were T-Fords, now the situation is entirely different, and their bonds have been downgraded to junk status.
Thinking MS will fall is not the same as hating on MS.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:07 am
I read the article in Forbes.
Steve Ballmer is holding shit together as best he can, however they’re relying on profits from their oldest products. Their last 20 or so products have all failed and they have had their worst 3 years.
I find it interesting that a free company such as Google that basically gives everything but advertisements away for free is threatening a 100 + billion dollar company.
You figure in 5 years at the rate google is going, and with 3 -10 more companies tagging along and following their model that Microsoft can stay on top?
I don’t. However I am optimistic and I give them a little more credit than that. I beleive they’ll restructure and wait to pounce again, if that fails they’ll either resort to law suits and tie things up in court, or they’ll just copy the competition.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:07 am
Google will be the next giant.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:08 am
All empires fall, eventually.
February 8th, 2006 at 5:11 am
Ineed, all empires do fall — but why is that?
Indeed. And why is that?
“How to Live Forever”
As strategies go, it should take you about 15 seconds of consideration to reject Conquest. It cannot be sustained. The internal systems and principles Conquest requires breed an assortment of undesirable manifestations. It has no plan for what to do when “All the eye surveys is yours!� Though we may admire Rome, et al, Conquest has never once succeeded in the past. The Empire is, alas, where all the roads have led.
Jack Mardack
February 8th, 2006 at 5:12 am
They have 40 fucking billion dollars in CASH! They’re not going anywhere.
(In other words, they could lose $10 million a day for 11 years and still be in business)
February 8th, 2006 at 5:12 am
Watch FIREFOX do MIND-BLOWING THINGS first half of this year — marketingwise, esposing an organization no one has dreamed — consider who their allies are — consider the new methods of software distribuition that are quietly displacing the old — It won’t be long at all. Assets don’t count when you can’t buy traffic from anybody but outlaws because your trust rank is zero. People are going to “vote” for things with their links — to make money, to express, to enjoy unprecedented scope of reach and effect, and to participate. I am writing about trust rank in another thread, fyi — it’s all connected.
Jack Mardack
February 8th, 2006 at 5:13 am
Microsoft definitely isn’t “going down” anytime soon. They may lose the search engine race, browser dominance, and everything else but one thing alone will make sure they stay on top in the industry and one thing alone…Windows and the ability to make simple products that every single person in the world gets talked into purchasing. I, probably more than anyone else, would absolutely love to see Microsoft crumble, but it isn’t gonna’ happen.
February 8th, 2006 at 8:14 am
C’mon Drew:
“Windows and the ability to make simple products that every single person in the world gets talked into purchasing”
Do I even have to?
How long do you think before the OpenSource killer OS is released? You can’t imagine it’s all riding on the browser.
The browser’s job was to come and show everyone how much better a certain way of thinking is — versus an old one — and to,at once (and this will go down in the marketing books for aeons (and fluxes — lol) — to at once embrace users with superior more reliable, more stable, more PC (bookmark historic pun, pls.) functionality and just basic “in your life everdayness” AND embrace a global community of programmers who write code passionately for free and share EVERYBODYS’s work in a framewerk that percolates features into the finished product ONLY because they have been vetted by tens of thousands of users/developers — c’mon. It sounds like the Viet Cong, bro — MS don’t have a fat fly’s chance in fishtank.
Jack Mardack