Microsoft's Woes

The problem with Microsoft is that it has a single strategy – ride on the back of Windows OS.  Ever since Bill Gates’ DOS ended up in the right place at the right time and got adopted by IBM for its PCs, the company has struggled to find its footing outside of operating systems and “hygiene” software.  Its Office Professional application suite took off only after it offered deep discounts to computer manufacturers (OEMs) and, in those days, assembler/resellers (VARs) for pre-installing the software on all systems sold. 

 

If you leave out forays into hardware (mouse, X-box), all other Microsoft software is sold on the basis of its linkage to Windows OS.  And, if anti-trust regulation limits the company’s ability to bundle in more software at deep discounts to its retail price, Microsoft is obviously left in a bind.

 

It hasn’t really figured out how to make a dent in other spaces.  The software remains woefully archaic, and the attempts to update it every 3 years only end up frustrating users who have finally managed to figure out how to get the software to do what they want it to do.  By the time your efficiency reaches an acceptable level, your IT department has been cajoled by deep discounts for early-adopters and mirages of future super-efficiency, to upgrade all users to Windows 2020.

 

In Excel, if you have to convert a number that has been designated as text (for what-ever reason) back into a number, you have to first type 1 in a new cell, then multiply the cell in question by this ‘1’.  If you are lucky the original cell will now recognize that its content is a number not text.  If you are unlucky, status quo will remain and you in frustration will re-type the content as a number. So, after 20 odd years of development investment into Excel, this is the best the thousands of researchers and programmers at Microsoft have come up with.

 

In today’s “collaborative” world, it is surprising that Microsoft hasn’t provided simple features to make people’s life easier.  Such as turning an email into a item on the calendar – in ONE step.  Or, easy-to-use annotation abilities in Excel (not cell by cell comments) for easy sharing of ideas among teams spread across continents.  The majority of corporate communicate today happens in PPT slides, but the annotation capabilities are pathetic.  The microscopic yellow tab can’t be seen without a strong lens… and you can’t circle something and put a comment around it.  Buying add-ons are not the answer since most corporate IS teams are on a crusade to surreptitiously remove all unauthorized software from corporate hard-drives.

 

And as for entering the Web 2.0 age, buying Yahoo is not the answer. Providing a Facebook-Youtube-whatever, suite of applications that corporate IS departments are not petrified of, is.