Sobre a Microsoft. Ou “It’s absolute idiocy”

Uma história foda sobre a miopia da Microsoft contada por Kyle Baxter. Como se sabe, desde o final da década de 90 a Microsoft já pensava em tablets, mas as pessoas mais altas na hierarquia da empresa – e da idiotice – sempre vetavam qualquer coisa nesse sentido. Abaixo, um relato mais recente sobre a apresentação para o Steve Ballmer sobre o Courier, um projeto de tablet apresentado internamente em 2009.

So when Robbie Bach, who led the company’s entertainment and devices division at the time, presented his idea to CEO Steve Ballmer and Microsoft’s senior leadership, he expected enthusiasm and additional funding for the project. There was just one problem: The Courier prototype borrowed from Windows, Microsoft’s vaunted computer operating systems, but had an operating system all its own. (That’s what Apple did with its iPhone and iPad — it built a new operating platform based on its existing Mac OS X.)

Bach learned a hard lesson about the power and might of Windows within Microsoft. Not only would Bach not receive the extra funding he sought, said Ballmer, who personally delivered the blow, but there would be no Courier because it was unnecessary. The best of Courier, where appropriate, would be folded into the next version of Windows, Windows 8, due at the end of 2011 or in 2012 — or maybe even Windows 9. Several months after its death, Bach announced his retirement.

Perdoai, Senhor, essas pobres almas!!

The problem is very simple: they are so beholden to Windows that anything that might threaten it—whether it comes from outside the company or inside—has to be eliminated. Effectively, Microsoft is protecting Windows at the expense of the company’s long-term success. That’s not only a mistake. It’s absolute idiocy.

Their tablet strategy is a perfect example of this. Microsoft thinks tablets should use the same operating system as PCs, with a user interface “optimized” for touch. Tablets, then, aren’t completely new devices, distinct from PCs, which would require a new use paradigm and thus a completely different user interface; instead, they are just a different form factor for using the same PC operating system we’ve been using, with the same basic use concept and user interface, just with a nice touch layer overlaid.

Why would Microsoft want tablets to be merely derivative of PCs? That’s easy: because it means what they’re currently doing, licensing a PC operating system and selling software for PCs can continue unchanged.

Microsoft’s management isn’t thinking about where computing is moving, how they can improve people’s lives and how they can capitalize on it. They’re thinking about how they can preserve their current business. And that’s a fantastic path toward irrelevancy.

Se você gostou, recomendo este fodástico post do Kyle sobre a estratégia de Mr. Jobs.

Tchau Wintel, Olá Armdroid

A melhor análise sobre a CES 2011:

This year’s show, Dediu argues, marks the end of the PC-era: it’s finally being disrupted. The basic concept of disruption is that a low-end offering (in this case, tablets) emerges to displace existing solution (PCs). The reason this takes place is that the current solution has improved to such an extent that it provides more performance than a majority of users able to usefully employ.

This means that the iPad and its many clones were not really the main story of the show. The main story — which almost nobody covered — was that this year’s CES marks the beginning of the end for Microsoft and Intel.

This transition has been a long time coming in the PC industry. Ironically enough, both of these two big players have seen the writing on the wall for almost a decade. But as is so often the case, incumbents find it immensely hard to disrupt themselves.

…

Both Microsoft and Intel have suffered from the same problem that most successful companies face when dealing with disruption. They cannot find a way to profitably invest in low-end offerings. Think about it from Microsoft’s point of view: now that Windows 7 has been developed, to sell another copy, they don’t have to do a single thing. Because of this, it becomes very hard for any executive to advocate the complete development of a low cost OS that will run on tablets: not only would it cost Microsoft a lot to develop, but it would result in cannibalization of its core product sales. Intel has the exact same issue. Why focus on Atom, or an even lower-end chip, when there is so much more margin to be made by focusing on its multi-core desktop processors?

This would be fine — except for the coming extinction of the PC.

The wheels are just starting to fall off. At CES, for the first time, almost all of Microsoft’s OEM partners abandoned Microsoft exclusivity; and Microsoft’s next-generation operating system has abandoned Intel exclusively for the first time. There’s no reason to believe that either of the two companies are going to be able to turn this around. On one hand, ARM processors are perfect for powering these handheld devices. Manufacturers can customize to their heart’s content. And Android is on track to dominate the operating system space (though maybe not profitably). Both ARM and Android — Armdroid — are providing everything that tablet manufacturers need, and doing it more effectively and at a lower cost than Microsoft and Intel are able to.

Via Harvard Business Review