State of Microsoft

Michael Gartenberg | April 17, 2007, 08:55 AM

I've been listening to more than a few rants about Microsoft and how they should have bought Flickr or Bloglines or YouTube or whatever. Perhaps, although it's not clear to me for example how much the purchase of Flickr has really helped Yahoo. I think there's a more fundamental issue here and it's not about buying stuff.

First off, the enemy of the best is often the good and that's a core MSFT issue. Legacy and enterprise pay the bills and keep the lights on but it's the consumer stuff that has all the sizzle now. Statements like Microsoft is dead are just silly. Remember. this is the company that everyone predicted was dead in 1997 because of the Internet. MSFT weathered that storm and they'll weather the current one as well.

The real question to me is what relevance they'll have in new markets? Microsoft may and will likely not dominate new markets the way they have in the past but success for Microsoft doesn't necessarily mean everyone else has to roll over and play dead. That's old thinking. The real danger for them though is that even though they own the consumer desktop for the most part, they are letting others leverage that desktop to drive their own eco systems forward. Apple has grabbed space in media with iTunes. Google grabs space with Google desktop and so on. All of this make it hard for MSFT to leverage the assets they have to fight with with brings up the biggest issue I have.

You see, buying stuff isn't a bad idea per se but it's not the answer. You see, MSFT didn't need to buy Flickr, they needed to CREATE IT and SHIP it. Don't think they're up to it? Well, there's stuff that I've seen in Redmond that would blow you away but it never sees the light of day. Part of Microsoft's issue is they currently lack the ability to get the good stuff out the door. I believe Microsoft does indeed have the vision needed to compete in these new markets, they need to execute on it.