I was at The Blogging Enterprise last week when Microsoft made its big announcements. I know they were big because Bill Gates made them himself. I read their announcements late at night, after a couple of beers, and decided I was too confused to write about it. The next day, at the conference, the Microsoft announcements were among the primary conversational buzz points. People had strong views, but there was no consensus that I could make out.
With some time to read more closely, I find myself still confused as to what the impact of Microsoft's announcement really means to the end user--both individual and corporate. I have little doubt that it will adjust and come into sharper focus over time, regarding strategic positioning.
What is clear and significant is that Microsoft realizes that the days of packaged and/or downloaded software are coming to an end. The era of open source and web services has become the center of personal technology and that is a monumental shift. Most of us saw it coming. But now it is here.
The days of being the world's most powerful technology because you hold power in that niche are over and that Microsoft is preparing to turn and fight Google, it's smaller, more agile, more innovative and more popular challenger. The announcement did very little to offset the general perception that Google is heartily kicking Microsoft's butt at least in the short run.
This is what Microsoft did to IBM, in order to take the throne of power years ago. Then Microsoft was the innovator with better technology. Windows beat IBM's presentation manager that at its heart, would have turned our person computers into little mainframes. At that time, Microsoft was the smaller, more agile and innovative challenger. Now it is not. Google is.
So is Google the winner? Not yet, not by a long shot or so it seems to me. Google has momentum and after its next stock offering will probably have nearly $5 billion in its war chest. Microsoft has over eight times that in cash reserves and except in Asia--it just owns the enterprise and will for a very long time, given Enterprise IT's propensity toward sluggishness when it comes to innovation.
Microsoft will get better at what it's doing. Google, despite my chagrin at their awful blog and blogging policies, has been the most brilliant company I've ever seen in terms of multiple product and service launches. But all companies make mistakes and it remains to be seen what happens when Google makes an inevitable serious stumble. Meanwhile, Microsoft will get better at what its trying to do.
Then there's that sidebar on advertising. Will Microsoft divert ad dollars from Google, or for that matter Yahoo! and the rest? I doubt it. I think, however, they will pull their fair share from the continuing flood of advertising dollars being diverted from old media like newspapers and television into the new social and Internet media services.
So I see a good, long, sometimes vitriolic battle shaping up. Hell, it has already shaped up. Google is in the lead. Google is the favorite, but don't underestimate Microsoft's resiliency. Much has been said about Microsoft over the years. personally, what I thought was key to its success was its ability to execute like a start up, long after it reached a size and position where it was too bloated to move fast.
In the end, I don't know who will win. But I do know that during this multi-front, multi-tiered, multi-year battle that is taking form, I win and so do you. Competition breeds innovation. During competition, users get treated with respect.
And this of course, is a good thing.
