Challenges To Microsoft For 2006 224
TekkenLaw writes "Directions on Microsoft, a site which claims to be 'the only independent organization in the world devoted exclusively to tracking Microsoft', has published a list of 10 challenges for 2006 for Microsoft as a company. Top strategic issues in all areas of operation from OS to gaming are covered." From the article: "Windows Vista could offer large organizations improvements in software development, security, reliability, systems management, and user interface. However, public demonstrations have been full of cool graphics effects and consumer features that probably turn off more IT staff than they attract, and sales of Windows upgrade rights to corporations have been disappointing. In 2006, Microsoft has to settle on a feature set for Vista that appeals to enterprises, explain clearly what that feature set is, and reveal what PC hardware and other infrastructure corporations require to reap the benefits." Actually presented in a fairly respectful way, it's interesting to see the overall picture we've reported on for the past year condensed down into one page.
# 11 (Score:1, Interesting)
Stop behaving like a spoiled child.
Mostly fixing past mistakes (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok so I exaggerate a little bit. There are hundreds of distributions, but I think there are less than 6 major distributions that have significant desktop share.
Independent? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh well. If a country's citizens think 'bipartisan' and 'independent' are the same thing, who am I to complain that the concept of independence has slipped a little?
Profitable XBox 360 (Score:1, Interesting)
It doesn't sound to me like any of this will really make the XBox 360 profitable; the fact is that Sony could (possibly) launch the PS3 at $300 while the Revolution launches at $200 making the $300-$400 XBox 360 look expensive (forcing a price cut), the accessories of both the PS3 and Revolution could be cheaper being that Nintendo offers the Wavebird at a dramatically lower price than the XBox 360 wireless controller, and even the Games could be cheaper on other platforms; I'm not saying this will happen, but Sony and Nintendo will do anything in their power to keep Microsoft in the red (they may not be able to kill the giant but they can certainly make them uncomfortable). The only way to actually turn a profit on one of these systems (which seems like a foreign concept for Microsoft) is to not loose so much money up front that you can never recover; Nintendo always looses less than $10 per system while it has been reported that the PS2's costs were greatly overestimated.
Re:Firefox - MS can't beat it. (Score:3, Interesting)
The fight's not yet necessary (Score:4, Interesting)
Biggest Challenge For 2006? Xbox 360 (Score:2, Interesting)
However, if we are talking about just 2006, the biggest problem for Microsoft is what to do about the 360 problem.
They really have three options:
1) Pull the plug on the whole thing. Take the short term PR and ego hit and make a clean break and move on.
2) Pull out of Japan in some hopefully face saving way and try to survive on just the US and European markets.
3) Pull the plug on the 360 hardware and refocus the Xbox group on trying to create a revenue stream out the 360 dev tools and online stuff for the existing x86 game market.
None of those are attractive options, but option 4) of just soldiering on just isn't a realistinc option.
The days of throwing billions at a market are over for Microsoft. If you don't believe that, you need someone to explain to you about the 11 billion shares of Microsoft stock out there, Microsoft being forced to keep raising the dividen they are paying to those 11 billion shares, the current stock buyback, an so on.
If you can get a grasp of the magnitude of what is going on with Microsoft's financials right now, you will quickly see how little cash Microsoft actually has throw around.
Re:I like the pretty lights (Score:5, Interesting)
The changes to the user interface really grind my gears. No, not the transparency and cooler icons, I don't really care about those one way or another because I can turn them off. Vista has moved a lot of the common tasks around for reasons that make no sense. It's harder to find most system settings because they are several clicks deeper in the UI. Who does this benefit? It's not better for experts, who already had figured out the old locations whether they made sense or not. It's not better for Grandma, who *still* can't find or change any settings; now her brainy grandson can't help her either. It's not better for new users--are there any new Windows users anymore?
Where's "Stop breaking the Law"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mactel Challenge? (Score:3, Interesting)
sleeping at the weel. (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft is now in our cars (e.g. BMWs), and before you idiots say it's just windows media player let me stop you. It is not. I own a new 5 series and it controls climate (heat distribution in the seats, individual vent temp and power, etc.), navigation, alarm and lock settings, media, and countless other settings, including pretty good voice activation with cell phone integration.
Microsoft is in our ATMs, and some pretty impressive stuff coming out soon too (take a look at some of Bank of America's projects).
Mobile 5 for the PDA has push and perfect outlook/exchange integration. Not to mention it seamlessly integrates photos with contacts in outlook and the phone. Mobile 5 integrates the CE and Smartphone platforms and is FAR MORE STABLE then previous OSes. RIM isn't going to be able to beat that, and even Palm has started to give up on the Palm OS (Treo 700 anyone?)
Xbox 360 has a big lead on PS3 (millions of units) and despite your gripes, it is a good platform. PS3 may have blu-ray, but I will be able to buy a player for a couple hundred bucks. PS3 does not have LIVE. LIVE is a kickass groundbfreaking online community, and Sony has announced they will not be doing anything like that. That is a good reason why MS will overtake or drastically close the gap with this next gen war. Online gaming and updates are a big deal and one account one bill one reputation is way better then a new one for every game you have. Also note that the majority of current games use about half of 1 side of the dvd. That gives MS's dual layer about 4 times the space of current generations. Blu-ray is bigger, but if its not used its not a big plus.
Media Center, IPTV, etc. Media Center is decent, sold millions, but in Vista it kick ass. It is also going to be standard with every version of windows except corporate. That is big news, it means MS will be tightly integrated into home entertainment selling 100s of millions of home installations of Vista. IPTV, what can say other then Verizon and SBC were so blown away with MS's next gen platform they agreed to exclusive contracts to use MS technology for almost a decade (this is why we are getting fiber to our doorsteps out here in the east. Verizon wants to start using MS's IPTV.)
Vista, despite much of the nay-saying is great. You can say they are playing catch up or whatever the hell you want, but your tantrums mean nothing to end-users who will be very happy with it. From built in anti-spyware, to great IE upgrades, to cool screen effects. Forget all that, and take a look at the Home Automation Vista will enable... its great. MS and GE have been working on this stuff for years and much of their hard work will be debuting in Vista (not OSX or Linux).
Development tools. Visual Studio 2005 is really good. Some of you can say it bloated or whatever, but the fact remains you can program in dozens of computer languages natively for windows. That is cool. The controls, the database tools, etc. are all very good. Check out Sparkle, pretty cool. Forget webuse, you can put that in your Apps without any problem. OSX offers no tools comprable to Visual Studio, and while Linux has some good stuff, it just isn't on the same level. Not to mention developing for all the distros sucks.
On the Server side. Windows 2003 is making big strides; 64 bit alone is excellent. You can run 32bit apps with no degradation on the 64 bit server OS. That is real nice. They are starting to get into clustering, and don't think for a second that Longhorn server isn't going to steal some Linux clustering market share. You can still cry that Linux is better, but just like on the desktop market people will use windows.
SQL 2005 is great.
Re:I like the pretty lights (Score:4, Interesting)
Corps and individuals want different things from their apps, and they even want different apps in many cases. Corps want everything to be centrally installable, configurable, and controllable by their IT dept to conform to company policy. In the individual case, the only centrally controlled PCs are the 0wned ones hacked by some eastern European crime cartel.
Look at it through the lens of a corp-focused company, though, and there is an opportunity. Many individuals want their PCs to be managed by someone else, either to save the hassle or because they don't know what they're doing. What if Microsoft was the central manager? You'd have to feed them a LOT of data about what was going on in your PC, just like IT management. And you'd have to pay them a maintenance fee. Basically that's what is going on with Windows OneCare [windowsonecare.com].
Re:Small to Medium Business (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you USED openconnector before? It's in early Alpha, and requires a whole lot more than Sendmail (as the original poster mentioned, but hey, it's Microsoft bashing, so it's OK not to read the OP right?)
Who needs to resurrect messages from a corrupt data store?
I've been managing Exchange since 5.0. I can count the number of times I've had to rescue anything from a corrupt data store on two fingers (in 12 years). Each time only took a few minutes cause I was intelligent enough to follow standard/best practices.
Who needs to figure out how to keep the mail server running once you've filled the disks with a massive file that you can't move to a larger disk (because it's being accessed)?
Again, if one were to follow standard best practices, this ISN'T an issue. It's also readily apparent you've never used Exchange before, because moving mailboxes is simple. VERY simple. Move to a new storage group, or even a new server with a couple of mouse clicks. Yes it is that easy. Again, hell it's bashing Microsoft, so don't let little things like the truth get in your way m'kay?
Who needs to figure out why people intermittently can't connect to the Exchange server anymore when all the licenses are used?
Licensing is part of the Microsoft world, it's not that difficult. Nor does it take much time. Most companies that use MS products know how licensing work...
Who wants to figure out how to upgrade from SBS to an even more expensive version of Exchange (only to find out that you can't "upgrade")?
You know how easy it is to add new Exchange servers to an SBS Exchange environment? Very. Buy a new copy of Exchange an add to the SBS Exchange org.
Exchange is a fine product for some limited settings. For the rest of us, there are feature-for-feature open source alternatives that will work with Outhouse. They don't entail rediculous licensing problems inherent in Exchange and are engineered better.
If that really was the case, why are not more people moving to them...
Re:Small to Medium Business (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Microsoft licensing and Microsoft software can not be distinguished from one another.
2) There is a glut of technical problems with Microsoft software that I touched on as it pertains to Exchange; it is well documented (Google "Microsoft vulnerabilty"). Although part of my post focuses on the inherent problems that Microsoft licensing proves to be, I believe it's unfair to characterize it as if it is exclusively focused on the licensing problems.
It seems that my mention of numerous technical problems was not enough, or was not focused upon in my response. I will work to provide a more robust set of technical as well as licensing issues. I took it for granted that the copious documented technical problems that Microsoft software has historically suffered would provide an analog to my focus on licensing.
There is at least one well known (at least in my circles) alternative to Exchange. Take a look at this:
http://www.novell.com/products/openexchange/ [novell.com]
Feature for feature it has everything Exchange has (except the licensing