First Post: A Dying Microsoft
For ten years, I worked in the software industry as a Business Manager, Marketing Manager and Technical Evangelist. I started at Microsoft in the early 90s, moved to Adobe just before the Internet bubble, and then moved to Corel to work on XML products. Finally, in 2003, I came back to Microsoft.
Sadly, the Microsoft I found when I came back was a bloated shadow of its former glory. Back in the early 90s, when we conquered the Internet with IE and created a firestorm of Microsoft magic with innovations in Web browsing, server protocols and XML (co-invented at Microsoft, after all), Microsoft led the software world. But in 2003, I found out that Microsoft had attracted a vast horde of self-interested marketers, none of whom seemed all that interested in creating rock solid technology, market-leading innovation, or actual improvements in software.
I left.
Then I started to research the company's course between the early 1990s and 2003. And I discovered that Microsoft had become a ship adrift. In fact, the more I found out, the more I became certain that Bill Gates once-vaunted company was in the early stages of a downward death spiral.
Microsoft will die. It's only a matter of how long it will take.
I'm sad to see this, frankly, as I've always been a big proponent of Microsoft's pedal-to-the-metal style of programming and software delivery. But I've always been the straight shooter in any software discussion (I've worn both programming and marketing hats, and I don't tend to lie much on either side of the table), and I need to tell the truth on this one.
So this blog charts a few of the warning signs. Included here are comments from software industry colleagues (at Microsoft and companies that compete with Microsoft), press coverage of Microsoft's slips and burgeoning failures, and the resulting slow decline of the Gates empire.
Sadly, the Microsoft I found when I came back was a bloated shadow of its former glory. Back in the early 90s, when we conquered the Internet with IE and created a firestorm of Microsoft magic with innovations in Web browsing, server protocols and XML (co-invented at Microsoft, after all), Microsoft led the software world. But in 2003, I found out that Microsoft had attracted a vast horde of self-interested marketers, none of whom seemed all that interested in creating rock solid technology, market-leading innovation, or actual improvements in software.
I left.
Then I started to research the company's course between the early 1990s and 2003. And I discovered that Microsoft had become a ship adrift. In fact, the more I found out, the more I became certain that Bill Gates once-vaunted company was in the early stages of a downward death spiral.
Microsoft will die. It's only a matter of how long it will take.
I'm sad to see this, frankly, as I've always been a big proponent of Microsoft's pedal-to-the-metal style of programming and software delivery. But I've always been the straight shooter in any software discussion (I've worn both programming and marketing hats, and I don't tend to lie much on either side of the table), and I need to tell the truth on this one.
So this blog charts a few of the warning signs. Included here are comments from software industry colleagues (at Microsoft and companies that compete with Microsoft), press coverage of Microsoft's slips and burgeoning failures, and the resulting slow decline of the Gates empire.
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