Comments on: What Microsoft needs to do to remain relevant

By: CurlsDelusion

CurlsDelusion — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:31:13 +0000

5 things that all companies have to do to remain relevant. Article is vague and shows little insight into microsoft.

By: Tim Xu

Tim Xu — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:37:17 +0000

I wasn’t denying that Microsoft is the #1 technology corporation. I acknowledge that in the first sentence. My point was that they are in danger of falling to the back page of news because their products aren’t exciting enough.

Yeah, Microsoft can try to game the system by releasing their “superconsole” a year earlier than everyone else, but that won’t matter if Sony comes out with better technology.

Vista is widely regarded as a failure relative to Microsoft’s commanding presence in the market. Yeah, they sell a Vista license for every non-Apple computer, because there’s no alternative. They stopped supporting XP. In fact, companies such as Dell had to exploit loopholes to continue selling XP.

I’m not arguing that Microsoft is in danger of failing. I’m merely remarking that it’s dropping from its position at the pinnacle due to some less than savvy business practices and, dare I say it, complacency.

By: Alex G

Alex G — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:19:35 +0000

I don’t think you really know what you’re talking about. Microsoft is the #1 technology corporation on the planet, and it’s there because it put itself into #3, #2 and #1 spots in all those fields.

Maybe xBox is not #1 in sales anymore, but between MS, Sony and Nintendo, which will be the next to release a superconsole? And they haven’t even touched the mobile gaming industry yet…

Vista is a failure? Funny that MS sells a Vista license for mostly every non-Apple computer that gets sold. Most corporate licences are 3 year SLAs, so wether they upgrade or not, MS still makes the sell. And what about Server 2008, SQL Server, .Net, etc… that is some serious technology they released this year.

On the web? MS is #3 in search, but #2 in traffic. They dominate instant messaging. And their advertising platform is slowly but surely advancing.

Let’s not forget the supercomputers they’re building, their content delivery network, the surface, etc. So actually, the reason you don’t see MS in the near future might be because they’ve already zoomed ahead in the distant future, they’re waiting for the masses to catch up.