CNN: Microsoft is a failing brand
http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/tech..._pdc/index.htm
CNN money has a story on Microsoft as a dying brand. We've seen the writing on the wall for years: Microsoft has been doing what I would euphemistically refer to as 'poorly executing'.
They are doing well in the business market but not so much the consumer.
The bigger they are...
CNN money has a story on Microsoft as a dying brand. We've seen the writing on the wall for years: Microsoft has been doing what I would euphemistically refer to as 'poorly executing'.
They are doing well in the business market but not so much the consumer.
The bigger they are...
Comments
Yeah, isn't a pity MS were making a new touch OS? Oh yeah...
CNN money has a story on Microsoft as a dying brand.
The article keeps painting a picture of Microsoft's fall from glory but I don't see it that way. Money alone doesn't define success. Microsoft have never been at the top of their game because their core values have always been wrong and this was apparent decades ago.
They are imitators, they lack in style and taste, they are corporate suits with no mind or passion for how computers change lives, only how they affect their bank balance - I say this often and I know I can't apply it to all the employees but I apply it to the sum of the parts. When your core values are wrong, no matter how much money you make, you're still wrong. In some industries, it won't matter and decades ago when computers didn't matter much, it didn't have a significant effect.
The more personal computers become and the more we depend on them, people see the difference between companies like Apple and Microsoft. Their values shine through their products clear as day. When Microsoft made the XBox, everyone could tell at first glance that this was a product made by an imitator trying to steal a market from a true innovator (Sony) by undercutting them with poor quality and poorly designed hardware. Sony earned their place in gaming by being better than the others, Microsoft stole their place by being cheaper. Apple earned their place in computing by building products how they ought to be built, Microsoft stole their place by allowing everyone else to build computers how they shouldn't be built.
Microsoft may well survive as a company long into the future but their company to my recollection has never earned the respect that companies like Sony and Apple earned. When Apple was near bankruptcy, they could well have closed the place down but they didn't need to because they were only financially bankrupt. The talent and passion was still there and just needed to be applied properly with good leadership. With Microsoft, they have the opposite problem. No matter how much money you have, you can't buy respect - you have to earn it. They just don't have the innovation and passion to do that and never have.
10 years ago they were convicted of monopolistic market practices. Today, they struggle for mindshare and relevancy.
Hilarious.
Apple eclipsing their market cap is surreal. It's like Lotus eclipsing General Motors. That's gotta be a 'fail' world record.
The article keeps painting a picture of Microsoft's fall from glory but I don't see it that way. Money alone doesn't define success. Microsoft have never been at the top of their game because their core values have always been wrong and this was apparent decades ago.
They are imitators, they lack in style and taste, they are corporate suits with no mind or passion for how computers change lives, only how they affect their bank balance - I say this often and I know I can't apply it to all the employees but I apply it to the sum of the parts. When your core values are wrong, no matter how much money you make, you're still wrong. In some industries, it won't matter and decades ago when computers didn't matter much, it didn't have a significant effect.
The more personal computers become and the more we depend on them, people see the difference between companies like Apple and Microsoft. Their values shine through their products clear as day. When Microsoft made the XBox, everyone could tell at first glance that this was a product made by an imitator trying to steal a market from a true innovator (Sony) by undercutting them with poor quality and poorly designed hardware. Sony earned their place in gaming by being better than the others, Microsoft stole their place by being cheaper. Apple earned their place in computing by building products how they ought to be built, Microsoft stole their place by allowing everyone else to build computers how they shouldn't be built.
Microsoft may well survive as a company long into the future but their company to my recollection has never earned the respect that companies like Sony and Apple earned. When Apple was near bankruptcy, they could well have closed the place down but they didn't need to because they were only financially bankrupt. The talent and passion was still there and just needed to be applied properly with good leadership. With Microsoft, they have the opposite problem. No matter how much money you have, you can't buy respect - you have to earn it. They just don't have the innovation and passion to do that and never have.
A observation was once made about a politician (whom I will not name) that he "was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple." Now Microsoft might not have been born on third base, but pretty close to it in terms of their position in the computer market -- which they won not by being good at the products so much as by being extremely well-placed to take full advantage of events which they did not create or control. Once you start to believe that luck is the same as skill, the end of dominance is only a matter of time. Microsoft has always liked to preach that their corporate culture is about "staying hungry," but it's tough to stay hungry when you start out overweight.
The other dimension is that the key to their growth for about 15 years was leveraging Windows, and this became an exhausted strategy much more quickly than they could have anticipated. During the antitrust trial Ballmer was quoted as saying that Microsoft could integrate a ham sandwich into Windows if they wanted to. The first problem with this mindset is that it turned out to be illegal under the competition laws. The second is that it assumes only one real avenue of growth. The third is that defines innovation not by inventing things, but by keeping others who have invented things from thriving. Suppression may work as a competitive strategy for awhile, but its limits are pretty obvious. To the leadership at Microsoft, apparently less so -- probably because they developed a corporate culture based on entitlement.
Not only does branding things Microsoft not guarantee success, these days it almost seems to guarantee failure. Bing? Kin? Zune?
I will have to point out the Kin. Went into Verizon and they had posters, displays and all for when it was rolled out. Big splash. What, it lasted a few months before pulling the plug? Supposedly only sold 500 or so units?? Don't know if it is true or not, but what an epic fail. Yep. MS has lost relevance.