>
> Could Microsoft possibly "redeem" itself for its "sins" of the past? Or
> was Ballmer coached to say this as a form of clever PR, to capitalize on his
> poor image?
>
> - Oliver
My impression is that Ballmer was being reasonably frank, although what
he says is no great surprise---that he sees the major competition for
Microsoft these days as OSS (Linux), advertising models of revenue
(Google), and iTunes (Apple), none of which he sees as falling into the
traditional models of competition in the software business. Of course
Google and Apple are traditional corporations, and OSS is sponsored by
IBM and others. What is true is that Microsoft has taken a beating in
certain ways from each of these new competitors in the last couple of
years. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to regain the
initiative---they've been working to compete with Google for several
years now, with a lot of big promises, but the results have been
disappointing.
I'd prefer not to make predictions about the future, and Microsoft
might pull it off in some of these areas, but so far if I were a
Microsoft investor, I'd be nervous, and I think the markets are, too,
they're glad Vista will bring in some revenue, but still nervous about
everything else.
(BTW, notice the comment from a 10-year MS employee who blames it all
on Ballmer.)
But it's great drama, probably the most interesting thing going on in
the commercial and technical world right now in my opinion, and by that
I don't just mean Microsoft but the whole mix that includes Apple, IBM,
Google, FOSS, DRM, etc. It's one reason why I think Microsoft news is
relevant to Linux and OSS, and why I find most of Roy's posts with
Microsoft news relevant. I do agree with you on this one, however, I
think you read the article more carefully than he did.
Nessuno
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