Research firm Gartner has put out statements noting that Windows Vista has been of little value to new businesses. The statistics are revealing here: while market share for Windows XP has changed little, gains for Windows Vista have primarily come from Windows Server 2008 customers.
Why has Windows Vista been a bit of a lump of coal? Simply put, it really doesn’t add a lot to the value proposition for enterprises. While forward-thinking features like WinFS were supposed to add a file system based off a database architecture (but has been shelved), the delivered Vista really added a lot of features like an improved user interface, digital rights management, and “enhanced” security features – all adding up to degraded performance for many. No wonder that many have reverted back to the superb Windows XP OS. The legacy of Windows has meant that evolving the product has been tough, but re-architecting the product has been near impossible.
For Microsoft, this presents a bit of a quandary, with essentially a dead-end OS. A new OS every few years did present a great opportunity for the company to essentially squash new competition (Netscape, Real) by integrating new functionality into their OS. While Microsoft still owns the platform, getting users to upgrade their platforms is getting harder and harder. Meanwhile, we’ve seen other OSes come to the fore, with OS X from Apple gaining steam and Linux now seen on an increasing number of desktops and laptops (including Asus’ popular EeePC). Microsoft appears to be stemming the tide in the low-end laptop market through the extension of Windows XP home for low-end PCs. Unlike Apple, Microsoft’s handheld product is again a different product, with Windows Mobile. And the evolution of more web-enabled apps driven by Google has to be another big concern for Microsoft, as Microsoft can’t simply roll these apps into their next OS and expect users to discontinue usage of their previous web apps.
The landscape is changing rapidly, and unfortunately, the only person that can effect a new strategy for Microsoft may be the person sitting above all of these product silos – namely Ballmer. With Ballmer more of an “old guard” type of leader, transforming Microsoft’s core may require some change at the top for this to take place. How Microsoft will mesh with Yahoo in terms of applications and platform development remains a mystery, but could turn out to be a train wreck.
Gartner’s suggestion on how Microsoft can change? Develop lightweight operating systems and include virtualization throughout their product. The problem is that Microsoft really has been pursuing a “me too” strategy for the past few years, without a clear understanding or vision of what features would be useful to consumers.
One free suggestion for Microsoft?
Make every home copy of Windows a server, enabling users to serve content, data, and most importantly, desktop sessions on the move. This is the one thing that Google is trying to do with its cloud computing strategy, but users at the end of the day could care less where their data is being housed. If Microsoft could enable a “data center” in the home for each consumer, it could be a killer product for them that would help to re-build some consumer goodwill.
Hmm..
