Innovation in Software

Disclaimer: it’s no secret I’m not a fan of Microsoft, and I know some of you are. This is just where I am at the moment, it’s not a troll but an observation. I seek constructive feedback only.

John Dvorak is possibly the crankiest man on Earth. Now he’s aiming it all at Microsoft.

Microsoft is a software company. It has been distracted too easily by the success of others in essentially unrelated fields. Here are but a few examples (and there are dozens more):

• Years ago in the pre-Internet era, AOL was the talk of the town, so Microsoft had to copy it with MSN. No money was made; no strategic advantage was gained.
• Netscape was the rage for a while, so Microsoft threw together a browser and got in that business. The browser was given away for free. No money was made; the strategy got the company in trouble with government trustbusters.
• During the early days of the Internet, new online publications appeared. Microsoft decided to become a publisher too, rolling out a slew of online properties including a computer magazine and a women’s magazine. They were all folded.

[snip another half dozen or so examples...]

This is a company that began making development tools for programmers, beginning with a programming language. Does anyone see a pattern here?

[...]

Maybe Microsoft cannot come to grips with the reason for its success. After all, Ballmer is not a computer programmer, and has never been too interested in software or computers and seems to want to run a media company.

Ballmer may get his wish by turning Microsoft into one, but I don’t think he’ll like it.

It’s true that Microsoft was taken a few twists and turns. Developing bad ideas is what Microsoft does, and have done for over 25 years. The only truly successful products they have in their stable – the products that finance the entire empire – are the Windows operating system(s) and Office. Nearly everybody expects both to take a massive hit on market share within a few years.

Hugh Macleod has, perhaps in the hope of getting Scoble’s old gig as Microsoft evangelist, tried to change the culture within from the outside with his blue monster meme. He’s had limited (but sometimes notable) success in the nearly three years since he started it, and I expect that might have been Microsoft’s last great chance: it was an excuse to change the culture into something more dynamic.

Talking to people within Microsoft there are two cultures: the old guard who want to run things as normal, and the newer breed who want to mix things up. The simple truth is senior management have seemingly let both sides down in the last decade (if not longer).

Without a fundamental culture change, and an ability to focus on core skills (rather than dancing everywhere and anywhere as Dvorak points out), means Microsoft are risking everything.

Nobody cares about Windows any more, because the applications of the future are on the web and the OS is becoming nothing more than a local file store. Nobody cares much about search beyond the engines they already use, no matter how much you try and get them to switch. Everybody hates the Zune. The development tools are over-complex, but that’s perhaps because the underlying libraries are over-complex and the bizarre insistence that an application written in Windows 3.1 should run smoothly in Vista makes developer life awkward.

So what are Microsoft’s core skills? Well, despite Visual Studio being a pig, it has a fan base. MSDN is loved by the people who love it, and as Apple realised with their ADC programme in the move to OS X, it’s those guys who are key to the future. Go and ask developers what they need to build the tools of the future and focus on it.

Apple took a gutsy move in clearing the decks with OS X and basically stopping support for System, but in the process they were able to focus the APIs to make programming for their platform much simpler, cleaner, more fun.

They targeted the very best developers on the planet, who in turn produced applications so desirable that “alpha users” wanted to buy Apple kit to run them. Go to a gathering of leading technologists, designers, writers or other alpha users today and the Windows machines will be notable by their absence (or extremely small presence). If the laptop hasn’t got an Apple logo on it, it’s odds on it’ll be running a flavour of GNU/Linux.

Microsoft need to do the same. They need to focus on the aesthetics of software, and take their base of developers and make them champions.

Then they need to think about how to help their customers become the very best customers they can be. When I sit down at a machine to work, to play, whatever, I don’t want to think about using a computer: I want to think about the job I’m doing. I want to think about how to get what I’m doing, done.

In short, Microsoft lost my business because BSD Unix and OS X allowed me to get to the pub sooner.

This needs to be the focus of the Office team: how do we make things so easy, users don’t even need to think about what they need to do for more than a few seconds before we’re helping them do it.

If the culture internally wakes up to the reality off campus that they need to change, and get senior management backing to focus on those changes, they can build a platform for the future that keeps Microsoft in the top flight for another generation. If instead they continue to stick their heads in the sand and think they can be any company they want to be, well…

Trying to shift to a monetisation strategy based on advertising in this economic climate is just pure foolishness, just as building a strategy on your competitor’s leading product is going to make you forget about making your own products the very best they can be. Microsoft’s current strategy is akin to Adobe announcing they’re going to launch a search engine: most of their base are going to ask very loudly “WTF?”

I suspect though that Ballmer will be allowed to continue playing in the sandpit that is Microsoft, the cultures will continue to clash, and nothing useful will be produced as a result. Potentially they’re going to find themselves in the same position as GM within a few years.

Shame. Who will I moan about when Microsoft goes under?