Microsoft is (Unfortunately) Alive and Kicking
Yesterday, Paul Graham wrote an essay asserting that in the age of Web 2.0 Microsoft is dead. As much as I would truly love to believe this, I can't. I, like Paul, try to avoid using Microsoft products whenever possible. But the truth is, most people still use Windows, and therefore I must use Windows if I want to develop useful (desktop) software for those people. Try as I might, I can't just stop and expect them to follow me to Linux or Mac.
A good example of this is my own father. He's hooked on Microsoft. It's not because he's a Microsoft fan-boy by any means, he's just seen that, for a somewhat computer literate person, Microsoft strikes a very good balance between features and usability. For him, they made the computer approachable and easy to use.
I've tried countless times to get him to switch to Firefox, but he just won't do it. There is nothing he sees nothing he sees wrong with Firefox, it just doesn't have the all-in-one features (browser, email, calendar) of that translucent-menued, AOL-ripoff of a program, MSN browser. Among normal people, Microsoft has a positive brand recognition.
This is one of the reasons why the "Office-killer" AJAX apps like Writely (now Google Docs) have failed to gain any traction in the Office market. Another reason is that all of these applications, including AbiWord and OpenOffice, are just bad ripoffs of Microsoft Word. Down to their menu structure, they are visual replicas of Word. Yet they are incomplete replicas; in neither can I do a simple grammar check. In this market, the best the competition can do is follow Microsoft's lead. Moreover, Office's popularity makes it even more powerful to its users because of network effects. Even if the current replacements can read Office format, which they can't fully do, there's value even in having a group of people all using the same program, because they can help each other, since everyone knows something about using Word. Move them to OpenOffice, and they'll be stuck.
This is extremely powerful. Despite the bugs and performance problems and security holes, thousands of people are still flocking to Vista like it's the second coming. Microsoft may be dead to us, but to normal, everyday users, it is alive and well, and it is dangerous, and downright stupid to think otherwise. We all love David, but the whole reason why David and Goliath is a compelling story is because most of the time the giant wins.
Paul also argues that Microsoft doesn't know how to keep up in an AJAX world. But the truth is Microsoft has a strong push with it's Live! offering. As much as I hate to admit it, Microsoft Maps often has better features than Google Maps. They have a foothold in that market, and as the Live! campaign continues, they will exert more and more power there as well.
Of course, that does not mean we should be frightened off by Microsoft. If anything, we should be using the fact that they are not dead as motivation to make our software better, more approachable, and more user friendly. We just have to understand that they do have power, and we need to account for that.
blog comments powered by Disqus