Microsoft Is The Very Antithesis Of Strategy

Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy’s plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy’s forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy’s army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Microsoft could learn much from Sun Tzu. Over the past fifteen to twenty years, Microsoft has engaged in the very worst kind of generalship. Microsoft has allowed their competitors to join forces and successfully scheme against them. Microsoft has responded to the successes of their competitors by forswearing their strongest weapons, abandoning their strongest defensive positions and rushing to attack their competitors wherever they may be, even if those battlefields were located where Microsoft was at its weakest and their competitors were are at their strongest. When these attacks inevitably failed, Microsoft resorted to wars of attrition. Yet in these wars of attrition, it was Microsoft, not their opponents, who suffered most, taking disproportionally greater losses than they inflicted.

There are some roads not to follow; some troops not to strike; some cities not to assault; and some ground which should not be contested. ~ Sun Tzu

Microsoft’s approach is the very antithesis of a strategy. Here are five principles of war. See how Microsoft violates them over and over again.

Principle #1: Concentration

The principles of war, not merely one principle, can be condensed into a single word – ‘concentration’. But for truth this needs to be amplified as the ‘concentration of strength against weakness’. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart

Microsoft’s strategy over the past two decades has been the very opposite of concentration. Instead of acting, they react — lashing out in multiple, uncoordinated directions. A good strategy forces the opponent to compete on a battlefield where they have no chance of winning. Microsoft does the opposite. They pick fights they don’t need to fight, and they fight those battles on their opponent’s home turf, where their opponent is at their very best and Microsoft is at its very weakest.

Principle #2: Avoid Frontal Assaults

From the beginning of organized warfare, frontal attacks against prepared defenses have usually failed, a fact written large in military history for all generals to see. ~ Bevin Alexander, How Great Generals Win

The essence of strategy is to play to your strengths while taking advantage on your opponent’s weaknesses. Microsoft routinely flips this on its head, going out of its way to fight on battlefields of its opponent’s choosing — battlefields that emphasize the strengths of Microsoft’s opponent’s and minimize Microsoft’s own strengths.

It is a military axiom not to advance uphill against the enemy, nor to oppose him when he comes downhill. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

In military terms, Microsoft does not just seek out the enemy — they look for them on the highest, most fortified hill, bristling with weapons — then they march straight at ’em.

To refrain from intercepting an enemy whose banners are in perfect order, to refrain from attacking an army drawn up in calm and confident array:–this is the art of studying circumstances. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Contrary to the art of war, Microsoft just LOVES to make frontal assaults against the enemy while their banners are in perfect order.

The Spartans do not ask how many the enemies are but where they are. ~ Agis Ii, King Of Sparta

One may admire the bravado, the daring, and the courage of both the Spartans and Microsoft, but attacking the enemy where the enemy is strongest was not, is not and never will be sound strategy.

So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Example #1: iPod

In 2001, Apple introduced the iPod. By 2004, it was a smash success. Microsoft reacted, rather than acted. Instead of asking themselves WHY they needed to enter the MP3 market or even WHETHER they needed to enter the MP3 market, they attacked — first with their software licensed PlaysForSure, and later with their own Zune branded hardware.

From a strategic standpoint, Microsoft’s move to create the Zune was inane and bordering on the insane. Its strategy:

1) Obliged Microsoft to betray its existing allies (hardware manufacturing partners);
2) Required Microsoft to abandon its greatest and most powerful weapon (licensing software to hardware manufacturers);
3) Compelled Microsoft to fight with unfamiliar weapons (hardware);
4) Forced Microsoft to fight on the battlefield of its opponent’s choosing and where its opponent could could leverage its strongest assets (integrated software and hardware).

Therefore, those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him. – Sun Tzu

It’s the equivalent of a lion — the king of his domain — abandoning the land in order to fight a shark at sea. What madness! It was a strategy that favored Apple and handicapped Microsoft in every meaningful way. It was, in fact, not a strategy at all but the abandonment of strategy. Instead of pitting their strength against their opponent’s weakness, Microsoft pitted their weakness against Apple’s strength. Microsoft’s defeat was virtually guaranteed.

Example #2: Bing

Google was founded in 1998 and soon became a very real threat to Microsoft. A response by Microsoft was appropriate and called for…but not the response Microsoft made. As usual, Microsoft went right at ’em by challenging Google where Google was strongest and where Microsoft was nonexistent — in search.

Let’s examine this from a strategic perspective:

  1. Attack opponent where opponent is strongest. Check.
  2. Attack opponent with a weapon with which you have little or no expertise (search engine/machine language). ((Of course, Microsoft has plenty of experience and expertise in search now, but at a tremendous price in both money and in time. Lost money, Microsoft can afford. Lost time, not so much.)) Check.
  3. Attack opponent where they live, thus guaranteeing that they will they will be inspired to fight with desperation in order to ensure their very survival. Check.
  4. Attack where even success gains you little or nothing. Check.

Do not throw your weight into a stroke whilst your opponent is on guard – whilst he is well placed to parry or evade it. The experience of history shows that, save against a much inferior opponent, no effective stroke is possible until his power of resistance or evasion is paralysed. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft’s search engine efforts haven’t significantly hurt Google. Worse still, they’ve actually HELPED Google. When Microsoft pitted Bing against Google Search, they created a legitimate, albeit ineffective, competitor. And that, in turn, meant Google was not a monopoly in search and not subject to government anti-trust and anti-monopoly oversight.

As when snow is squeezed into a snowball, direct pressure has always the tendency to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent, and the more compact it becomes the more difficult it is to melt. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart

I will readily concede that Bing has served, and continues to serve, Microsoft well on the back end. But on the back end is where it should have remained. By attacking Google directly where Google was strongest, Microsoft has lost billions upon billions of dollars and the result has been to make Google Search more, not less, secure.

Summary

Great generals know a direct attack, on the other hand, consolidates an enemy’s defenses and, even if he is defeated, merely forces him back on his reserves and his supplies. ~ Bevin Alexander, How Great Generals Win

Over the past 20 years, Microsoft’s only stratagem has been to directly assault their competitors where their competitors are strongest. This bull-headed non-strategy was formed in the late nineties when Microsoft truly did have overwhelming superiority. Back then, what Microsoft wanted, Microsoft took.

It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two. If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It’s not the late nineties anymore and Microsoft no longer outnumbers their competitors ten to one — or outnumbers them at all — but they still act as if they do. When one is outnumbered, one should flee, not fight. It may not sound like the noble thing to do, but it’s very sound strategy.

STRATEGY Definition on Blackboard (business marketing planning)

Principle #3: Never Reinforce Failure

A general must never reinforce failure. ~ Clausewitz ((Excerpt From: Charles River Editors. “The Top 5 Greatest Generals: Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon Bonaparte.”))

One of the myths that surrounds Microsoft is they “get it right on the third try”. I heard a pundit say this just last week in regard to the Microsoft Surface.

Really?

When was the last time Microsoft “got it right” on the third iteration? Or any subsequent iteration? The last time I recall Microsoft out-iterating an opponent was with Netscape, which was some 15 years ago. Or perhaps one could be thinking of the Xbox ((I would argue Xbox is a tactical master stroke but a strategic blunder — but that is an argument for another day.)) where Microsoft went five billion dollars in the red before even starting to make a return. However, those long ago victories can provide Microsoft with little solace today. Microsoft is no longer the 900-pound guerrilla it was a decade ago. And I think it is fair to say Apple is no Netscape and Google is no Sony PlayStation 2.

Do not renew an attack along the same line (or in the same form) after it has once failed. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy

With products like Windows Phone 7 (now 8), Surface, and Windows 8, Microsoft is not iterating faster and catching up to their opponents. Far from it. They’re falling farther and farther behind. And it doesn’t matter anyway because the race they’r running in is already over.

Once a problem is solved, you compete by rethinking the problem, not making a slightly better version of the current solution. ~ Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans)

Windows Phone 8 is an attempt to solve a problem that has already been solved by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Surface is an attempt to pretend Apple didn’t solve the tablet problem when they introduced the iPad. Windows 8 is an attempt to ignore their decade-long failure to transplant a desktop operating user interface onto a tablet form factor.

Great generals do not repeat what has failed before. ~ Bevin Alexander, How Great Generals Win

Microsoft is not re-thinking the problem. They are simply failing at the same thing, in the same way, over and over again.

Principle #4: Avoid Sieges

The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Microsoft simply does not quit. When they fail to win in the open field, they settle in for a long, drawn out siege. Yet when has this strategy ever worked for Microsoft? When, in recent history, has Microsoft ever overcome simply by carrying on?

These sieges have only led to Microsoft growing progressively weaker while their competitors grow ever stronger. It’s the exact opposite effect that the strategy is supposed to accomplish.

You may admire Microsoft’s doggedness — I do — and you may admire their perseverance — I do — but you simply cannot admire their strategy. Persistence is one thing. Pigheaded stubbornness is another thing altogether.

Attrition is a two-edged weapon and, even when skillfully wielded, puts a strain on the users. ~ B.H. Liddel Hart, Strategy

Attrition is a long, slow, arduous and costly grind. It should only be used as a last resort. And its use makes no sense at all when it costs the aggressor more than it costs the besieged. That way lies only exhaustion, collapse and defeat.

To adopt the method of attrition is not only a confession of stupidity, but a waste of strength, endangering both the chances during the combat and the profit of victory. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart

Principle #5: Keep Your Object Always In Mind

Keep your object always in mind, while adapting your plan to circumstances. Realize that there are more ways than one of gaining an object, but take heed that every objective should bear on the object. And in considering possible objectives weigh their possibility of attainment with their service to the object if attained – to wander down a sidetrack is bad, but to reach a dead end is worse. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy

Microsoft should take the above paragraph and pin it to every door, in every office in Redmond…

…except first, of course, they should identify what their object is.

Microsoft Has No Vision, No Mission, No Object To Guide Them

Everything wrong with Microsoft’s strategy comes down to this:

[pullquote]A person who aims at nothing is sure to hit it.[/pullquote]

Microsoft doesn’t know what their objective is.

Without that compass, without that “north star” to guide them, Microsoft is like a rudderless ship, subject to the pull and sway of every wind and every current.

Manage The Top Line

Somebody once told me, “Manage the top line, and the bottom line will follow.” What’s the top line? It’s things like, why are we doing this in the first place? What’s our strategy? What are customers saying? How responsive are we? Do we have the best products and the best people? Those are the kind of questions you have to focus on. ~ Steve Jobs

Does Microsoft ask itself such questions? If so, their actions certainly don’t reflect it.

In fact, I double-dog dare you to articulate Microsoft’s vision or its mission. The following is the best I could discover. I like the passion expressed, but I assure you, it’s not nearly specific enough to act as the guidance Microsoft so desperately needs:

We are obsessed with empowering people to do more and be more. ~ @Satyanadella (5/20/14)

Microsoft Needs To Re-Define Itself

— Microsoft has forgotten what they are good at.
— Microsoft has forgotten what business they are in.
— Microsoft has forgotten who they are.

In Nadella, Microsoft has a new CEO whom I admire. However, if he has a new vision for Microsoft, he has not yet clearly articulated it — and he needs to do just that.

Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission. ~ Peter Drucker

Microsoft must redefine itself — must reset their vision. And then then need to shout that vision from the rooftops.

The very essence of leadership is you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.  You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet. ~ Theodore Hesburgh

Conclusion

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip…. ~ Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August

Past triumphs and past glories seem to hold Microsoft in their dead grip too. Microsoft is still fighting yesterday’s wars with yesterday’s no-longer-existing weapons. They need to acknowledge reality as it is and change their strategy accordingly.

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out. ~ B. H. Liddell Hart

In my Insider’s article (subscription required) , I’ll talk about the strategy that Microsoft could — but almost certainly will not — follow.

Career Decision

Beating The Dead Horse That Is Microsoft Windows (Part 1)

Few people enjoy beating a dead horse more than I do, but man, beating up on Microsoft Windows is simply no fun anymore…because everybody’s doing it.

The defining company of the PC era — which for the purposes of this discussion we’ll consider the 25 years from 1981 to 2006 — has not articulated a unique and compelling vision for the future of computing since the iPhone rocked it to its core in 2007. ~ Tom Krazit, Gigaom

Yup, that about sums it up.

The first part of this two-part series will focus on what’s gone wrong with Microsoft Windows. Next week, I’ll conclude the series by focusing on why Microsoft is in this position and what, if anything, they can do to resuscitate the dead horse that is Windows.

Let Me Count The Ways

So, exactly how badly is Microsoft losing in the personal computing space? Let me count the ways:

1) PCs are in decline;
2) Mobile is ascendant;
3) Windows Phone 8 sales have been disappointing;
4) Windows RT sales have been disappointing;
5) Microsoft Surface sales have been disappointing;
6) Third-party Windows 8 tablet sales have been disappointing;
7) Ultrabook sales have been disappointing;
8) Windows 8 adoption has been disappointing;
9) Microsoft App Store growth has been disappointing;
10) Business and Enterprise is moving on without Microsoft’s products or services;
11) Microsoft has lost its monopoly and its monopoly powers; and
12) Microsoft is dependent upon legacy products – Windows and Office – for the bulk of its profits.

No reasonable person is arguing that Microsoft is going away. What rational people ARE contending is that Microsoft is becoming irrelevant in the front end – the consumer facing portion – of the personal computing space.

How did it come to this?

1) PCs Are In Decline

If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will. ~ Steve Jobs

Evidence of the PCs decline is indisputable and, frankly, no one is trying to dispute it.

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Dropoff in PC Sales Is Accelerating and Tablets Are the Culprit, Says IDC

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In mature markets, the PC is saturated. And that’s where tablets are secondary devices. Shim says in emerging markets tablets are going to be primary devices. If the tablet takes off there, that kills the traditional PC’s chances of ever growing again.

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…for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to mobile device penetration, a market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make a significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share.

In the model IDC used to forecast the 7.8% decline, the second quarter — which ended June 30 — was to be down 11.7%, a smaller drop than the first quarter’s historic 13.9% plunge. Shipments in the third and fourth quarters, meanwhile, would decline 4.7% and 1.6%, respectively, from the same periods in 2012.

2) Mobile is ascendant

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” ~ Alan Kay

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Half of U.S. adults now own a tablet or smartphone, Pew study finds

…mobile devices — in particular iOS and Android — will continue to cannibalize PC sales throughout the year. Put simply, consumers and enterprise buyers prefer to spend their money on post-PC devices rather than on PCs.

Next year, tablet sales will beat notebook sales for the first time ever, says NPD’s DisplaySearch. It is projecting tablet shipments of 240 million units versus notebook shipments of 203 million units. That’s 64 percent growth for tablet versus a 5 percent decline for notebooks.

IDC: Tablets to outsell notebooks in 2013, all PCs in 2015

The latest prediction from NPD DisplaySearch shows just how quickly the market has changed. It was six months ago, in July 2012, that the same organization predicted that it would take until 2016 for tablets to surpass notebook shipments.

3) Windows Phone 8 sales have been disappointing

I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check. If that was the case, Microsoft would have great products. ~ Steve Jobs

Screen-Shot-2013-05-23-at-11.38.35-PM
Source: Ben Evans

iOS and Android comprised 92.3% of Q1 2013 smartphone shipments

According to Murtazin, Microsoft’s royalty fees from licensing the Windows Phone OS to manufacturers like Nokia, HTC (2498) and Samsung (005930) are being given back to these companies in the form of marketing dollars. In Nokia’s case, an arrangement similar to the one Murtazin describes is a matter of public record, as per the company’s 2011 annual report

Windows Phone gets no traction despite the Nokia deal and RIM’s collapse

Manufacturers reportedly ignoring Windows Phone due to OS fees… and Nokia

Rumor: Microsoft paying $100,000 to some Windows Phone app makers?

You won’t help shoots grow by pulling them up higher. ~ Chinese proverb

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4) Windows RT sales have been disappointing

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true. ~ Oscar Wilde

…Gottheil dubbed the RT tablets a “meta-tweener,” a “tweener between a tweener (Windows 8 x86) and a pure tablet like iPad,” he said. … “I don’t think Windows 8 RT can be successful unless and until its price is much lower.”

Microsoft slashes Surface RT prices by $150 as it flounders against Apple’s iPad

Lenovo released one of the few PCs that ran Microsoft’s ARM-based Windows RT operating system last fall with the 11 inch Yoga 11 notebook-tablet hybrid. Now it looks like Lenovo is phasing out its lone Windows RT product, as it no longer sells the Yoga 11 on its own website.

5) Microsoft Surface sales have been disappointing

To change and to improve are two different things. – German proverb

Microsoft’s Surface Experiment Has Fallen Flat

“Perfection is the goal we’re going for, and that perfection comes with trade-offs,” said Panos Panay, general manager of Surface.

The above statement is “perfectly” ridiculous.

Someone at Microsoft needs to invest in a dictionary.

6) Third-party Windows 8 tablet sales have been disappointing

Bad engineering is solving a problem that you didn’t have in a way that you don’t understand.

…(A)t a time when buyers seems price-sensitive, Wu finds the $500 to $1200 price tags slapped on Windows 8 hardware to be “uncompetitive” when compared to Android with prices as low as $99, and the iPad mini which starts at $329.

Windows 8 tablet sales have been almost non-existent, with unit sales representing less than 1% of all Windows 8 device sales to date, NPD said, excluding sales of the Windows Surface tablet.

Windows 8 device sales have not met Redmond’s internal projections, and the company is blaming it on lackluster hardware from OEMs.

7) Ultrabook sales have been disappointing

Imitation is a good servant, but a bad master.

In October, IHS iSuppli downgraded its estimate of 2012’s ultrabook sales, cutting its projections by more than half from 22 million to 10.3 million, citing too-high prices. iSuppli argued that sales won’t take off until prices fall toward the $600 bar, perhaps in 2013. … The problem for Microsoft is that the outlook for ultrabooks, which the Surface Pro emulates, is dim. Windows ultrabook sales have been disappointing this year, and show little sign of improving sans dramatic price cuts.

NPD: Apple’s MacBook Air dominates with 56% of U.S. thin-and-light notebook market

8) Windows 8 adoption has been disappointing

I heard that if you play a Windows 8 CD backwards, you’ll get a satanic message. But the most frightening thing is that if you play it forward, it installs Windows 8.

The Windows 8 Sales Data Is In, And It’s Bad News For Microsoft

Windows 8 continues to fail

Windows 8 Is Failing to Beat Windows 7… And XP… And Even Vista!

Worse still, Windows 8’s month-over-month growth rate is lagging further and further behind Vista’s dreadful 2007 adoption numbers. When comparing the operating systems when they were first launched, Windows 8’s adoption rate in its first month trailed Vista by just over half-a-percent among PC buyers. Now, in their 8th month out, Vista’s market-share numbers now lead Windows 8 by 3.64 percent. Needless to say, both lag far behind XP and Windows 7’s numbers at similar points in their product life-cycle.

How bad are Windows 8 sales? In April 2013’s Net Applications numbers, Windows 8 barely crept up to 3.82-percent. That still leaves Windows 8 behind Microsoft’s last operating system flop, Vista, after seven months in the market. Windows on tablets fared even worse with touch-screen-based Windows 8 devices and Windows RT devices coming in at 0.02-percent and 0.00-percent each. The last was not a typo. The Surface RT is now in the running for worst Microsoft launch ever.

StatCounter’s findings follow a similarly worrying report from NPD this week, which found that Windows 8 had captured just 58% of all Windows device sales since its launch, while Windows 7 captured 83% during the same period.

9) Microsoft App Store growth has been disappointing

“There comes a time in the affairs of man when he’s got to take the bull by the tail and face the situation.” – W.C. Fields

App-Growth-by-Platform

In a classic chicken-and-the-egg conundrum, the Windows Store needs more Windows 8 customers and Windows 8 customers need more worthwhile apps from the store. Microsoft has failed miserably at attracting compelling content, a painful fact for any developer — or software company — thinking about committing the resources to bring a Metro app to market. How bad is it? … In short, it’s a wasteland.

Microsoft expected 100,000 Windows 8 apps in 90 days. It took 248

Sources: Microsoft Is Paying Developers Up To $100,000 To Write Windows Phone 8 Apps

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Windows 8 users are turning to apps, on average, 1.52 times a day. Breaking this down by type indicates that tablet users are the heaviest app users, launching them 2.71 times per day, while touch-screen notebook users launch 47 percent more apps than those on a standard notebook. … Desktop users make the least use of Modern apps. … Soluto crunched the data further, and took a closer look at those who launch fewer than one Modern app a day. Here, the company noticed that a staggering 60 percent of users launch an app less than once a day. Even when it comes to tablet users, the heaviest users of Windows 8 apps according to Soluto, 44 percent of those sometimes go a day without launching an app.

10) Business and Enterprise are moving on without Microsoft’s products or services

If you’re in a card game and you don’t know who the sucker is, you’re it. ~ Anonymous

Gartner: By 2014, Apple will be as accepted by enterprise IT as Microsoft is today

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Thanks To BYOD, Apple Invades The Enterprise

More Data Showing iOS, Especially The iPhone, Still Killing It In The Enterprise

Why companies are still deploying iOS apps first

Fortune 500 Companies Moving to iPad Hits 94%

Apple’s iOS still dominated the enterprise mobile circuit with 75 percent of total device activations last quarter.

11) Microsoft has lost its monopoly and its monopoly powers

That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false. ~ Paul Valery

Forrester Report: Microsoft’s Windows Dominance Is Over

…and Windows is no longer the dominant end-user operating system when PCs, smartphones and tablets are considered.

In the greater end-user market, as Mary Meeker, the well-regarded analyst and venture capitalist, pointed out in her May 2013 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ 2013 Internet Trends report, Windows is on the decline no matter how you measure it. Apple iOS and Android now have the lion’s share of computing devices, including PCs, smartphones and tablets, with 65-percent share over Windows’ 35-percent.

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Source

Microsoft’s mobile operating system share is actually worse than it appears. None of its most recent smartphone/tablet operating systems, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 or RT. even breaks the 0.01-percent mark on NetMarketShare’s mobile/tablet operating system market share chart. How bad it is that? Android 1.6, with 0.01-percent, does make the chart.

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While Microsoft apologists focus on Windows continuing to be the dominant desktop operating system, they keep missing the two elephants in the room: Windows 8 continues to fall behind Microsoft’s previous top operating system failure, Vista, and Windows is no longer the dominant end-user operating system when PCs, smartphones and tablets are considered.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry on as if nothing had happened. ~ Sir Winston Churchill

“We had a little bit different expectations for Windows 8 than previous OS launches,” Jeff Barney, VP and general manager of Toshiba America’s PC and TV business, said. “In the past Windows was the only game in town, when it was Windows 7 or Vista it was the big event of the year. These days it’s a different environment.”

The erstwhile truism You Won’t Get Fired For Buying From Microsoft has lost its luster.

In the consumer market, we expect to Apple to gain share as the younger generation has grown up on Apples at school. … Pretty soon it could be that the ‘rebels’ will be the Windows users rather than the Mac users.

12) Microsoft is dependent upon legacy products – Windows and Office – for the bulk of its profits

There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. ~ Sam Walton

Microsoft makes more than 75% of its profits from Windows and Office. Less than 25% comes from its vaunted servers and tools. And Microsoft makes nothing from its xBox/Kinect entertainment division, while losing vast sums in its on-line division (negative $350M-$750M/quarter).

Microsoft uses a licensing model. A licensing model only takes a portion of the total profits from a sale. In a licensing model, volume matters.

If Microsoft can’t move its Windows and Office products and services onto mobile phones and tablets, well…

Next Week

The first part of this two-part series focused on what’s gone wrong with Microsoft Windows. Next week, I’ll conclude the series by focusing on why Microsoft is in this position and what, if anything, they can do to resuscitate the dead horse that is Windows.

Leaving the iPhone- How Windows Phone 8 Stacks Up

Approximately six weeks ago, I made the decision to stop using my iPhone 4s and immerse myself in Android, which I lumia 920did for about a month.  I wrote about that here.  After Android, I wanted to try out Windows Phone 8 for an extended period of time and I want to share my experiences with you. My goal here is provide some insights into how an American, technically astute Apple iPhone user would feel about using Windows Phone 8.  I don’t represent the masses, but do represent the demographics of a an influential block of analysts, press, pundits, etc.  I will talk about the pros, cons, and things that just didn’t matter one way or the other when comparing my iPhone 4s to the Windows Phone 8 powered Nokia Lumia 920.  The 920 is considered by most as the flagship Windows Phone 8 phone and a good representation of the state of the art.

Let’s start out with the Windows Phone 8 (WP8) plusses.

Windows Phone 8 Plusses

Camera: While I know this has more to do with Nokia than WP8, it’s important to talk about it as it’s such a core feature.  To be fair, when I am bragging on iOS, I always talk about the iPhone camera.  Flat out, the 920 has the best camera I have ever used.  It has superior low light capability and nearly every picture was in focus.

Responsiveness:  Amongst Android and iOS, WP8 is by far the most responsive operating system.  Screen flows are elegant and very rarely, if ever, did I feel any stutter.  This says a lot given the immaturity of WP8.  It also says a lot about how helpful restricting true multitasking can be.  I’ll touch on that later.

Live Tiles: Instead of icons, WP8 uses Live Tiles, or large icons that display information without actually having to open the app.  The most useful tiles were mail, calendar, and weather.  It was nice to just look at my phone and get a glance at the latest email and appointment without having to open multiple apps or down-swipe a notifications bar.  Sure, it only saves a few seconds, but our minds amplify time savings, so it feels like a lot more.  It also helps in the car, too where I can glance at my phone at a stop light and see what’s going on.

Stability: Flat out, WP8 never crashed nor did any app I was using.  I find this absolutely amazing, given the immaturity of the OS.  I cannot say the same about iOS 6 or Jelly Bean.

Contact linking: I liked this about webOS and I like it about WP8.  I have close to 7 social media or email accounts. WP8 (like Windows 8/RT) allows you to link contacts together so instead of seeing up to 7 contacts for one person, you see only one.  Some of the Android shells do this, but WP8 is flat-out superior at it.  It’s nice, too, that the linking gets shared to Windows 8 and Windows RT devices.

Calendar and contacts: WP8’s calendar worked really well with Google services, but not as well as Android, of course.  It supported adding attendees, accepting meeting notices from Outlook, etc.  Contact sharing with Google was flawless.   This is an area of intense weakness for iOS and I hope to see improve quickly.

The “back” button: Having a back button may sound like a nit, but it is a genuine time saver versus iOS.  iOS requires the double tap on the home button and a selection of the app versus just tapping the back button.  I was surprised at just how much I liked this.  When you hold the back button down for a second, your a screenshot of your last used apps pops up and I really liked that.

Internet Explorer browser: Very simply, the browser worked on all sites and was very fast, and in fact it felt faster than both Safari and even Chrome.  That’s saying a lot.

Full email search: WP8 allows me to do a full search of my email, where iOS just enables people and email title search.

Spell check: Unlike iOS and Android, WP8 gets it right for me more times than not and automatically makes the change.  This was one of those “wow I didn’t know it could get better” features.

People App: This app is unique in that you can organize people into groups, like Favorites and Family and see real-time info on them, like their social media updates, uploaded pictures and comments.

Full photo and video uploads: Unlike iCloud and iOS, WP8 uploads full size photos and even videos to SkyDrive.  To keep battery and broadband fees to a minimum, WP8 gives you the option to only upload over WiFi.  This is awesome as I never need to connect my phone to my PC, which I could never say about my iPhone.

Now let’s move onto the areas that didn’t make a difference one way or another.

Windows Phone 8 Neutrals

Copy-Paste: Unlike Android, WP8’s  copy and paste worked nearly as good as iOS.

MS Office: With WP8, MS Office files can be flawlessly read and Word and Excel can be editred.  As iOS has decent Office “read” capabilities, this brought nothing to the table, so I am indifferent.  When I was doing more “Powerpointing” in corporate America, iOS did make grievous mistakes with many Powerpoint files.  Seriously, who edits Excel on their phone?

Multitasking: As far as I can tell, there is no way for the user to control multitasking at any fine grain level.  Mail, calendar, and social media will sync in the background, but many apps won’t, and it’s aggravating.  Therefore, I must have the following apps open to sync data: Evernote, SlapDash Podcasts, and even Skydrive.  This is a “neutral” because iPhone isn’t much better with user controlled multitasking.

Windows Phone 8 Minuses

“Page 1” Apps: WP8 lacks in many cases the apps and the depth of apps I want on my phone.  First, there were many apps that were just as good and in some cases better than iOS.  Facebook, LinkedIn, E*Trade, Netflix and Evernote fall into that category.   Many of my preferred apps lacked full functionality, though.  These were apps like Epicurious, Flixster, Yelp and ESPN ScoreCenter which didn’t enable me to login and import saved data or settings.  YouTube wouldn’t let me even upload a video.  The most difficult thing to deal with was some of the lack of my page 1 apps.  These are apps like WatchESPN, Neat, Nike Run, HootSuite, Instagram, Google+, TripCase, Waze, MailOnline, TWC TV, and Pulse.  I use these daily on my iPhone and they were really hard to live without.

App organization: There are two distinct places consumers can organize tiles; the home screen and app screen.  The app screen is a vertical string of apps that is endless.  If you’re like me and use over 100 apps you are left with a string of endless apps to wade through.   This is ridiculous and needs to change. (UPDATE: In app window, holding down a letter will bring up the alphabet where users can pick apps that start with that letter.  Still harder than folders IMO.)

Lack of synced bookmarks: I liked the speed and compatibility of Internet Explorer, but the lack of synced bookmarks felt archaic. In fact, there are no folders for favorites and like lack of an organizing principle for apps, leaves a huge, long and unmanageable list of links.

Phone search: I really like the phone Spotlight Search on iOS.  WP8 doesn’t have the capability and I missed it.  What compounds the problem is that there aren’t app folders and I want to search for installed apps.  Contacts were tough too, because it could take three clicks to search on a contact as I need to go into People, find “all” people, press magnifying glass, then type in person’s name.  The frustrating this is that one of three dedicated bezel buttons is search, but it’s just a Bing search.  I wish they would change that to a phone search.

Maps and nav: Apple Maps severely disappointed me because of the inaccurate or incomplete data, but it had a killer experience. Nokia Maps was the opposite; decent data with a challenging experience.  I must caveat that Nokia maps is still beta and it shows. First, most of the times, GPS got stuck for about 10 seconds before it could tell me where I was.  That was more of my impatience, but it felt forever when you’re trying to find out where you are or how to get some place.

About 25% of the time when I did go to turn-by-turn directions, the phone got confused and wouldn’t do turn-by-turn or any navigation.  It would just sit there, confused.  Finally, when voice directions did say where to go, Nokia maps doesn’t give street names, it uses generics. It will say, “turn right in 1 mile”, not something like “turn right in 1 mile at Main Street.”  This was very, very difficult when you’re driving 65 mph on the highway in a big city when exits are packed on top of each other.  I missed many turns because of it.  I hope during their beta period, Nokia saw others recognizes this and made appropriate changes.

Switching to Windows 8?

I was really impressed with WP8 “feel”, stability and the camera.  Yes, that camera was a real differentiator.  The challenge is there are way too many shortcomings with lack of apps, maps & navigation, and browser bookmark sync for me to make a switch.  When some of the basics are there, I would reconsider, but then again, there will be a new set of “basics” in a year.  I won’t switch from iOS to Windows Phone 8 for now but will now likely switch to Android.  I want to see what Mobile World Congress before I lock into a phone and I will keep you posted on that.

Google vs. Microsoft: Just Cut It Out


YouTube screen shot

Hostilities between Google and Microsoft are heating up, and users are being caught in the crossfire.

Microsoft, of course, has spent the last couple of years trying to bring the wrath of the federal government down on Google. This campaign failed last week, when the Federal Trade Commission let Google off with a mild admonishment because it did not have a case it thought it could win.

There’s no way to know if this is retaliation, but Google seems determined to make life difficult for Microsoft customers. The latest evidence is Google’s apparent decision to block access to Google Maps from Windows Phone 8 handsets. The issue is shrouded in a bit of confusion. Gizmodo first reported the blockage. Google responded by saying that the problem was that the mobile version of Google Maps is designed to work with Webkit browsers and the Windows Phone 8 browser is based on the non-Webkit Internet Explorer. But this explanation fell apart when Microsoft pointed out that the Windows Phone 8 browser is essentially the same as the Windows 8 version of IE, which works just fine with Google Maps.

App developer Matthias Shapiro seemed to settle the argument with a YouTube video  that shows calls from Windows Phone 8 to Google Maps failing until the browser-agent string is changed to disguise the browser. With the phony browser-agent string, Google Maps worked just fine (in what appears to be a Windows Phone 8 emulator).

Fortunately, Windows Phone 8 users have other mapping options. I supposed Google has the right to deny its Maps service to any device it wants to block, but this just seems dumb and petty.

In other Google annoyances, yesterday I entered a search string in my Chrome browser and when the search page came up, I got an odd popup asking me if I wanted to share my results on Google+. Thinking that no one could conceivably be interested in my search for information on Fermat’s Little Theorem, I closed the window, unfortunately before I thought to capture a screen shot.  I have not yet been able to replicate this behavior, but Google popping up a G+ interstitial every time I do a search could just drive me to Bing.