"With Azure, Microsoft has a new Web platform in the making."

You know that Azure is a direct response to Google App Engine? Even the limited SQL Server was limited because of the App Engine data model.

http://code.google.com/appengine/

App Engine has gone beyond the initial free period and is now charging.

I have had a quick look at both and setting up AE seems much easier. They treat your server as one massive server and you do not have to worry about anything. Azure makes you set up different containers which are used for traditional services.

www.ytechie.com/2009/02/azure-performance-ioc-and-instances.html

There is nothing about Azure that means you have to charge for your web service.

P.S. The declines are in growth not declines in revenue. You talk like they are actual declines. Google went from 25% growth to 11% growth in the same year as MS Client revenue dropped 8%. That doesn't look like it is good for Microsoft.

"Example: What happens to Firefox or Thunderbird development should Mozilla's Google paid search revenue dramatically drop?"

This blog should help answer your question.

http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2008/11/19/sustainability-in-uncertain-times/

Basically they have loads of money and they only care about keeping Firefox alive.

"We’ve been building in the ability to live with greatly reduced revenue for years. We have a significant amount of retained earnings. We don’t currently anticipate dipping into that fund in the immediate future. We believe our revenues for the near term future will be adequate to fund ongoing work. If the economic setting further worsens, we do have retained earnings to carry us through some difficult times."

I think the recession will hurt MS far worse than Google. Mainly its driving everyone to open source. People are really questioning all the money they give MS, and switching away in groves. If you lose your job and start your own company, are you going to use expensive MS software or Open Source? Advertising will continue, and be even more important in the recession. But will paying maintenance money to MS?
I think the open source community will do fine. Many more contributors to draw on during a recession.

But it is really a gamble for both Microsoft and Google, isn't it? Googles falling revenue may not be a long duration. Their way of making money as I see it, a rather new technology, advertising with adsense etc. If it's paid search revenue decline is related to the failing economy, the window in which Microsoft can come in and establish its own platform may not be that wide, especially if the recession ends in 2009. If, however, this economy keeps tanking, does Microsoft have a chance? And are they willing to take it?

"If you lose your job and start your own company, are you going to use expensive MS software or Open Source? "

The last open-source company I worked for (who, hypocritically, were all VERY highly paid for developing non open-source software) spent half its time trying to reinvent what you could buy off the shelf from Microsoft et al a decade ago. Net result: revenue-creating intellectual property was being forsaken just to create basic infrastructure. Absolutely woeful.

Mike, Did you work for Google?

The problem with Microsoft products is that they tie you into their entire stack and they do not scale from a fiscal point of view. Google could never have built and run their datacentres on MS software.

If you reinvent the wheel with open source software then that software will be free for you to use forever. Microsoft reserve the right to change their license at any time. If you plan to be in business for > 10 years and you plan to grow then it is worth looking at an open source stack from the beginning. If nothing else, it keeps your options open to switch to a better provider in the future, and/or swap out various components.

People who built their business on ActiveX and IE6 + Winforms and VB are probably beginning to regret that decision. The cost of moving now is probably thousands of times the cost of initial development. Cost means nothing if your business is frozen 5 years down the line because you cannot afford to upgrade your entire infrastructure.

Re: "The last open-source company I worked for (who, hypocritically, were all VERY highly paid for developing non open-source software) spent half its time trying to reinvent what you could buy off the shelf from Microsoft et al a decade ago. Net result: revenue-creating intellectual property was being forsaken just to create basic infrastructure. Absolutely woeful."

Then they were highly paid idiots.

In our recent layoffs, 100% of the people laid off used, or also developed for, Microsoft Windows. 0% of the people who use Linux and open source for desktop use and development purposes were laid off.

So, Mike, what's your point, other than stupid people shouldn't be highly paid and allowed to develop products?

Because it's not the tool, but the person using the tool, that determines success or failure.

@Philosopher:
"In our recent layoffs, 100% of the people laid off used, or also developed for, Microsoft Windows. 0% of the people who use Linux and open source for desktop use and development purposes were laid off"

----

This is an interesting statement, but as you no doubt realize, percentages are rarely useful for drawing conclusions without a few other bits of information. In this case it'd be good to know:

1) What is the breakdown of people who “use” Microsoft Windows vs. people who do not “use” Microsoft Windows?
2) What do you mean by “use”?
3) What is the breakdown of personnel involved in development work for MS vs. Open Source at this company?
4) What do you mean by “development”?
5) How many people were laid off?

The implication you’re going for will have more resonance, and thus make your argument stronger, once you supply a bit of statistical clarity.

Title Seems very interesting,Nowadays Microsoft growing very fast,great post.

@Meem,

The only conclusions that I feel comfortable with stating are:

1. Pay does not necessarily reflect competence, especially in large companies. Note that the original author to whom I replied stated "highly paid", not "highly competent".

2. It's not the tool that determines a project's success or failure. Rather, it is the person using the tool that determines success or failure.

The other statements were merely local observations, and not statistical conclusions by any means. I would have hoped that would be obvious, but that was my fault for omitting that disclaimer. However, it was interesting in its own way. More of a local personal victory; definitely not a sweeping conclusion.

"Use" means use. Typing, mousing, and all that computer-related manner of activities. About half of us are software developers. None contributes to Microsoft's code base nor to an open source project.

You would need all fingers of both hands to count the number of folks laid off, which is about 1/5 of the former total. No statistical clarity is possible, nor is none implied. Just local observation and personal victory.

Maybe on Madison Avenue, "the clothes make the man". But when measuring business productivity, the man (and woman) makes the tools look good or bad, and not the other way around.

@Meem,

The only conclusions that I feel comfortable with stating are:

1. Pay does not necessarily reflect competence, especially in large companies. Note that the original author to whom I replied stated "highly paid", not "highly competent".

2. It's not the tool that determines a project's success or failure. Rather, it is the person using the tool that determines success or failure.

The other statements were merely local observations, and not statistical conclusions by any means. I would have hoped that would be obvious, but that was my fault for omitting that disclaimer. However, it was interesting in its own way. More of a local personal victory; definitely not a sweeping conclusion.

"Use" means use. Typing, mousing, and all that computer-related manner of activities. About half of us are software developers. None contributes to Microsoft's code base nor to an open source project.

You would need all fingers of both hands to count the number of folks laid off, which is about 1/5 of the former total. No statistical clarity is possible, nor is none implied. Just local observation and personal victory.

Maybe on Madison Avenue, "the clothes make the man". But when measuring business productivity, the man (and woman) makes the tools look good or bad, and not the other way around.

Sorry about the double post. MS Watch seemed to fail the first time and left my preview/post window open. Ah, Web 2.0!

@Philo
Thanks for expanding. I agree vehemently with your two primary points!

Sorry if this is a repost; MS Watch appeared to accept my post, but now I don't see it.

@Philo
Thanks for expanding. I agree vehemently with your first point, and mostly with your second :) Although it is generally accurate to say it is a poor craftsman who blames his tools, some tools are better suited for the job than others. If I'm carving up a hillside, I'd be wise to use an industrial earth mover rather than a shovel. This principle manifests in software most often when management refuses to listen to the developers requests for the proper tools (earth movers) and instead wants to do what's easy (shovels). This frustrating inefficiency has little to do with open vs commercial software, and more to do with arrogant business owners who think they know better than the people who make stake their livelihoods on understanding what the correct tool is.

@Meem:
Re: "This principle manifests in software most often when management refuses to listen to the developers requests for the proper tools (earth movers) and instead wants to do what's easy (shovels)."

I think we are in 100% agreement with each other. Not necessarily with the exact choice of tools; yet software is not a hill and vastly different tools are in subtle harmony with different, but equally visionary and productive, software developers. But very much in agreement with the spirit and essence of what it takes to be productive and to measure true value.

The world is currently in what is called an economic crisis. But is is a tragedy that things have recently collapsed? Or is it a blessed miracle that the world survived with a horrible mix of greed and stupidity at the helm for two decades longer than anyone could have dared believe? The following link is an excellent look into the start of our current "re-install and reboot the world" phase:

www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?page=0

And to expand on your assessment of management as impeding progress (not all management, I understand and believe, but far too many for comfort), the following fractured lyrics popped into mind:

When the stocks are in their Seventh drop
And people quit expensive Cars
Then sanity will rule the business world
While once-powerful greed-mongers clog the bars.

This is the dawning of the Age of Intelligence
The Age of Intelligence
Intelligence! Intelligence!

Creativity and understanding
Productivity and results abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden implemented visions
Quickly crystallized revelation
And the mind's true liberation
Intelligence! Intelligence!

-- With sincere apologies to the Fifth Dimension

(Yes, I am old enough to not only remember "The Age of Aquarius", but to remember hearing it when it was released for the very first time!)

A bit of a tangent from the point of the original blog post, mostly in response thoughts forwarded by billybob:

I've gone through phases of being enamored of Open Source software. But without making guesses at their respective development cycles, something always comes along that sends me back to offerings by commercial vendors.

At the end of the day, whether it's comparisons like "Photoshop vs. The Gimp", or "OpenOffice vs. MS Office", the open source alternatives almost universally fall behind in not only feature set, but look and feel (developers and network administrators and the like often don't care about look and feel because they're practical problem-solvers, but I admit to liking a bit of 'polish' on an app). Although it initially met with some resistance, I have enjoyed Word 2007 and its approach ever since its release. OOo seems almost archaic by comparison.

What I like is the concept of open source. I like the idea that a community can build a better product together. But I don't trust the development cycles as they currently stand... a major player is going to need to reinvent the way the community collaborates on a project before we're going to see the kind of responsive development that's needed for me to permanently change over to all open source.

Switching gears to OS again, something like Ubuntu is fairly cutting-edge; but they are ultimately a commercial entity interested in generating revenue.

For the record, I'm not intentionally cutting down open source in general. Thunderbird is my mail client of choice, and although I have MS Office license, I still often recommend OOo to people asking me for advice. I'm fully behind open source, but as long as companies like MS continue to provide *real* improvements to their product line (which I think Word 2007 offers), they deserve to be compensated for that work.

But I ramble.

"Switching gears to OS again, something like Ubuntu is fairly cutting-edge; but they are ultimately a commercial entity interested in generating revenue."

I agree with most of what you are saying but that is a strange comment.

Ubuntu is mostly GPL so is really owned by everybody. What does it matter if Canonical sell support? Why should it invalidate being "cutting-edge"?

Which program is best is a cost benefit analysis at the end of the day. If you are a professional then Photoshop is the only choice, but I cannot see anyone spending $800 to edit photos. Likewise, $300 is a bit much if OpenOffice can do what you need.

For me MS Office would cost $200 for the Windows license plus about $300 for Office, its way too much for basic spreadsheets etc. Switching my entire operation to Windows would cost way over $3,000. I have Windows machines, and they cost the most on a long term basis. The Apples and Linux just run forever, I only have to replace them because I need to offset some tax (Apple is great for that, paying a tax to avoid a tax).

Windows is useful if you have a piece of hardware or software which cannot run under emulation or VM.

all in one search engine