Fake or Real, He's Probably Right

Fake Steve Jobs made some sense in browbeating Microsoft for its post-antitrust behavior. I agree with him.

"They're caving in for no good reason," he wrote last week about Microsoft's decision to modify Vista search.

Mac OS X has great built-in search, and Google has a desktop search product for the operating system. I don't hear Google whining too much about Apple's Spotlight search.

Not that Microsoft had the good sense to brand its search utility as did Apple. Vista's "Instant Search" name is dead-as-doornails dull.

Fake Jobs makes this observation:

"If you ever needed proof of how badly the antitrust stuff has damaged Microsoft as a competitor, look no further. They've become like artists in the old Soviet Union, proactively censoring themselves so they won't get into trouble with the authorities. Reminds me of poor old Shostakovich, apologizing for his music. I know people think Microsoft got off easy on the antitrust stuff. I disagree. The case left them deeply damaged, internally. It damaged their soul. It messed up their DNA. It has left them timid and afraid to fight, resigned to hiding in offices in Redmond and slamming chairs in frustration because they can't go out and crack skulls in the marketplace."

There's something to this take. Microsoft absolutely is more cautious than before the adverse antitrust ruling. Maybe it's a convergence of events. Around the same time the trial closed down:

• Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ceded the CEO's office to Steve Ballmer.
• Brad Smith assumed his role as general counsel.
• The company—or it's major executives, anyway—reached middle age.
• With so many businesses using its products, Microsoft started worrying (too much, methinks) about what customers wanted (good products and smart business decisions aren't made by committees).

Microsoft certainly has taken on some middle age midriff over the years. At the end of fiscal 2001, less than six months before the antitrust settlement, Microsoft employed 47,000 people. Today, the number is closer to 87,000.

Is the trial the reason Microsoft is slower and less aggressive? I agree with Fake Jobs, but I also believe these other reasons are applicable, too. In some ways, Microsoft is just as aggressive, but in less obvious manner (dare, I say passive aggressive).

The US settlement clearly has impacted Microsoft's behavior—and the Vista search concessions are an example. In Europe, where an appeals court has yet to rule on the adverse antitrust ruling, Microsoft is feisty and combatant.

I repeatedly hear grumbling from Microsoft employees about the increasing ratio of lawyers (and MBAs, for that matter) to regular employees. They must be working on something. Is their increased presence making Microsoft overcautious?

Maybe Fake Jobs is right, and they're "proactively censoring themselves so they won't get into trouble with the authorities." Or worse, Microsoft is trying to please everybody and so pleasing no one.

This morning, the Justice Department, Microsoft and states will present to U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly plans to change Vista search—Microsoft's unnecessary concessions to Google.

Related Posts:

• Google This!, Microsoft Watch, June 25, 2007
• Microsoft Will Modify Vista Search, Microsoft Watch, June 20, 2007
• Why Google Succeeds, Part 2, Microsoft Watch, June 15, 2007
• Why Google Succeeds, Part 1, Microsoft Watch, June 15, 2007
• Google Complaint Targets Vista Search, Microsoft Watch, June 9, 2007
• The Google Problem, Microsoft Watch, May 31, 2007
• Microsoft Competitors' 'Wow' Moment, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 26, 2007

• Who You Gonna Call? Trustbusters!, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 17, 2006