Microsoft lost control of the Internet!

Help them get it back.

Install Silverlight.

"What I'd like to see: A Microsoft smartphone, secretly developed"

What do you think MSFT is doing as we speak?

Unfortunately for the company, you can't continue to re-combine incompetencies in various different ways to arrive at winning formulas.

The iPhone 2 is going to be wicked. Prepare for the end game.

Original iPhone: Check.
iPhone 2: Checkmate.

Great article. Microsoft is so big and stupid that it has to keep running in the same direction due to past's momentum.

what diversity of thought, here at microsoft watch.

Microsoft has no culture.
Cheesy ads with crap songs.
Silverlight is aimed at Adobe.
Flash rules, Silverlight suck.
Bill... you pay what you stole
from Steve. It's just the beginning
of 'your' Karma for what you've done.
Your market has only turn 3-4 folds in
the past ten years, while Apple has made
38 folds in the past decade with 20 out of
the last five. Apple is READY TO FIGHT BACK!

Microsoft people do not do experience. They are too busy trying to please senior people who have no emotions.

Microsoft doesn't market Windows because it doesn't need to. Vista is a piece of crap and yet they still sold 100M licenses of it over the last year. It passed Mac's in terms of market share in a matter of weeks.

You market when people have a choice and you want them to buy your product. Windows isn't like that, people have almost no choice but to run it (and they hate it). Marketing it would just be a waste of money. Better to spend the $$$ on trying to fix the bugs rather than taking their 95% market share to 96%.

Ikram has it right as large corporations never move quickly enough to scale well when it comes to pinpointing trends or customer desires.

And Mark points out the systemic result of having such a large body with fists-of-iron rulers.

I agree with your assessment of Microsoft's marketing missteps. In fact, their whole series of ads targeting developers seems to be targeting very immature (not to mention, inexperienced) subset.

"Your potential, our passion" is empty, but it's probably the least foolish slogan they have. "Defy all challenges" is far worse. It really should say "Accept and prevail over all challenges". Defying challenges means acting as if they don't exist. Apparently, Microsoft hires mentally retarded monkeys to write these ads.

And the security-oriented ads are even worse. Telling us how to protect against a skeleton, witches, and other fairy-tale creatures is just telling the world that Microsoft is too stupid to know what a real threat looks like, or else views their developer base as morons. This series of advertisements tell us that if it weren't for their monopoly position, their software would be thrown in the dump with the rest of the trash.

And Joe, I believe that we see anti-Vista ads from Apple but we don't see Vista WOW ads from Microsoft is because there's got to be some truth in the ads to give them credibility. People buying moderately expensive technology need some substance, and Microsoft's ad campaign for Vista pretty much tells us that they don't have anything positive to say that is true. You can sell a dish of dirt and call it food in some parts of the world, but that doesn't work here. Besides, Microsoft doesn't need to advertise Vista; they already have a large enough monopoly to make any ad campaign superfluous. At least, on the Vista front, they are wise enough to follow the advice, "Keep silent and be thought a fool, or open your mouth and remove all doubt."

But Silverlight is the one bright spot in Microsoft's line-up. Bright, for them and for those who worship them. Creating a compelling framework that locks out Linux (moonlight is NOT a viable option, and they'll probably find a way to make it illegal anyway) and then locking out Linux users from viewing their video streams of the Olympics is sheer evil genius.

I likely won't be watching the Olympics via Microsoft's Silverlight because it won't be playable from Linux. But a large-screen LCD TV with high-definition digital satellite will provide a ten-thousand-billion percent better viewing experience anyway, and the DVR will let me watch it when I want to anyway.

If Apple is sooooooo good at advertising and building hype and mystery about its products, how come the Mac is sooooooo far behind the PC??

Methinks it is more to do with openness in the PC than advertising hype or lifestyle pushing. I can do what I want with the composition of my PC with a huge choice if components and component brands for little cost but I can't do that with a Mac.

Not to purposefully be offensive Joe, but -

worst. taglines. ever.

I can't wait for tomorrow when I can order my new MacbookPro and get a free iPod Touch because I'm a college student. Oh, and only because I have a few engineering programs that require Windows, I'll be installing Windows XP instead of Vista even though the Macbook will run Vista faster than any poorly designed Dell or HP. Why can't MS own up to their horrible trainwreck called Vista? I think a lot of people are pissed simply because MS is so silent about it. They can't admit a mistake and simply fix it. Perhaps they're thinking "Maybe if we just sit here and twiddle our thumbs people will forget about it..."

Being silent is Microsoft's new "strategy". It's worked for Ray Ozzie for the past couple of years. Nobody's pressed him to answer questions about a web development effort that's been silent and unseen since he's started.

So Ballmer realies stealth is the way to go. He won't respond to questions because he thinks he's showing how brilliant he is by the "for me to know and for you to find out" method.

Oh yeah. Brilliant. A freaking genius.

Someone said:

If Apple is sooooooo good at advertising and building hype and mystery about its products, how come the Mac is sooooooo far behind the PC??
Methinks it is more to do with openness in the PC than advertising hype or lifestyle pushing. I can do what I want with the composition of my PC with a huge choice if components and component brands for little cost but I can't do that with a Mac.

This comment is so 15 years ago it hurts. Dude... get with the times. Crawl out from under that rock and take in a reality check.

Mac OS X is more open than you can possibly imagine.

http://www.apple.com/opensource/

In addition, Apple hardware can use off the shelf components. RAM, hard drives, PCI cards, CPUs, etc.

Sheez, if you want, you can run Windows on the damn things.

Gee i can hardly wait for a MSFT Phone. Lemme guess...will it have Windows Genuine Advantage and maybe 45 minutes of talk time due to the high hardware requirements. But for a upgrade can one get two hours talk time? If one puts more Ram in it can you talk faster? I wonder if it will come with Windows 7 capable stickers.

(Please don't spit out your coffee...computer screens are not that cheap)

....I can't wait for the open source community to get their hands on it, run Linux on it, jailbreak it, run VoIP on it and make it functional.

Can't wait to see what the shills will say...

"Just like Zune out sold the iPOD and put iTunes out of business, the MSFT phone will put Apple and iPhone out of business too..."

"If Apple is sooooooo good at advertising and building hype and mystery about its products, how come the Mac is sooooooo far behind the PC??"

Far behind in what way? Sheer numbers of desktop users? Yes, it's far behind in that number. But, by the same reasoning, excrement must be good to eat because a billion flies can't possibly be wrong.

Most PCs are much cheaper than iMacs, and the fact that they have higher desktop numbers means that people must be getting out of PCs what they need and are not be hampered much by the lack of integration and quality.

However, I can tell you from experience that serious at-home video editing is cheapest and most reliable on iMac running Final Cut Express. But most people don't do this, and so they don't really care. And, yes, people who use their desktop computer for just email, IM, memos, and downloading porn do seem to be in the majority, numbers-wise.

And don't forget that Mac's share is growing. It's small, but it's growing. And Linux is seriously bothering Steve Ballmer; his ads may proclaim otherwise, but his actions and his threats tells us that he sees Linux and open source software as his most serious competition. And his temper shows us that he doesn't really know what to do about it. Silverlight is his only viable product weapon right now. All of his other weapons consist of the use of his monopoly position to buy politicians in leadership positions. But people around the world are catching on.

(hint to Chris. DONT install XP on a Mac, Just get VMWare Fusion and install XP in a window. Much faster, just dont let the crap touch the metal..)

Hmm. 80% of laptops in US universities and colleges are now Mac. Guess where you have a choice, the choice is Mac. How far behind is corporates ? When they cant get XP anymore ?

Vista is an unmitigated disaster - so much so that Billg and SteveUncleFester are now talking up windows 7.

Meanwhile, Linux (Ubuntu, etc) steal the desktop, OpenOffice (NeoOffice, Symphony) steal office licenses and the development platforms that MS peddle (Silverlight and .Net 3.x) are largely ignored.

The only thing that isnt looking like a train wreck yet is Windows Server 2008. But as its built on the Vista core, expect much when it hits manufacturing. Can we all say 'Conservative adoption' ?

Myself, I'd be looking to replace Steve Ballmer pretty soon...

Oh. And Share Price ? Phhhhhhhhhfffft.

---* Bill

Joe: Thanks for writing this so now the cult of Apple fanatics can chime in with their 'MS sucks, Apple rules' comments.

I would make an intelligent comment about your article but I don't see the point in ruining the rampant idiocy theme.

Joe,
Micro$oft is a monopoly, and as such, they have to do very little. As long as Windows is pre-installed on most OEM pc's, the Empire is safe. Both Office and Windows will be safe as such, and long as Windows is forced on users by the OEM's. Here lays the problems, Vista is a bad product, at least in that it really does not offer anything compelling over XP, and requires a whole lot more hardware and horsepower to run the Vista bloatware DRM POS. So in that regard, Vista is a big step backwords for a lot of people, again, once you also add in the amount of software that ran on XP, that will not on Vista.

But still, the Empire is safe, because of the monopoly of pre-installs on OEM's. But there is a problem brewing. Vista is not well recieved, Mac is gaining share in the most profitable share of the high end market. XP had to be extended because Vista is too slow to run on low end machines. Another case of failure for MS reading the market and releasing Vista on users.

The problem for MS, is they are a creature of their own marketing. MS created all the security problems in Windows, by never setting up these systems, with a limited user account, that actually worked well. While Vista UAC is not a limited user account, it was a half baked step in the right direction, but sadly it broke (that and DRM) compatibility with too many programs, especially the 3rd party security programs, that where written for XP. Which really, all said and done, Vista might even be a step backwards as far as security, since it broke so many good programs.

Microsoft needs to do this, foremost before anything else. It needs to secure its operating systems, for the average home end users. ENOUGH already in MS poorly attempts at doing something incrementally. Its not working. Vista is coming in the door for spyware removal just like XP. Only Linux and Mac do not.

Billy Gates, tear down this security problem in Windows, and fix it. This have gone on forever, and users are not going take it anymore. The governments of this world should mandate that MS conforms to safe sercurity measures. Anti-malware programs are not keeping up with the new flood of malware written. MS does not want to fix the problem, they want to sell you Onecare on a yearly basis, for the problem, that they, Microsoft, created in the first place!

Web-based malware on legit sites soars

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39429909,00.htm?r=6

Quotes from the link:
"The fastest-growing category of threats hosted on the sites was backdoor and password-stealing malware, which increased 855 percent from May 2007 to May 2008. There was also a 220 percent increase in the amount of Trojans, viruses, and other malicious code being hosted on the web, according to ScanSafe."

@chips:
You are so right! And the real problem is that Microsoft was too short-sighted or just plain stupid (or both) to put security into Windows right from the start and do it right. Done right includes making it so that application developers have no choice.

As old as it is, Unix/Linux security was there from the get-go. It basically gives any application free run of only the $HOME directory of the currently running user. As such, applications cannot write willy-nilly all over the place. The path of least resistance is to write only within the $HOME directory tree.

But on Windows, application developers can write any old place they feel like it. And because Microsoft let the huge mass after-market go anywhere and everywhere their little hearts (and littler brains) desired, the damage has been done. It's too late now to force even a well-designed security model into the system. The path of least resistance has already been defined and implemented by millions of developers.

So Microsoft has royally painted themselves into the Mother of All Corners. Do security right, and it breaks everything. Do it partly right, and it breaks lots of things but is still relatively useless at best and annoying at worst. And the worst possible scenario: Build a Johnny-come-lately security model that kisses up to Hollywood and treats users as criminals. A classic case of Karma... or, the security-model chickens are finally coming home to roost. If Bill and Steve aren't smart enough to dig themselves out of this deep, deep hole, then it's curtains for Microsoft's growth, soon to be followed by slow collapse.

And for those who put the blame on the shoulders of application developers, heed well the fate of would-be desktop operating systems that force developers into major and expensive changes for a small market. Vista might be the future, but for now, people gotta eat, and porting to Vista is like porting to OS/2 or Linux: too much work for a too-small market.

@BlahBlah:
Bash Vista? Me? Microsoft and Hollywood have already bashed it beyond all any of us can do. Is it written in some holy book that Microsoft is the holy of holies and must be worshipped and never ever blasphemed? Sheesh! Go curl up with a copy of "The Road Ahead" and don't aggravate yourself any further!

The 'wow' of Vista is 'Wow! Is that really all you've got after all this time? And, given its speed problems, why on earth did you put that DRM stuff in?'

Vista and its DRM makes shooting yourself in the foot look like sound common sense. There was a time when IBM behaved like this and lost its leadership position in a new and exciting field.

There is another 'wow' factor: 'Wow! In the supposed "land of the free", why did governments allow MS its monopoly and do nothing effective about its behaviour? Why has the "little guy" always been trampled on?' The answer, of course, is 'campaign funds'.

Dell touts Windows XP to 2009 - and 'likely longer'

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/09/windows_xp_dell_second_reprieve/

Quote from the link; "The official June 30 cut-off date for Windows XP is getting even fuzzier, with Dell vowing to sell PCs running the operating system until "at least 2009".

The company has told customers Windows XP Professional will be available for OEM installation on PCs "through at least 2009 and likely longer", Neowin reports"
----------------------------------------------------
Now these are probably more downgrade rights which MS will count as Vista sales again. The fact is Dell, and perhaps others, know that Vi$ta is hurting their sales, and so a rebellion against Vi$ta is starting to take place. There is a market for PC's without Vi$ta on it. And Windows Seven will just be Vista SP2.