08.12.08
Welcome back, Mr. Gates.
I believe Mr. Gates will, one day, return to work at Microsoft. Furthermore, I believe his return will come during a very low point in the history (and stock valuation) of Microsoft and it will return Microsoft from “the brink” and make it stable again. Microsoft will never be what it was in the late 1990s and 2000s though. Microsoft has not fallen yet, but they must tread carefully.
The rise of Microsoft came as a couple of things were occurring; computer hardware was becoming mainstream and the price of hardware much reduced. Companies like Microsoft showed the business world how software could be a commodity.
The market is now flooded, Microsoft is in turmoil, whether they admit it or not, and whether they realize it or not. The pragmatic Mr. Gates knows when to leave.
Microsoft is in turmoil internally because of many decisions. The decision to remain backwards-compatible, the decision to gouge customers to continue incredible profitability, and decisions that have left former corporate MS-champions wondering what the hell just bit them.
The leviathan that was has slowed to a crawl and missed some important environmental changes that are occurring. You can fill in the gaps here but a couple of solid examples are things like cloud computing. It appeared that the transition to subscription-based computing was on the horizon, when companies started popping up with SaaS (Software as a Service) delivered via “the cloud” and completely sidestepping the need to install software locally on the computer. Obvious examples are things like web mail and salesforce.com. Microsoft is now playing catch-up to companies like Google in this space. I wonder aloud if this is a space Microsoft should even want to compete in, but the driving cell phone industry will have the computing power in the palm of our hands soon and cloud computing is the best way (at this time) to deliver it.
Other decisions like the Vista operating system are still shaking out. I won’t labor over this, but I will say Vista seems to do what MS intended but missed the mark on what people wanted. (I will add; if Vista had been another 2 years “late” it probably would have arrived at the right time for the hardware needed to run it adequately and met with more success)
When Mr. Gates returns to Microsoft he will have clear vision. He will have a more objective view of what businesses Microsoft needs to be involved in, and what technologies are on the critical path. He will realize the burden of backwards compatibility and He will have to pare down the sprawling masses of business units and pragmatically refocus Microsoft.
Welcome back Mr. Gates.