Microsoft killed by Google unless Ray Ozzie can come to the rescue

By Microsoft Subnet on Tue, 06/17/08 - 6:30pm.

Industry experts predict that by May 2009 Google’s search business alone (not including AdSense) will be larger and more profitable than Microsoft’s most famous cash cow – Windows, reports a story in Network World. But Microsoft has got a plan ... "software plus services" and so all eyes turn to Ray Ozzie to execute that plan. The story says:

Ozzie, a noted technologist like Gates, has established a framework for Microsoft’s services architecture; presided over the rollout of a mish-mash of consumer and enterprise services; and is spearheading the development of perhaps his most important effort to date – Live Mesh, an online data-sharing and synchronization service introduced in April. It will likely compete with Apple’s newly unveiled MobileMe and start-up services such as SugarSync and Joggle. Microsoft must also overhaul the nontechnical side where makeovers will be needed for its corporate culture, business model, and partner and customer relationships to accommodate a services model that includes lightning-fast development, new distribution strategies and superior customer service.

Is Ozzie up to the task? Maybe. Microsoft already looks as if it is overhauling itself. It may have been pushed (and pushed hard) by the EU, but its softer stance toward open source is an indication of where it will eventually land. Ozzie and Steve Ballmer know that tomorrow's interconnected, open source, social networking world won't reward ruthless competitors who try to take the entire pie. The industrial age with its barons and tyrants is over. Tomorrow's leading IT companies will interact and interface with the great new wave of cloud technology and data that is heading our way.

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