Can Microsoft be the new Apple? Why failure would be its savior

Then again, Microsoft could easily be the next Novell or Sun.

The world is agog at the most obvious editorial published in the New York Times yesterday about Microsoft's lack of innovation. Today, Microsoft responded with equal predictability. The thing is, Microsoft has always been a follower. It hasn't got a roster of ground-breaking ideas to its credit. It has risen to success by noticing others' great technologies and building its own version that works 80% as well as the original, but costs less.

It didn't invent the GUI, although it did decouple the OS from the hardware, helping to create a competitive PC market and driving down costs. It didn't invent the application server, but sold it for less. It didn't invent the mouse, directory service, the word processor or the spreadsheet. It didn't invent the browser or e-mail. It didn't invent cell phones, mobile computing, Internet advertising, game consoles, motion-based controllers, or MP3 players.

But one could argue that Apple is much the same kind of innovator, only in reverse. Apple takes an existing idea, adds unique innovative features to it and then makes it more desirable, and therefore more expensive. Examples include the touch-sensitive scroll wheel on an MP3 player and the touch screen and accelerometer on the mobile phone.

Which is not to say that Microsoft has never contributed a worthwhile, innovative improvement on an existing technology. The company's work in identity management, network access control and even IPSec all come to mind. But many of its innovations are under-the-hood and, in some cases (identity management) struggle to find acceptance the broader market.

In the NYT article, the writer, an ex-Softie, compares Microsoft to Apple (and others).

"As they marvel at Apple’s new iPad tablet computer, the technorati seem to be focusing on where this leaves Amazon’s popular e-book business. But the much more important question is why Microsoft, America’s most famous and prosperous technology company, no longer brings us the future, whether it’s tablet computers like the iPad, e-books like Amazon’s Kindle, smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone, search engines like Google, digital music systems like iPod and iTunes or popular Web services like Facebook and Twitter.

Does Microsoft need to become the next Apple in order to survive? Simply put, no

Microsoft can continue in its same trajectory for years with no dire consequences at all. It has deep enough roots with its enterprise customers that most won't be yanking out their Windows infrastructures any time soon, no matter what innovations hit the market.

And so, for now, it can continue to pretend that its innovations matter, as was the case in this article by Microsoft's top PR person, Frank Shaw, that attempts refutes the NYT article.

"... for a company whose products touch vast numbers of people, what matters is innovation at scale, not just innovation at speed. And in response to Dick’s comment about Tablets and Office, I’ll simply point to this product called OneNote that was essentially created for the Tablet and is a key part of Office today."

OneNote? 'nuf said.

If the company does nothing more than pay lip service to innovations, I'd say it has a good five years. During that time enterprises will test the waters with cloud computing, open source for mission critical apps, social networking/collaboration tools and other as-yet-not-invented technologies. Slowly, it's customers will grow comfortable with those new technologies.

Microsoft has time to do what it has always done. Come in late and start a price war.

In the meantime, people will say that Microsoft is dead, in much the same way they said Apple was dead, Novell was dead and Sun was dead. If Microsoft truly faces a dwindling customer base (a likely scenario), it can become the next Apple (with a giant comeback) because it will be given the freedom to reinvent itself. Of course, it also faces the danger of being the next Novell (not dead, but a shadow of its former self) or a Sun (God rest its soul).

It doesn't have to be an Apple. What people really want is for Microsoft to be the next Intel, a prominent company that didn't have to fail to stay relevant. Intel devours itself to stay on top.

If Microsoft were to release an open source version of its operating system (perhaps, even Microsoft Linux, as this blog once suggested), it would, in a short time, own that market. Proprietary Windows may have been killed in the process, but from the looks of it now, within five years, desktop Linux and Android will smash Windows anyway.

Likewise, Microsoft could commit to a cloud platform that didn't give special treatment to .Net. In fact, it could give up, once and for all, the idea that its software must give preferential treatment to its own software. (Which, mind you, Apple most certainly doesn't do.) We're starting to see it happen. SharePoint 2010 finally supports Firefox, for instance. Would be even better if Microsoft gave up on Silverlight, too.

I agree that Microsoft would be a far better company if it could figure out how to be truly innovative. But that really hasn't hurt it much so far.

Like this post? Check out these others.

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• Microsoft gags ex-CFO Chris Liddel and pays him $1.9M
• Microsoft posts record-breaking Q2, thanks to consumers, Windows 7
• 7 big IT orgs that showed Microsoft the door
• Most business will adopt Windows 7 by 2011, but prefer Google's cloud
• Microsoft Exchange/Outlook 2010 UC Mobile and Voicemail Features (Beta) Release!
• Windows 7 Remote Admin Tools: Controls Windows Server 2008 from your Windows 7 desktop
• Secrets of Exchange Server 2010

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