* Report: Ballmer considers Microsoft users as the company's biggest threat
So what’s the greatest threat to the stability of Microsoft as the leading software company in the universe? If you answered “Linux,” then you’d be in agreement with Steve Ballmer.
Way back in 2001, at an Internet conference hosted by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Ballmer is reported to have said: “I think you have to rate competitors that threaten your core higher than you rate competitors where you’re trying to take from them. It puts the Linux phenomenon and the Unix phenomenon at the top of the list … I’d put the Linux phenomenon really as threat No. 1.”
And certainly, for the past four years both the company and Steve have acted as if Linux was “threat No. 1.” That is, up until last week.
Ballmer spoke at a Committee for the Economic Development of Australia lunch from which the media was excluded. But attendees reported that he claimed Windows users were now the biggest threat to Microsoft domination. “People can continue to use their PCs and Windows and Office for another 10, 15, 20 years, unless there’s something innovative that warrants a change or a migration,” Ballmer is reported to have told the attendees.
Well you, dear reader, knew that Microsoft feared inertia and lethargy all along, didn’t you? It seems that I’ve done annual – sometimes semi-annual – newsletters about Microsoft’s efforts to get you to upgrade – from NT 3.51 to NT4, from NT 4 to Windows 2000 and from Windows 2000 to Windows Server 2003. Not to mention NT 4 to Windows Server 2003. (OK, I did mention it. That’s a quibble!)
Unfortunately, what Microsoft has been using to induce you to upgrade is not “something innovative that warrants a change or a migration,” but the removal of support. It’s not that there haven’t been changes, even desirable changes, with each new server operating system; just that the cost of implementing the new system (in terms of hardware, software and “humanware”) was much higher than the perceived benefit. In 20th century terms, the Return on Investment hasn’t often been positive.
So Steve is, essentially, correct. People like you aren’t going to upgrade (and pay megabucks to Microsoft) unless there’s a compelling reason to do so. The threat to remove support hasn’t worked. Promoting “features” such as friendlier GUIs, better media players, animated help features (e.g., “Clippy”) and more aren’t the things that’ll convince a network manager to rip out one server operating system and put in another. Better networking tools will, though. Better use of server hardware for server functions would be even better. Microsoft has the opportunity to turn network managers from being its greatest threat into its greatest friend.
CORRECTION: A couple of weeks ago (http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/nt/2005/0613nt2.html) I said that Microsoft’s Identity Integration Server (MIIS) technology would be “in the box” with Windows Server 2003 R2. What I meant, of course, was that MIIS would be moved into the server operating system with the R2 release of Longhorn in about 2 to 3 years. The editing mistake was entirely mine.
