Ray Ozzie can’t save Microsoft. He has failed miserably at Windows Live and his mission to lead Microsoft into the age of
“Ozzie was put in charge of the company’s Internet push, through its “Live” brand. And now, more than two years later, Microsoft has done such a poor job with the Live brand under Ozzie, and found itself so far behind Google, that it’s trying to bail itself out by buying Yahoo. (Note to Microsoft: Adding together two negatives doesn’t equal a positive.) Why has Ozzie failed? Simply put, he’s done an exceedingly mediocre job with the Live brand. Rather than being innovative, it’s an uninspiring lineup of me-too products that are too late to market, offer far too little to users, and are tied far too heavily to existing Microsoft software such as Office.”
“Live” is supposed to indicate Microsoft’s SaaS offerings, or if not full-on SaaS, at least the software available as Internet-based services. But Gralla says it is being bandied about as a brand for products that have nothing to do with the Internet such as Windows Live OneCare, a client-based security app. That might not be a completely fair bullet from Gralla, as OneCare is antivirus-plus client software and is available as a service subscription. But Gralla does hit one on the bullseye with his complaint that slapping “Windows” in front of “Live” is a mistake. Live services are (in theory) accessed through the browser, not the Windows operating system. It seems misleading to make the two seem somehow connected. Not that there would be much of a market share loss because of this. Not many “non-Windows” users on Firefox are going to opt for Windows Live Search over Google or Windows Live Spaces over Flickr.
But is any of this stuff visionary? Ozzie has been repeatedly handed that title and it might have been an earned title once. But it certainly hasn’t seemed to hold up over time. We might blame the fact that Ozzie’s visions aren’t allowed to be manifested. Perhaps they are smothered by Microsoft’s super-controlling culture. Then again, Ozzie might not have come up with a truly creative, disruptive thought during his years at Microsoft (since 2005). Look at the list of beta programs in the works for Windows Live. Not an original idea in the bunch. (Calendaring, online storage, product searching).
Nothing here at all to threaten the status quo of how an enterprise delivers its software to its users. That might be Microsoft’s goal but it might also be Microsoft’s downfall. Even if Microsoft moves to conduct its first hostile takeover (of Yahoo), that won’t be enough. Google has been winning this battle because it is both innovative and collaborative. Ozzie’s software-plus-services strategy is neither.
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