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Monday, September 26, 2005
Although some Microsoft insiders predicted the rise of the web as the operating system (aka Web 2.0) way back in 1995, perhaps only now is Microsoft understanding how this tectonic shift could affect its lucrative Windows division.
Last week's announcement that Microsoft would reorganize by combining MSN with Windows is a clear indicator that MS is starting to turn the battleship around to fend off Google's encroachment onto its turf. The fact that Microsoft is also opening up the APIs to MSN Search to software developers is another strong signal. It seems MSN will once again undergo a major strategy shift, perhaps for the fifth time.
Although, they haven't come out and said it, Microsoft's worst nightmare is coming true, and Google is its name-o. Web technology has come so far that the actual operating system on the client side is not as important as the OS was in the non-networked world.
In response to CNET's "nightmare" article, Richard MacManus of the excellent Read/Write Web blog posts, "MSN vs WebMachine." Basically, he says, the webmachine is the network computer evangelized by Larry Ellison of Oracle, and the arrival of Web 2.0 has almost made the underlying operating system irrelevant because now the "network is the computer," as famously predicted by Sun's Scott McNealy years ago.
I don't know if buy into the hype yet that says Microsoft will be dethroned by Google, but wouldn't it be poetic justice to see the "evil empire" undone by the company that says, "don't be evil"?
It almost seems fitting that all of Microsoft's efforts to resist open standards in favor of proprietary short-term gains could very well be its undoing.
Posted by
Cory Kleinschmidt
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D'oh!
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