TechFold - Bold tech & web commentary

Bold tech & web commentary

TechFold is technology discussion, commentary, reviews, and opinions from well outside the valley. There's no koolaid to drink here, and TechFold is not in SL, or on Twitter.

What Facebook Means for Microsoft: shark jumping

Note: I wrote this post weeks or months ago (whenever MS invested in Facebook) and never had the chance to proof read it. So - its not exactly topical anymore, but what the heck - here it is. It is all the funnier now that “Microsoft leading the pack” has become “Microsoft being more or less the sole investor at a ridiculous valuation.”

Microsoft leading the pack in “getting in” on Facebook is a sad day for Redmond.

In a nutshell: MS has gone from leading to frantically following. They are playing Google’s game, they are letting Google define success for them. From a position of unassailable strength, they now look like a floundering giant desperate to buy a lifeline from anyone. Vista set the stage; Aquantive kicked it off; Ballmer’s posturing about purchasing 20 companies in five years (or whatever it was) confirmed it; Facebook closes the case. Microsoft has jumped the shark.

The Boxed OS is Done

To paraphrase: MS has lost its core competency in marketing OS’s and is now trying to change course, lurching like some business-model frankenstein into Web 2.0. Blame it on Apple, Web 2.0, the DOJ, or internal politics - the delays, non-compelling feature-set, and poor quality of Vista make clear that the time of the boxed OS is over. Same general story for productivity apps. MS is looking 5 - 10 years ahead - and sees a pretty bleak landscape for their current product family.

Which is a fantastic opportunity for MS: they have 5 - 10 years of cash cow milking to invest in their future and shape the next generation web - but instead they’ve chosen the reactive path of acquisition and desperate competition with Google.