Why I am cautiously excited about Microsoft

Image by dfarber via Flickr

I have been a consumer of Microsoft products since before Windows was even a stub used to let programs like CorelDraw and Pagemaker have monochrome windows. I can still visualize those amber coloured CRT screens connected to 286’s and thinking that I had the world by the computing tail.

In some ways it has been a very long road forward to this point with a lot of ups and downs for Microsoft customers. Microsoft has made a great number of questionable decisions along that road; some of which got them in trouble with the government, but through it all Windows has been able to maintain its presence as the major player of the desktop.

As with any company that remains on top for too long though Microsoft fell victim to its own ego and the sense that it could forever direct computer software in the directions it wanted to go. With the arrogance that comes from holding onto the reins for too long Microsoft suddenly found itself facing very stiff competition on two fronts. One was an old adversary that it had misjudged and the other was coming from the one area that Microsoft; regardless of Bill Gates’ vision, found itself floundering in.

This was becoming the age of the web and youngsters armed with nothing more than laptops, wifi connections and a dream were changing the face of computing. With it’s cross platform accessibility the web didn’t dictate what operating system you were using to build those web dreams with and as a result we began to see a large influx of Mac laptops being sold.

It didn’t help that the whole anti-Microsoft feeling was helping drive some of those sales but there was also a feeling of comadreship I think that was mixed in with the growth of MacBook use. After all how best to set yourself apart from the old media and old business than to adopt the arch enemy of your enemy, Microsoft, than to use Apple products.

At the same time Web 2.0 was beginning to really find its feet and Microsoft (management) was still really stuck in the desktop world. Sure they were trying to battle against Google but the reality is that they were getting wiped across the pavement by this new kid on the block. I think this comeuppance really did have an effect on Microsoft which only now they are beginning to come out of.

You see, the web didn’t play by the same corporate game book anymore. It didn’t take mega dollars to launch intensive websites. It took an idea, a domain, and literally a few weeks of coding and anyone could be on their way to the big time. This wasn’t the corporate way of doing things - this wasn’t playing fair and Microsoft I think was caught totally off guard.

From the beginning of my computing life I have been a Microsoft fan. I have believed; even though they might have pissed me off at times, in their products. As it is I invested the better part of 15 years learning their development languages for Windows; and to a lesser degree their web vision. It is only recently that for a number of reasons; both practical and personal, that I switched to writing with their products to writing about them.

It is also during this time that I started to become more disillusioned with the company than I ever had before. Like a lot of other people I was feeling that Microsoft had truly lost its way and this road downward was being helped along with products like Vista.

In the last couple of months though, I’ve begun to feel a tinge of excitement once again with the direction that Microsoft appears to be going in. After the release and in my opinion the failure of Vista people like Ray Ozzie and Steven Sinofsky went to work on trying to turn that great big gray battleship around.

Word started coming out; in dribs and drabs, about Windows 7. We started hearing words like Mesh and cloud computing. We started seeing things like Photosynth, DeepZoom and software telescopes showing us the universe.

As difficult a period of time as it has been for us the faithful Microsoft consumer it can’t have been an easy time for those working hard to bring new things to the surface. As Steve Clayton says in a post today about the Live team integrating Photosynth

One of my frustrations at Microsoft at times is you see the potential of putting bits of our technology together to create something innovative and it doesn’t happen…or by the time it does, we got beat to the chase and then end up looking like followers not innovators.

It is people like those working hard at Microsoft on new and incredibly interesting stuff that are helping as well to turn that battleship around.

I might be a cranky old fart but I have been around long enough to understand how businesses can go through cycles. Some succeed and come out the other end a better and stronger company - other don’t. there is something happening within Microsoft and there is a real sense of of something big happening within its hull. I believe that Microsoft is on the road back and I think that there are going to be a really interesting future ahead for those that follow Microsoft or use their products.

Yup that battleship is turning folks - I have no doubt about it. You can make fun all you want but we’ll see who has the last laugh eh.

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Tagged as: Microsoft, Ray Ozzie, Steven Sinofsky, windows, Windows 7