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Comment by mrduncan | Hacker News Reader

I think you hit on their biggest problem now. They have (mostly) succeeded in their original goal to get a computer on every desk. What's next though? It seems to me that they need a new grand plan for the company as a whole.

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Exactly right, and now a company like Google which makes almost all of its money off advertising can have a driving mantra like "to organize all the world's information" and utilize that network. Furthermore, Google can pump money into open source and new devices to bring people online - things that make the web more important to people's lives - and it will benefit their core business. Most of the world's population isn't even online, Google could even make a case to buy out ARM and licence it for free to other companies (inter-licencing with other processor companies might be difficult) just to expand the market to nearer to its full potential (6 billion and rising). Whereas Microsoft faces having to sell software products to different markets, like games and movies do, which basically means price-fixing and changing the product (be that through crippled "lite" versions of Windows for the developing world, or the price-fixing that is involved in region-encoded DVDs and regional sales of games).

Their current mission statement is a bunch of crap, something like "Enabling businesses to reach their full potential".

But the other mission statement-y phrase that gets thrown around a lot is having an integrated experience between "three screens and the cloud". The three screens being TV (Xbox), computer, and cell phone. That gives a little direction, but as much as I'd like to see them be competitive in mobile, I'm not optimistic.

Based on their latest presentation at CES, they have even lost that tiny sense of direction. Now the strategy has become "Many screens and a cloud" to encompass netbooks, tablets, etc. that weren't easily anticipated a year or two ago.

Maybe I'm cynical, but I feel like a long-term mission statement shouldn't be changing every 12 months.

They really should go back to "Information at your fingertips."

I fully agree with you. For past few years they are all over the place. From digital homes, car entertainment they are pursuing everything. And now retail stores. They are forgetting the fect that they still have not delivered an OS that will replace XP in corporations.

I am not so sure about that. Win 7 is so far, as good as or better than XP. I am now blessing it for my business clients.

New machines, granted. But that, unfortunately, is de rigueur in this industry.

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