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Comment by randomfool | Hacker News Reader

After being at Microsoft for 5+ years, I consider it much more cocky than paranoid. Cocky because there is a pervasive mindset that if Microsoft builds it that customers will automatically flock. Windows Phone was a wake up call, but most of the company still believes this.

Also, their continued focus on Windows and Office continues to suck the life out of many smaller products. There is no escaping the gravitational pull of Windows or Office.

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You hit the nail on the head about Windows and Office. I think Microsoft could bank (and has to an extent) on customers flocking to its services if they could work on delivering specifics instead of, what seems like for the last decade, just reactions. There are a lot of purchasing managers and CIOs that know that if MS puts out a product in the enterprise space it's at least a safe bet. But they lose that as the enterprise blurs into the realm of the personal and MS makes larger bets into the personal space.

Microsoft's problem is that while Windows and Office give MS the freedom to explore new markets those same two things let them treat these new markets as nothing more than multi-billion dollar whims that ultimately leave customers gun shy. I'm probably one of the last ten or so people that still has a Zune subscription (because the price and software are really compelling) but I also know that if they shut the entire thing down tomorrow and told all their Zune customers to go pound sand it wouldn't make a single penny's worth of difference on the Earnings Per Share report at the next quarterly earnings conference call.

But while you say that Windows Phone was a wake up call it doesn't seem like it from the outside. When Apple announces things they give dates and prices, Microsoft announces things like the Lumia line, which look great, but they lose when they fail to deliver specifics instead just relying on everybody knowing that anything the demo will be available in the next 6-18 months.

MS may have finally turned a corner by not releasing a half baked tablet OS in an effort to fight for the number 2 spot in the tablet wars, they waited until their "perspective" on tablet usage was ready. But still, they failed to outline specific dates and prices until relatively recently. People will "flock" to commitments to specifics, not so much so to "oh, shit if we don't find a MS response to threat X it's going to be bad".

Windows Phone was a wakeup call, but they are still trying to figure out what to do about it. It's sort of like the villain in a movie who thinks he's invincible then sees his blood for the first time. That 'oh crap' moment. Before then, it was just a matter of lack of trying.

You're right about the personal devices, and it's a big deal. Microsoft's strong point has been a full stack, but the issue is that the ecosystem is evolving faster than Microsoft is. I don't think it's as much of a safe bet anymore- Microsoft's inability to execute is causing a lot of concern for partners.

I'm actually not sure what you mean by Windows Phone being a wakeup call ... ?

I think he means that MS put their best foot forward for WP7 and it still didn't do that well. They're still in fourth place in the smartphone market, even behind the stumbling blackberry.

Before WP7, they had not really tried very hard in the smartphone market (no innovation, windows mobile was just a poor mans symbian) so it was a no-brainer that they had not done well.

OK, but I'm not sure what you can point to that they're currently doing that's a reaction to that. The products you're seeing now (Windows 8, WP8, etc.) were all put into motion before WP7 was released.

It is a market (if not technological) failure so far.

> You hit the nail on the head about Windows and Office. I think Microsoft could bank (and has to an extent) on customers flocking to its services if they could work on delivering specifics instead of, what seems like for the last decade, just reactions.

I would argue that far from being limited to the past decade, Microsoft's entire history is composed of reactions.

  DOS -> CP/M
  Windows -> Original Mac OS
  Excel -> Lotus 1-2-3, Visicalc
  Word -> WordPerfect, WordStar
  Access -> dBase
  Zune -> iPod
  Surface -> iPad

etc., etc. There are cross-influences throughout the industry, but I cannot think of a product in Microsoft's lineup where they could be considered to have successfully introduced something new into the market. As far as I can tell, every product Microsoft sells is either a "me too" item, or the result of an acquisition (Skype, Visio).

That's completely true, I'd also add in: Active Directory/Windows Server -> Novell Directory Services

Novell used to rule that area until Windows NT 4 Server was released. A bit later after that, Active Directory basically killed Novell (not completely, but almost).

To clarify- Microsoft's position with Windows 8 is to leverage a guaranteed desktop user base to muscle into the tablet marketplace. This is a cocky attitude.

A paranoid attitude would have been if they took their 75% profit margins on the OS and ensured that it could run on absolutely every device under the sun and invested in every far-fetched concept out there. Rather, Microsoft focuses on killing any internal competing products (such as Courier).

It seems more likely that Courier was killed because they realised that, being based on the aged and clunky Windows CE OS (Max 32MB memory footprint for apps? Seriously?), it didn't have a cat in hell's chance of standing up to iOS and Android.

Bear in mind it was only canned in 2010, shortly before Windows Phone 7 based on a completely re-written OS layer came out. Bringing out a tablet based on Windows CE at that point would have been madness.

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