Robert Scoble took a shot at Microsoft that was heard round the world:
“Microsoft’s Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks…
Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where’s the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo’s Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That’s how you win.”
But Microsoft actually is going away. It’s been happening slowly, but it’s happening. They seem to have lost their ability to understand what their customers really want. Hint: add a better email program to Scoble’s list, and an update of Word’s lame group editing.
Microsoft’s new Vista OS sucks according to many reports. And Scoble is right about all the other ways the company sucks. I sold my shares a few weeks ago when I saw Vista.
My friend bought a new laptop that came loaded with Vista and was so frustrated by it that he returned the computer and bought an Apple. J&R, where he bought the comptuers, says people have returned Vista and Vista-loaded computers in droves.
I’d say that Vista doesn’t suck, from what I’ve read and from an IT director I respect very much. What does suck is its timing. I’d say it’s a couple or so years ahead of its time — there are few software programs that can take advantage of it.
It’ll push companies to improve (like graphics), but Microsoft may have given up on Vista by then.
Mike