How Microsoft Won and is Loosing

Steve Ballmer had it right. Developer developer developer!

The prime reason why Windows won over OS/2, the MacIntosh and even MS-DOS was thanks to the mighty influx of application that crept up for the OS. And the only way that those applications existed was thanks to developers.

Thought the Windows API are not the most graceful API I've encountered, they were reasonably well documented. I learned the Win16 and Win32 APIs mostly by reading the MSDN help files.

Using the simple tactic of ensuring that developers would favour the Windows platform early on, Microsoft achieved dominance in the operating system market.



But what is happening today? Balmer has been singing a different tune for the past few year. Since the rocketing rise of Microsoft's stocks capped in 2000, the behemoth is now struggling to pierce new markets while retaining their heavy monopoly.

It's interesting to see Microsoft running like a chicken with it's head cut off. Vista is a disaster, they are still loosing money in their search and gaming division and .NET is barely making a dent in the Java marketplace. Let's not even mention their iPod killer: the Zune.

If it wasn't for the near monopoly on Windows and Office, Microsoft would be hemoraging money faster than the speed of sound. BANG! Bankrupcy before they know it.

I think the reason is pretty clear. Microsoft is now spitting in the face of the very people that brought them to where they are: the developers.

Balmer himself said that he would like open source innovations to happen on Windows. However, he seems (or chooses) to be clueless about the free software philosophy.



Balmer can push all he wants, but he should realize that developers are usually intelligent folks. Many open source developers are quite brilliant. I do believe that most developers can smell bullcaca when it is spewed out of someone's mouth.

Genuine honesty free of marketspeak is not something you often hear from Microsoft!



It's certainly not by forcing proprietary software or standards down the FOSS developer's throat that Microsoft is going to win any friends. Neither is it going to give developers the desire or even the posibility to innovate.

Personally, I like computers to work for me and not the other way around. That's one of the many reasons I don't use Windows &mdash I cannot stand an OS that thinks it can tell me how I should work.