To hear Bill Gates enthuse about software as a service, you'd think that the company had invented computing anew. Richness and choice is the mantra: the richness of Microsoft's applications combined with the choice of whether you buy them as software or subscribe to them as services.
It's good to have the option, Bill. Tell us, how can you do this? "Software as a service has been moving along. We needed the Internet. We needed low-cost connectivity. We needed some data standards like XML; that helps a lot. The scale economics of doing big server farms so you can do [hosting] well and at a low cost, that helps. You'll see the services thing increase."
So what you're saying, Bill, is that you needed all of the advantages that true open standards have brought the industry in hardware and software. And in return you'll provide open access with things like OpenDocument compatibility in Office 12 and unhindered use of your Web Services, on the same basis as you consume the open standards others provide? Bill?
We'll see whether that is the case when we find out whether Microsoft's services are as available to people running Safari on OSX or Firefox on Linux as they are to those running IE6 on Windows — and for the record, we expect to see the All Hades Ice-Dancing Championship first.
For Microsoft, services mean even more lock-in at even less expense to it: why bother developing IE6 if it's the only way people have to access their data? Or why make your back-end services engine more efficient if replacing it means ripping out the desktops as well? Put it another way: how can you maintain a 70-plus percent profit margin if you give your users true freedom of choice?
Software as a service is an excellent idea. As Google, Amazon and eBay have demonstrated, it may well be the primary engine for growth and innovation over the next ten years. And as Bill Gates tacitly admits, it in turn is driven by precisely the sort of open standards that Microsoft fears most. This intrinsic paradox cannot be ignored. In no other area will the difference between what Microsoft says and what it does be so clearly defined — so pay close attention. Computing is being invented anew, but this time it may not be on Microsoft's terms.
Talkback
I'm still trying to figure out if this article is a comment left by a MS basher and the story is somewhere squashed into one line at the top
It'll take a while before it hits people. But Microsoft is getting behind the action more and more.
If you went by the people in this site yeah Microsoft were on the last legs
In the real world 1 million Microsoft licences for the NHS (9 year contract) . Total domination in the desktop and server market with no real loss of market share in the last couple of years.
Microsoft expanding into other areas, tv and other media, buying AOL, indirectly the space industry
Linux may cut into profits not by grabbing market share but by forcing a cut in prices. Not neccessarily a bad thing.
Microsoft biggest rival is probably Apple (which it owns part of), in non PC multimedia devices
Hi Jon, Microsoft is getting behind the action more and more. As in waiting for others to come up with something to then move in and (try to) take over. Usually not with the best offer out there for a consumer but just the most marketed one.
IE, security and media player are just a few examples.
By now it should be clear to most that Microsoft wouldn't have done a thing with IE7 so, errr, soon if it wasn't for FireFox. And security got the Microsoft PR boost once it was clear that people were so sick of Microsoft related security risks that they actively searched for alternatives and found them. Media player got the focus because a rival was succesfull with it. Just as with Internet Microsoft had missed the boat again and they couldn't let that happen.
Well, GPL 3 will be a new challenge for them.
In all, Microsoft has done nothing then proving that they exist like they exist for no other reason then abusing their monopoly powers. Milking their customers and choking their competitors. And the best way to milk customers is to kill the competition because without options what are they going to do?
By the way, Microsoft biggest rival is Open Source. They say so themselves in their legally required filings. Just not to the press, partners and anybody else that likes to be informed in one sided views only. But then you can lie to those. Or maybe not lie, just not tell the complete truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that hasn't been placed out of context nor mispresented either. Normal people would call that lying but maybe some won't. Some might even call that great PR or marketing skills. And even fewer would dare to claim such practices as proof of superior innovation and technical skills.