Microsoft is not in the Mobile Game
This story explains why Microsoft isn't in the mobile game at all. Not long after touting Windows Phone 7 as the next big thing, they've announced Windows Mobile:
The company has previously announced the Windows Phone 7 OS for smartphones. Microsoft's focus on consumer mobile devices will continue through the Windows Phone brand, Kelley said. It's unclear if the Windows Embedded Handheld announcement means that Windows Phone 7 will not support enterprise capabilities originally promised for that OS, or if Windows Embedded Handheld and Windows Phone 7 will compete with each other for business users.
It's becoming clear to me, at least, that the rot at MS starts at the top. Ballmer is a sales guy with no grasp of what his company does, or of where the industry is headed. He needs to go - and whoever they replace him with should start by radically downsizing the company. If it's big enough to come out with this kind of confusion, it's too big.
Technorati Tags: management, mobile
Comments
Re: Microsoft is not in the Mobile Game
[anonymous] June 18, 2010 16:54:08.650
You speak as if you have some experience with that kind of organzation... <grin><duck><run>
Re: Microsoft is not in the Mobile Game
[W^L+] June 19, 2010 14:02:01.511
Microsoft's biggest problem is "ITT syndrome", the urge to be in every little slice of any market related to computing. There is no manager (or group of managers) who can be expert in every one of these fields, so performance will always suffer.
The best thing that could happen for MSFT would be to break the company up into at least five different companies. Without subsidies from Windows and Office, a number of their other businesses will quickly fold or merge, or they'll suddenly have to make some drastic changes in order to become profitable.
Unfortunately, under the current US corporate model, even this would bring huge financial rewards to the very corporate managers who have failed to grasp their situation, at the expense of both stockholders and employees, many of whom have long urged just such a change.