No Jobs, Schmidt deleted: Microsoft can't fail, can it?
Windows on ARM to the rescue
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Radio Reg From the GUI to the iPad, Microsoft has been in a race to copy and catch up with Apple. On the internet, Microsoft's love of the desktop helped Google surge ahead in search and ads, leaving Microsoft to struggle uphill with Bing.
So, we wonder, is there a silver lining for Microsoft in the interruptions in leadership at the top of two of the company's toughest competitors?
Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who gave us iPlayers, iPhones, and iPads, has taken his second medical leave of absence, and there's no idea when he'll return. And Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been bumped aside after 10 years, by founding CEO Larry Page at a company trying to uncork its youthful mojo.
Is this a prime opportunity for Windows 8 on ARM to give Microsoft's flagship OS a fresh lease of life? Can Microsoft finally offer a mass-market Windows alternative to Apple’s iPad?
Reg software editor Gavin Clarke and All-About-Microsoft blogger Mary-Jo Foley reckon things might be looking up for Microsoft - if Steve Ballmer wasn't running even more of the company, following the latest management departures.
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COMMENTS
First man fired for buying Microsoft
A municipality in Sweden has recently fired a man for re-buying Microsoft licenses...
The days of "No one gets fired for buying Microsoft" are finally over.
History is not repeating
Microsoft got into their position on the coattails of a bad decision by IBM. Once they had dominance they remained there essentially on their own coattails - OEMs could be bribed or simply forced to entrench them and know-nothing middle management hadn't enough of a clue to switch to the many better alternatives for the various buggy programs that MS sold.
Now things are changing and the new platform doesn't have an IBM to give them a free ride and the new generation of managers knows how empty Microsoft's promises are - they certainly remember Vista and many of them had to work their way up the ladder on machines running Windows 95.
That leaves MS relying on its own talent and ability to ship quality product that no one else is doing better. Since they've never done this in their entire history as a company, frankly they're doomed unless they can bribe or force their way in to some sub-market. Like China, say.
But all things pass and I'd be pretty confident now in saying that Microsoft is receding into the past of computing. Whether their replacements will be any better for the consumer is less clear. Apple are pretty open in their hate for consumer choice and the Linux crowd are still very much in the mind set of "you don't like the program? Well, you have the source code" which is understandable for amateur developers but very unnerving for normal people wanting to buy a DVR.
Other important players are Amazon and Murdoch. Again, no real sign of pro-consumerism there. At least Murdoch hasn't much time left on the clock. Amazon and their "not only can you not have the source code, you can't even have the binary, you fucking pleb" cloud worry me more. Google are too confused about what they want to do at the moment to even guess how their story will turn out.
Microsoft can't fail, can it?
Of course they can. And for some damned reason I hope they manage it.
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