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Dvorak says Microsoft is dead in the water
What would a week be
without another proclamation from pundit John C. Dvorak? Okay, don't answer that. This week Dvorak has made one of his
most sweeping pronouncements: Microsoft, he says, is dead in the water, and in
his article at MarketWatch he gives eight reasons why. Here's the short version:
- Vista is seriously delayed and its features are going to be a disappointment.
- Office's market dominance is in trouble and Office 2007 isn't gonna help.
- MSN sucks and Microsoft should have ditched it a decade ago and should stay out of media publishing.
- MSN Search, "more of the same and pointless."
- The Xbox 360 launch shortage "was an exhibition of poor planning and bad business intelligence gathering."
- What happened to tablet PCs, Bill?
- .NET "is being killed by Open Source systems that are free and almost just as powerful," and Microsoft doesn't now how to deal with it.
- Fixation on "successful companies who are not competitors," i.e. Google.
He prefaces these, however, with the statement that
"Microsoft is not about to stop making gobs of money. It's just that there is virtually nothing interesting or
exciting happening (with the lone exception of the X-Box360) with anything the company is doing." Microsoft is
here it stay, i.e. it isn't going anywhere.
Comments
8
Subscribe to commentsR MartinMay 4th 2006 2:16PM
Again I ask...
What does this story have to do with DOWNLOADS???
Jordan RunningMay 4th 2006 2:25PM
Robert, it seems like maybe you're new to Download Squad, so it may interest you to know that since its debut last summer this blog has consistently covered every aspect of the software industry from freeware and open source downloads to web services to Microsoft and Google announcements to punditry like the above. "Download Squad" may be a bit of a misnomer, but it's the name we've had all along and we're not about to change it. If you want a blog that's all about downloads and nothing else, I suggest you start your own (and send us a link to your RSS feed). Until then, be aware that off-topic and discourteous posts are susceptible to negative stars and/or deletion.
Zaine RidlingMay 4th 2006 2:52PM
I like Dvorak. I like his politics. But his outrageous and over-the-top anti-Microsoft statements are so tired. He's been doing this since the early 90s (that I can remember), and you'd think the man would remember to take his meds. Like the Gartner group, I can safely say he's not taken seriously, thank goodness.
AJMay 4th 2006 3:15PM
There's something about someone who says "almost just as powerful" that I just can't take seriously. Not that I disagree with what he's saying (well, maybe a bit - he seems to be ignoring the whole push to web apps thing), but it is all a tad obvious.
Can I have a star if I say you guys rock? ;p
StevenMay 4th 2006 3:19PM
"But his outrageous and over-the-top anti-Microsoft statements are so tired."
Um, you could say this about his Apple comments. It seems every week he has a new story about how Apple is "going under."
Dvorak is a joke.
David G. HongMay 4th 2006 4:06PM
Does this guy have anything that is not subject to his own "hi-i-am-60-year-old-money-making-company-hater" opinions? This guy always sounds like his so jealous. Plus his probably seeing his deathbed by now, and still can't support his opinions. Opinions without support are just as bad as onion induced breaths. Get real dude, you ain't gonna see the world for too long.
By the way, if this seems like cruel, Dvorak does it all the time.
shadekhMay 5th 2006 2:45AM
There was once a time when i thought his comments as insightful. Now i read them mostly for a laugh.
He raises some valid points but imho, completely overestimates their impact. Vista is delayed, but in the end, MS will sell just as many copies, its more or less a forced upgrade unless apple starts selling their Mac osx, the only worthy competitor for non-techies. That remains a pipe dream. Office 2007 i have beta tested, and it's concepts are quite neat, and though they will require some retraining, it will eventually result in higher productivity, thanks to quick theming systems and the ribbon.
Live itself will soon be integrated in vista, and msn search is default in IE7, which means a very large part of the market who dosent tinker with anything will be microsoft's in a flash. X360 shortages have given trouble, but the ps3 will likely suffer the same, and is overall harder to develop for (apparently). And MS can just crush google by leveraging their desktop monopoly. They have already copied adsense, making it much more invasive but much more lucrative.
Microsoft is a behemoth. Small gaffes are not going to affect it. As long as we lack an easy to use, general purpose competitor to MS WIndows (no, not even the friendliest linux comes close)it will retain its control over the pc domain. There is little one can do against it.
AhmedMay 6th 2006 1:42PM
Microsoft has over $60 Billion in assets. Even if they don't make a penny in their hardware and software business, they can still survive for 10 years with that capital alone. This considering their day to day expenses plus all other costs. Dvorak must be shorting MS stock.