I’m often wrong (but never in doubt) and - after spending the day at PDC and an evening with a number of the project leads for various Vista technologies – it feels like 2006 is going to be Microsoft’s year.
Microsoft has been kicked around plenty the last few years by the likes of Google, Yahoo, the press, and many participants in the software industry. However, during this time, the Microsoft money machine has continued to generate cash at a prodigious rate. The home of “build it cheap and stack it high” is about to have two major project releases (Vista and Office 12) that will be relevant to over 500 million computers during the next few years. Vista, Office 12, and all the supporting technology, dev tools, platform layers, and web services equate to a massive force of change which – if history is a guide – will result in a huge amount of money flowing to Microsoft and many of the members of the Microsoft ecosystem.
I arrived late to my dinner at The Palm tonight and was roundly applauded for being the last one to show up by the cast of VCs including Ann Winblad, Allen Morgan, Rick Segal, Chris Pacitti, and Scott Maxwell with someone suggesting I was late because I was blogging (well – ok – yeah – that was part of it.) After listening to the Microsoft folks and the questions being bandied about, it is clear that Microsoft has an incredible wave of innovation building that is going to be released in 2006. When I compare this to the energy at PDC – which was a high as I’ve ever experienced at a developers conference – it’s easy to get excited.
Now – if we can only get them to say “Open Source” instead of “Shared Software Services” life would be a little easier.
Posted in: Computer IndustryCOMMENTS (13)
I agree that 2006 is going to be a solid year for Microsoft, and I think the MS Mobile platform is going to take off in a big way (and play a significant role in 06). MS Mobile is the clear mobility winner here for many reasons (the most significant being the significant developer advantages). With Symbian struggling [http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008610.html], embedded Linux and MS Mobile are set to battle. My bet is w/
MS Mobile - some indication may be gleaned here [http://alllinuxdevices.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2005-09-09-002-07-NW-BU-DV]. From 165 members in 2000 down to 7 before Embedded Linux Consortium's dissolution - seems like things are headed in the wrong direction. The stage is set for MS Mobile!
-kevin
Of the 500 million computer users, how many of them are under License 6.0, which forces them to pay Microsoft whether they upgrade or not?
2006 might be a decent year for Microsoft, but hardly a stellar one.
If - and it's still an if - Vista is released in 2006, it will be in calendar Q4. It will not be widely adopted for months if not years.
Then there's the business case for Office12.... you know, making users feel compelled to upgrade? They haven't won that battle yet. Not even close.
Perhaps. Of course we don't know what cards the other players are holding. Last quarter of 2006 is still a year away.
A behemoth like Microsoft has been reduced to one possibly interesting year per decade. Not a good sign.
Even Sun has become more interesting more often.
After drinking the Kool Aid, it's always easy to believe the hype. First, Vista will be out in _late_ 2006. When it does arrive--finally--it will be little more than a Service Pack release and not the ground-breaking release with features making it more stable as originally planned, i.e. the new Windows file system.
I haven't heard when Office 12 will be out, but let's not get too excited. It's an software application suite. It's release is not going to be heralded as the BIG event of 2006.
In the next year, many things can happen and will in the high-tech space. In that dynamic timeline, Microsoft's coming attractions may be nothing more than a movie trailer, and a dull one at that.
A lot of innovation this year, but is there anything that is a must-have for a large portion of users, like, say IM, or p2p turned out to be? And if Microsoft has come up with something like that, is there something that would prevent someone else like Google or open source from cloning it? If you can't answer "yes" to both questions, then Microsoft is still basically just as stuck as it has been for half a decade.
Dude, you really need to get out more. If anything at the Microsoft PDC struck you as exciting or innovative, you're just not paying attention to Apple or Linux.
I mean, come on: a rehash of SVG, not quite catching up to Quartz Extreme, and pushing bastardized, proprietary flavors of XML and RSS as if they meant something? These are all just diversions to draw attention away from the things they promised and now won't deliver in Longwind.
Two reasons why I don't think 2006 will be MS' year.
1. Vista doesn't offer a strong reason to upgrade. All the best features were either postponed or are being backported to XP. Most large businesses are still working on XP deployment, so they'll just have XP by the time Vista comes out and it's not likely that they'll deploy it for a couple of years at least. Other than enthusiasts, most end-users will get Vista when they buy a new computer, which is how most people upgrade their OS.
2. Nobody cared about Office 2000, XP or 2003 because all their major features were only of value to a few people. Office 12 has a new UI. Nobody upgrades an office suite for a UI. Are there any "gotta have it" features? I haven't heard of one.
What I keep hearing is that many Windows enthusiasts are becoming disenchanted with Microsoft's nearly complete lack of innovation or ability to bring good new products to market. Maybe they should put their Xbox team in charge of the whole company.
I haven't been in the PDC, but I think this is the best Microsoft we have ever seen.
About your open source paragraph, given the momentum they have now, they could perfectly announce something "controversial" and make it a win.
After all, when it comes to MSN and Atlas, they are already supporting Firefox.
Some things that could make busines sense: colaboration with Mono, commercial version of .NET for the Mac and Linux, cross platform Office 12 using WPF/E.
I'll believe it when I see it... Microsoft seems to be messing everything up in the last few years. It's almost easy money to bet they'll fumble.
"Shared Software Services" - LOL that's a good one ;-)
Does Microsoft really need to have their own year? I thought they already owned like almost a decade. I have no doubt it will be a big year for them though.
Microsofts PDC wrapped up here in Los Angeles. It was an interesting event which prompted lots of discussions, blogging (tons of it) on technology, Microsoft, this or that killer, etc, etc. Here are some of my perspectives: Content is free Contact is p...
Vista doesn't offer a strong reason to upgrade. All the best features were either postponed or are being backported to XP. Most large businesses are still working on XP deployment, so they'll just have XP by the time Vista comes out and it's not likely that they'll deploy it for a couple of years at least. Other than enthusiasts, most end-users will get Vista when they buy a new computer, which is how most people upgrade their OS.
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