Microsoft’s ‘new’ direction
p2p news / p2pnet: Watch out Web, here comes Bill.
“It’s really a great platform for Microsoft to use advertising-funded capability to deliver some great services to consumers and small businesses,” he said, quoted in the Seattle Times.
Introducing his Live Software strategy to “weave together computers, electronic devices and the Internet with new online services, chairman Gates “characterized the move as one of the enormous shifts in focus Microsoft undertakes about every five years,” says the story.
Gates unveiled an ambitious vision for Web services in 2001, but it never became as universally embraced as he hoped and meanwhile, and very much to the point, “Microsoft faces growing challenges from Google and other companies offering services that allow consumers and office workers to conduct more and more activities online, rather than on PCs loaded with Microsoft Windows and Office software,” it says.
The company’s “biggest cash cows are retooled” as Windows Live and Office Live for any device connected to the Internet, in some cases for free or for greatly reduced charges, the San Francisco Chronicle states.
But, “They’ve moved past Linux as enemy No. 1,” the story has Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media saying.
“This is much more a response to Google. Advertising is a pretty powerful business model. What Microsoft didn’t show us is how good they’re going to be at it. … Google is good at it.”
Bill and the Boyz Microsoft are also aiming their Xbox 360, slated for launch in 20 days, in the same direction, says the San Francisco Chronicle. It quotes Microsoft cto Ray Ozzie as likening to Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes service, which he praised as “a seamless weaving of hardware, software and devices.”
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See:-
Seattle Times – Microsoft makes splash with big plunge into Web, November 2, 2005
San Francisco Chronicle – Software king shores up online strategy to fight Google, November 2, 2005
