New ’services wave’ worries MS
p2p news / p2pnet: Having already announced the resurrection of his plans for the Net, plus an entrance into the world of p2p, Microsoft boss Bill Gates has warned, “This coming ’services wave’ will be very disruptive. We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us …”
In an email quoted by (leaked to?) the Associated Press, Gates compares the "{push toward such services – which range from online business software offerings to free Web-based e-mail – to the changes he saw nearly a decade ago" when he wrote a now-famous memo, "The Internet Tidal Wave," prompting a "massive shift at Microsoft toward Internet-based technology".
In an October 28 memo Ray Ozzie, "one of Microsoft’s three chief technical officers," concedes that, "Microsoft has not led the pack on Internet-based software and services, and now faces intense competition from companies like Google Inc," says AP, going on:
"Ozzie said Microsoft needs to focus on key tenets of the new model, including a shift toward offering free, advertising-supported offerings and more sophisticated, Internet-based methods of delivering products."
"Free" and "" advertising-supported" in the saqme sentence? Yup.
"I believe at this juncture it’s generally very clear to each of us why we need to transform — the competitors, the challenges, and the opportunities," Ozzie wrote.
Microsoft’s "nascent Windows Live and Office Live efforts aim to complement its valuable software franchises with online products that build on what people find on their desktop computers," adds AP.
See:-
world of p2p – Microsoft, AOL, p2p , November 4, 2005
Associated Press – New ’sea change’ to hit software, Gates warns, November 8, 2005
