There's a new sheriff in town, and this time it's got the law on its side and the courts in its pocket. And its name is... the Entertainment Industry. Yes, Microsoft dumbed down computing for the masses and in doing so they reduced the quality of the experience.
Ouch, you were so close to the truth I could taste it. I think much of what you say is true, but you miss the important point that Microsoft IS in the Entertainment Industry. (I've got another post in this thread about this point, but it's a sharper point in response to your post.) You're completely correct that they don't own the Enterprise (or embedded controllers, or any of the really important computer applications these days). That's tough to do, and doesn't play to what Microsoft's strength has always been, namely keeping people entertained.
People actually like to play with their fonts and "get creative" with their PowerPoint presentations. The actual productivity gain in all of this has been minimal (actually, people like Thomas K. Landauer [colorado.edu] have argued that the gain has been, uh, a loss). But, boy, has it ever kept a lot of office workers busy and entertained.
Of course, Microsoft did really figure this out at some point, and their non-core investments reflect this fact: MSNBC, Hotmail, WebTV, MSN, etc. No hardware companies, no deep infrastructure, just stuff to keep people busy and happy. The future success of Microsoft will be in Keeping it Fun, and learning to completely let go of grungy stuff like webserver OSes that you can literally pick up for free these days.
Re:Outdated thinking (Score:2)
Ouch, you were so close to the truth I could taste it. I think much of what you say is true, but you miss the important point that Microsoft IS in the Entertainment Industry. (I've got another post in this thread about this point, but it's a sharper point in response to your post.) You're completely correct that they don't own the Enterprise (or embedded controllers, or any of the really important computer applications these days). That's tough to do, and doesn't play to what Microsoft's strength has always been, namely keeping people entertained.
People actually like to play with their fonts and "get creative" with their PowerPoint presentations. The actual productivity gain in all of this has been minimal (actually, people like Thomas K. Landauer [colorado.edu] have argued that the gain has been, uh, a loss). But, boy, has it ever kept a lot of office workers busy and entertained.
Of course, Microsoft did really figure this out at some point, and their non-core investments reflect this fact: MSNBC, Hotmail, WebTV, MSN, etc. No hardware companies, no deep infrastructure, just stuff to keep people busy and happy. The future success of Microsoft will be in Keeping it Fun, and learning to completely let go of grungy stuff like webserver OSes that you can literally pick up for free these days.