Microsofts’ Problem

I can’t pretend to be a marketing genius. Take what I say with a grain of salt, but I think I understand part of Microsoft’s problem – or, one of Microsoft’s problems.

When I started using Microsoft products in the 1980s, they were cheap. Books were readily available through the Microsoft Press, and I could download white papers using a BBS. Microsoft did not market directly to my employer, but I represented Microsoft by advocating the use of Microsoft products. I wrote little applications using Quick Basic, or Quick C.

My company moved to Windows to be able to use the Windows version of PageMaker, a desktop publishing application. Then, I started to use Microsoft Access, and I started to write Microsoft Excel macros to automate tasks. Then, I started to use Visual Basic to write small applications to clean data, and perform other tasks. I bought the tools at an affordable price, and demonstrated how they could be used to my bosses.

The main thing to understand is that my employers looked to me to prove that these products had value. They took my advice, and we both benefited. Microsoft was my friend – the company helped me look good. Microsoft offered training. There were magazines. I was happy, and I did a lot to help my employers select Microsoft as a provider of software.

Today, Microsoft finds itself fighting to maintain its hold on the browser market, and on the operating system market. For the most part, it seems to be using mass marketing techniques combined with heroic interventions by Steve Balmer, who becomes personally involved when big deals go bad. This is not how Microsoft first came to prominence, and I do not think it is going to work.

Today, many young technologists are advocating open source technologies: Open Office, Lamp and Linux. Today, up-and-coming developers are making their bones by implementing effective solutions to real problems using cheap and available tools. Open source advocates are excited, curious and open, it seems to me. They chose technology on it merits, and they are always comparing, always learning.

Microsoft’s advocates seem to know next to nothing about competing technologies. They lack curiosity. Microsoft is learning a lot about competing products, and many people from the open source world are accepting jobs at Microsoft, but there is herd of Microsoft zombies who do not realize that technology is passing them by. Microsoft is the conservative solution, and it is acquiring a reputation for being boring.

Microsoft may not have lost in the enterprise, and sales are still strong. But, unless Microsoft can win developers like me back, the writing is on the wall. Developers like me are pragmatists, and we genuinely love to write code. We will always be interested in the new thing, and we will always want to share what we have learned. That is how Microsoft grew. Microsoft has a problem: they have lost touch with developers. I certainly mean younger developers, but I include old farts like me.

I feel that I can impress clients more with Open Source solutions than I can with Microsoft solutions. My clients often say no to projects because of licensing costs. So, open source just makes sense: it has become a selling point. I am not a fool: my bread and butter jobs are paid for by working in the Microsoft world, but that could change. It could change soon.

I have children to feed. I am likely to continue to work in the Microsoft world for a foreseeable period of time, but my loyalty to Microsoft has long since been eroded. When we reach the tipping point, I will be there, ready to jump ship. I do not think I am alone.