microshaft winblows

microsoft's $45 billion bid for yahoo is nothing more than an acknowledgment that the company has totally lost the battle for the internet and is in desperate need of a relevance injection. it is throwing in the towel and admitting that it's half-assed efforts, such as winblows live and msn haven't brought the results that it demands.

whereas yahoo and google continue to innovate and maintain relevance in the insanely fast moving realm of the internet, microsoft has always played catchup, because it is incapable of not playing it safe. innovation requires making risks. since the first minute of the company's history, when c/pm was purchased and made into dos, the company has only remained relevant through strategic acquisition of companies with in demand products and then strong-armed everyone into using it's stunted software.

but the days of demanding that people use it's solutions over a competitor's are long gone. with the emergence of the e.u. as the only continent with enough balls to put the brakes on microsoft's bullshit behavior, that route is simply no longer possible.

it can't simply pre-install everything, as it did in the past with explorer and windows media - no need for netscape and realplayer. today's web-based world has made that software model irrelevant and i can guarantee that alot of the reason why this new model is so prevalent is because of microsoft's past bullshit practices.

microsoft seemed to hit a bad spot after the e.u. ruled against it. vista was delayed over and over. defections, left and right. and then i remember reading about how low morale is at the company. it seemed as if nothing was going for it. after vista finally launched, it put on a brave face and was ready to face it's new rivals - google and yahoo and take over the internet. it seems that things didn't go so well. i guess with all the extra years spent on vista, it fell further and further behind.

now, let's take a quick look at the other company - yahoo - a company that helped introduce the internet to hundreds of millions. yahoo has had alot of it's thunder stolen by google, but according to a friend who knows craig, of craigslist on a first name basis and probably jerry yang and eric schmidt too, yahoo is still the most visited site on the internet. shows how important mindshare is. anyway, the company as a whole is the opposite of microsoft. jerry yang is another $1 a year guy. steve ballmer's yearly salary is over $900,000. reuters called the yahoo culture "fun-loving" and it's own website says "We believe humor is essential to success. We applaud irreverence and don't take ourselves too seriously. We celebrate achievement. We yodel." fun-loving and irreverence is not what i think of when i think of microsoft. i think of steve ballmers' pathetic attempt to outdo a steve jobs presentation by running around on stage like an asshole to upbeat music, trying to prove to the world that he not only knows how to have fun, he does, often. i think of the fat guy on that movie 'happiness' and bland baseball caps with the logo printed on them. wearing a microsoft hat will never get you laid, unless you are at an ironic party.

now, let's look at the 2 companies side by side:

yahoo; jerry yang, $1 a year, soft-spoken, intelligent, yodels, well-dressed, company dominated market by innovation, fun place to work, still relevant
microsoft; steve ballmer, $900,000+ a year, steroids, frat-boy, screams alot, looks like he eats with a bib, company dominated market by domination, low morale, irrelevant

put that aside for a minute and i'll tell you a little story.

i work in the web department for one of the the most respected journalistic institutions in the world. it helped infect generations of people with defiance and determination. it's definitely past it's prime and has lost momentum, but still has incredible cache. it has produced countless pulitzers and amazing journalists. oh, and it used to make tons of money.

we recently "merged" with another company. it wasn't really a merger, though it was sold as one. they bought us. our company is based in new york, the invader, some suburb in the southwest. the invader has installed every aspect of itself here. it's suburban business model, it's mediocre editorial model. it's incompetent staff. everything. it has essentially made our product totally irrelevant in it's own market. right after the "merger", there were several waves of layoffs, to "trim the fat." these layoffs included many people who defined the company. this pissed alot of people off, morale is sub-basement. many quit. half of our department quit on the same day. in one month, we lost literally 1/2 of our web traffic and never saw it return.

the minute that the takeover happened our new owners assured us that it was going to be "business as usual." we saw almost immediately that this wasn't going to be the case. in fact, we all knew it wasn't going to be the case from the get-go, because our tactics and philosophies are so different. new yorkers demand innovation and relevance. they are notoriously impatient and unwilling to devote effort to things they feel are not worthy of their time. we understood this and had no other choice than to innovate or at least maintain relevance, because we had no choice. the new owners' company never had any of these pressures, because they were the only option for folks in their suburban communities. they never had to put it on the line, so they never did. in fact, they grew as a company only by buying other companies.

see any parallels?

when microsoft takes over yahoo, what's gonna happen? microsoft will assure people that it will be "business as usual." people will get pissed because they'll realize that they are now working for a company that has a reputation for mediocrity. a lot of important people will leave. microsoft will, over time, install it's various archaic and doomed business practices/models/philosophies. it will stifle all potential innovation. once this stage has come about, the process will officially have reached the end. microsoft will have paid $45 billion to remain relevant for a few, short years, remake google in it's own image and become an even larger version of the failing company that it is. and all the while, google will continue to innovate.

this merger will destroy both microsoft and yahoo and will only solidify google's place at the top. you could say that this is a win-win situation for google.

i think i might buy some google stock, when it gets cheap in the coming weeks.

link | rss | share | posted: 2008-02-02 22:52:25