I was interested to see the post on the browser wars, having just seen this article on the new IE9 Beta. I immediately thought of our discussion from last week on competitive advantage vs. competitive parity... The bulk of the improvements to the browser seem like just catching up, rather than real innovation. Which I guess shouldn't be surprising given Microsoft's historical attitude toward IE.
What I really thought was interesting is that the slow, SLOWWW development cycle at Microsoft means that even the limited creativity exhibited in some of the new features won't matter! By the time the new version is released, it will just seem like more of the same. Seems like the business strategy and the tech strategy need to come to a meeting of the minds...
This is a chronic issue at Microsoft but how serious is the problem? Microsoft has a huge competitive advantage with the amount of cash they have which gives the company the ability to play “catch up”. Microsoft is rarely the first to market with any product and, like Lorin touched on regarding IE9, their ability to overtake first-movers lately has been suspect at best. How many people do we know that own a Zune? What happened to the Kin? Everyone's seen the commercials but has anyone seen a Kin in person?
ReplyDeleteMicrosoft’s competitive advantage may lead to its demise unless they refocus strategy. Pouring resources into projects just to enter new markets is not sustainable. Soon enough that big pile of cash is going to run out unless Microsoft starts producing more winners like the Xbox. But perhaps, however, this is strategically necessary. Maybe Microsoft has to enter as many markets as possible just to keep the competition honest? But with its recent track record are companies even intimidated by Microsoft anymore?
What may be an even bigger problem for Microsoft is losing talent to Google and Apple. Microsoft has filed lawsuits in attempt to prevent employees from joining competitors. However, as mentioned in O’Reilly’s article, the target on Microsoft’s back is much smaller than it used to be. It’s much easier to run a business when you aren’t being constantly sued and this has arguably become a bigger issue for Google and Apple.