Daily Archives: September 12, 2008

Graying of the Microsoft Geeks

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Almost 2 years old, with gazillions spent behind it, the Zune media player has been an abysmal failure, capturing only 2% market share. It’s another bad example of Microsoft having Jobs-envy.
 
Microsoft is not about music, it’s about innovation and execution in computing software and computing applications. This is where its future lies. Microsoft needs to put all the smart Zune people in a room, let them know very gingerly that the project is in harvest mode, find out what they learned from the exercise and what can be used for its next gen project. 
 
It then needs to spend it time and R&D money identifying the next OS for mobile devices. Microsoft needs to think forward, not backward.  Mobile phones, smart phones, netbooks and even handhelds we haven’t yet thought of (GPS, language translation, money payment) are waiting for some unifying software and apps. That’s what Microsoft is good at. Not entertainment applications or advertising platforms. 
 
The geeks are graying and thinking like people living in mansions.