Yesterday's Microsoft Watch had an incisive article about Microsoft's failure to compete in the mobile phone marketplace. Echoing my own assertions that Microsoft's obsessive focus on competition with Google in search is a massive distraction, while open mobile is Google's most strategic initiative, Joe Wilcox notes:
Microsoft must change its priorities. The company has wasted too much time chasing Google in search. The search wars are over, and Google won. Microsoft must accept this. Where Microsoft should have been pushing hard is the device category where search will be the killer application: the cell phone.
Instead, Windows Mobile has fallen way behind competing products. Windows Mobile is a mess. The user interface is too complicated, and there are few—I say no—capabilities that distinguish it from other mobile operating systems....
It's time for Microsoft to launch a mobile Manhattan Project, something on the scale of Internet Explorer in 1996. If Microsoft cedes the mobile market to Apple and Google, the PC will be the software giant's final—and declining—legacy...
The mobile market has dramatically changed over the last 12-15 months. But Windows Mobile hasn't moved with it. Apple's iPhone is exciting and has raised end user expectations about mobile user interfaces. Apple's iPhone platform has huge potential to woo developers, too, mainly because of the App store.
Now along comes Google, carrying two nuclear missiles: Android and Chrome. Both are immediate problems for Microsoft. Let me be absolutely clear: Chrome is not a Web browser, it's an application runtime. Chrome is really Google Gears with a browser facade. Sure, Chrome is based on Webkit and has browser legacy, but the product's core capabilities—and Google's objectives for them—is running Web applications. Chrome is a development platform, but in the cloud instead of on the PC.
Implicit in the argument is that while both Google and Microsoft are subsidizing their mobile initiatives with cash from their core businesses, in Google's case, succeeding on mobile is aligned with and strengthens their core revenue stream in search, while in Microsoft's, it competes and undercuts their core revenue in operating systems. This becomes clear when Joe turns his mind to lightweight laptops:
Microsoft's problem isn't just mobile phones. The next-generation PCs aren't big, they're small. Yesterday I was looking at the pink MSI Wind Netbook and thought it would be a perfect Web application computer. "Net" is in the name for a reason.
Microsoft's Windows Vista is a fiasco that just keeps on giving trouble. I'm not one of the Vista haters, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize its foibles. The biggest: Vista demands too much hardware at a time when the market has shifted to lower-powered notebooks and now netbooks and ultra-low-cost PCs. The latter two really can't run Windows Vista, which is why Microsoft has licensed Windows XP Home for them.
Microsoft had to do something. The company couldn't abandon the emerging netbook and ultra-low-cost PC markets to Linux, so it licensed Windows XP Home for these devices. Now Google comes along with Chrome, which is more application runtime than Web browser. Chrome should run just fine on netbooks running XP Home, even with the resources consumed by each tab operating as a single process.
What do you bet that Microsoft comes up with a new "improved" release of XP Home that has features deliberately designed to block Chrome? This is, after all, what they did against Netscape in 1996, with Windows NT Workstation allowing no more than 10 TCP/IP connections so that it couldn't be used with Netscape web servers.
But this kind of backward-looking, defensive competition doesn't do more than buy you time. Yes, Microsoft killed Netscape, but they missed the deeper, stronger competition that would come from true web applications like Google. The future is not like the past, and any strategy that is designed to protect the past will eventually fail.
What's so ironic is that if Microsoft started thinking about the user again, instead of thinking about protecting their business, they could do great things. There are many problems yet to be solved in online software, but they won't be solved without bold leaps into the future.
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翻译：Michael J.
昨天的Microsoft Watch有一篇尖锐的文章，谈了微软在移动电话市场中的失利。与我自己关于微软固执地在搜索上与Google纠缠是个巨大错误的看法不谋而合。开放移动平台是Google最具战略性的作法，Joe Wilcox谈到：
微软必须改变优先级别。它在搜索方面去追赶Google浪费了太多时间。搜索之战已经结束，而且Google赢了。微软必须接受这个事实。微软真正应该努力推进的方面则是那样一类设备——这类设备上搜索将是最关键的应用：手机。
相反Windows Mobile已经远远落后于竞争产品。Windows Mobile一团糟，用户界面太过复杂而且几乎没什么（我认为根本没有）特点能让它优于其它移动操作系统……
微软应该发布一个革命性的移动项目，类似1996年IE的东西。如果微软把移动市场让给Apple和Google，PC将是软件巨人最后的、逐渐消退的领地……
移动市场在过去的12-15个月中发生了戏剧性的变化。但是Windows Mobile没有任何相应的前进。Apple的iPhone令人振奋，已经激起了最终用户对移动用户界面的期望。iPhone平台对开发人员也具有极大的吸引力，这主要是因为App Store。
现在Google带着两个核导弹来了：Android和Chrome。这二者对微软来讲都是迫在眉睫的威胁。我来明确一点：Chrome根本不是一个浏览器，而是一个应用运行环境。Chrome是披着浏览器外衣的、真正的Google Gears。诚然Chrome基于Webkit而且有很多浏览器的功能，但其产品核心能力——以及Google的用意——就是要运行Web应用。Chrome是个开发平台，不同的只是针对云计算开发，而不是PC平台。
这段论述没有明示的是：Google和微软都通过各自的核心业务来补贴其在移动平台的发展，在Google来讲移动领域成功是与其在搜索业务上的核心收入流一致的，并会加强后者，但是微软的情况就不同了，在移动领域的努力将与其在操作系统方面的核心收入竞争并将削弱之。Joe在谈轻量级的笔记本电脑时这一点变得很清楚：
微软的问题不仅仅是手机。下一代PC不会很大，将会很小。昨天看到MSI的Wind Netbook我认为这就是Web应用完美的计算机。Netbook名副其实。
微软的Windows Vista是个彻头彻尾的失败，一如既往地带来麻烦。我不是Vista痛恨者，但这不等于我没发现Vista的问题。最大的一个问题：Vista要求太多的硬件，却出现在这样一个趋向低能耗笔记本、Netbook以及超低成本PC的时代。后面两类设备都不能运行Windows Vista，这也就是为什么微软已经授权它们跑Windows XP Home的原因。
微软不得不如此。它不能把新兴的Netbook和超低成本PC市场让给Linux，所以将Windows XP Home许可给这些设备。现在Google带着Chrome来了，相对于浏览器而言它更是一个应用运行环境。Chrome应该在运行XP Home的Netbook上跑得很好。
你相信微软将会搞出一个新的、“提高的”XP Home版本——带有一些刻意设计的功能来阻止Chrome吗？这就是他们1996年对付Netscape时的作法，当时Windows NT Workstation只允许不超过10个TCP/IP连接，这样就不能运行Netscape web servers了。
但是这种倒退的、防守的竞争作法除了浪费时间不会有更多意义。是的，微软消灭了Netscape，但是他们在面对来自像Google这样真正Web应用更深入更强大的竞争时失败了。未来不会再像过去那样，而且任何用来保护过去的战略都将最终失败。
相反有趣的是如果微软能开始再次考虑它的用户，而不是考虑保护它自己的商业，微软将做出伟大之举。在线软件领域还有很多等待解决的问题，但是这要求面向未来做出勇敢的飞跃。
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Tim O'Reilly
2008-09-06
Discussion
Microsoft在计算机产业发展的历史中书写了自己的那一部分，但也不能免俗，基本上还是个暴发户。钱赚了不少，但公司本身的修养与其它公司没什么不同。犯错误甚至摔跟头在所难免。
Bill Gates是个聪明人，但不是超人。总是要退休的，而同时他周围这些年聚集了越来越多的傻瓜。我不认为微软将能够通过转变自己来再创辉煌。