So there is a tremendous opportunity for Microsoft to develop the perfect Web Platform, but only if they can get together the right team that could execute this vision.
I believe that ‘Platform Services’ for the Web, as developed by Microsoft could become a big hit for the Redmond Posse. But just as Mike stated, they must totally agree on One Web Brand Name.
With Google, its either Google this or Google that. But with Microsoft its totall confusion.

Just use your brilliant Windows Brand Name as your major Web Brand, you can even drop the ‘Live’ version.
Everyone knows the Windows Brand offline, so why not stick with it online. Did Apple change into a Lemon online.

It would be Windows Hotmail, Windows Messenger, Windows Search, Windows Maps, Windows Earth, Windows IE, Windows MSN.

The server OS division tries to sell servers; customers note that Linux seems to be good enough, even for Microsoft’s needs; server division puts pressure on online division to get with the program (literally). When it comes to a fight between a division that makes money and one that doesn’t, the money-makers tend to win.

And aside from the marketing value, Microsoft puts great stock in “eating your own dogfood”, even when that turns out to be about as attractive as it sounds.

And finally, the top brass at Microsoft seems to be convinced that there is significant risk attached to having its developers work on, or even look at, GPL code. They don’t want to be vulnerable to legal claims that they copied GPL code into commercial products. So the lawyers too will be pushing to get rid of all that icky free software ASAP.

As much as Arrington hates Yang and his people, they are eating Microsoft’s lunch when it comes to search.

If you want to beat Google, you need to start by unifying the online services under one roof, make account control and moderation easier, let your users know you won’t tolerate spam (Gallery.live.com for example), and ultimately do your best to win users by supplying the best and easiest experience. Bonus points if it looks and works cleanly on the backend, something I’ve yet to see Microsoft do most places.

And in all honesty, I’m still not convinced that Ballmer is the guy to go to with the strategy. He seems to be great with the B2B, but sucks somethin’ aweful when it comes to consumers. He likes to play the marketing card way too often. And it’s killing the company’s online efforts.

KJ is a good sales man, he did very well leading the sales group, selling to businesses. But he doesn’t understand the search/consumer market well, nor he has any vision for that.

I don’t agree. Why do they need to modify Yahoo’s software immediately? I can see a gradual transition. It’s not like they’re going to realize financial benefits from moving from Yahoo!’s open source low cost server solution to Microsoft’s server solution. To the extent that Yahoo! code running on those servers is open source GPL type code, Microsoft will have to recode if it wants to integrate that code with proprietary Microsoft code (so that Microsoft proprietary code doesn’t become subject to open source software terms (sorry Richard Stallman, I meant “free software” Of course in some ways “free software” is a little like “free underwear,” free is great, but you have to look carefully at what’s in the package before you put it on).

Their number one priority will be modifying all of Yahoo’s software to run on Windows servers.

It will absorb a huge amount of time and capital, and will deliver zero value to the end users. But they are bound to do it, because they are not an Internet company: they are an operating systems company that also does Internet stuff.

A pure-Internet company like Yahoo or Google has the freedom to use whatever tools work best, regardless of who makes them; while a technology conglomerate like MS is required, by intra-company politics and by the need to make other divisions of MS look good, to use its own tools exclusively.

That’s why Microsoft is going to lose out to Google, regardless of whether they absorb Yahoo.

Ballmer is always talking about things in an abstract muddle (”user experiences”, etc.) with no real clarity on what he would like the end result to look like.

The reason why they don’t know what they want to do/should be doing online is that all they really want is to protect their OS (and Office). And that just isn’t enough.

It’s been pointed out above (and many times before) that they do actually have smart people, the largest R&D budget of pretty much anyone, and are innovating on the margins. Which begs the question: Where’s the beef?

If all these people and money had acted IN CONCERT even a little over the last few years, there’s no telling what they could have achieved online. But there is no clear direction, no positive vision coming from the top.

(reprint of my comment on last night’s related post on the reorg)

[This reorg] would appear as deeply weird, except for the idea that this could be a prelude to some sort of spin-off plus cash to Yahoo deal that Henry Blodget over at AlleyInsider had championed early on.

If they aren’t going for that, then this is truly bizarre, and will come back to bite them. Windows is their least defensible position in the long run, and adding in Hotmail, etc. doesn’t do a thing for them in this regard, while they should instead be INTEGRATING search and ads more tightly with all of these properties.

Think about it: Google really had no business rolling out Google Desktop, except that MSFT’s own native search in their own OS still sucks to this day…

Ballmer (in his internal memo): “To keep today’s Windows applications alive, vibrant, and exciting, we need both—applications that run everywhere and rich client applications.”

Wrong. What he meant to say/should have said was:

“To keep Windows alive, we need… rich client applications…”

Problem is, the browser as client is getting richer by the minute…

(Arrington’s post calling for an open-sourced $200-400 tablet that runs on a baseline linux kernel and browser only, anyone?)

(end of reprint)

No flame from me. I think this is the most thoughtful and insightful piece on MS I’ve read in ages.

Look at their patent filings and the amount that they invest in pure R&D. They’ve got some wicked smart people, a lot of them in Silicon Valley. I’ve worked for lots of silicon valley companies, start-up and public alike and I’ve now also worked at Microsoft (recently moved on). Despite the popular view in Silicon Valley, developers at Microsoft aren’t of sub-human intelligence…from my experience they are among the smartest I’ve ever worked with. I saw amazing side projects there that make other companies launched products look like crap.

The problem is that while Microsoft development teams develop amazing technology, others bring it to market faster. By the time innovative internal ideas make their way into launched products they then instantly get derided as “just copying X, Y or Z”.

It’s not a good time to be in Microsoft’s online group. It used to be that the E&D division was the company whipping boy, having been a huge cash sink for a long time, but that part of the company is making money now and has products that people love (Xbox and before yesterday the Zune…Zune tattoo guy has apparently lost his passion). The online services group at Microsoft is not only a huge money suck, but doesn’t have users that love its products (or even know what they heck those products are). People internal to Microsoft have a hard enough time trying to keep straight what all the different online efforts are. Microsoft needs to pick one brand, stick to it and kill the others.

I could go on, but many of you probably ignored this post when you read the first line, so flame on.

How about Yahoo! , Can’t get a bigger brand name..

Microsoft needs to do is simply pick a brand name for the Internet side of things, and stick with it. Microsoft. MSN. Live. Whatever, just name it something a little catchier than “Online Services.”

I think that TechCrunch needs to hold a contest to rename Microsoft’s Online Services. The winner gets a free Zune.

Here, I’ll start with my Top 10 Suggested Names:

10. Zune Live
9. SoftFace
8. Microhoo!
7. The 404
6. Zune Office Live : Millennium Edition
5. Microsoft Online Services 2009
4. Vista Online XP Pro
3. Bluescreen
2. Online Services Explorer 6
1. Yahoo!

The above permeates every aspect of the company, they have been reliant on it for 20 years. But what happens if you can no longer force people to adopt your stolen innovation through the desktop computer operating system?

If Ballmer wants to really inspire people, he’d set some pretty big, amibitious goals that have nothing to do with Google and everything to do with creating the best damn customer experience across every one of their product lines. The customers will follow.

Yahoo grew through some very savvy acquisitions including Flickr and Delicious.

MSFT should do the same - commit to making creative and thoughtful acquisitions to increase its overall reach.