Although some wags may wish to claim Microsoft does not innovate, that is not at all true. Microsoft does innovate, but not always successfully. There are two reasons I have noticed for this.
The first is that they have a large installed base and a large market for upgrades that they are always trying to protect. that means they don’t want to innovate in ways that endanger their “cash cows”, which are Windows, and even more so, Office. And if you have read the classic work The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen, you will recognize that this sets them up for an eventual fall when a disruptive innovation comes along. In fact, Windows is probably facing a disruptive innovation in the form of mobile, particularly tablets. And what is ironic about this is that for years Microsoft was the main and seemingly only promoter of tablets. Why did they get into this situation? Because they wanted tablets that fit into their paradigm of the Windows computer. And in the other part of mobile, the cell phone market, it is clear that Microsoft is at best the third horse in a two horse race. Yet people who have used the latest Windows Phone 7 say it is slick and matches up well with iOS and Android.
But when their backs are to the wall, they can certainly innovate. An early example of this was in Web browsers. When Mark Andreesen incautiously declared that Netscape’s ambition was to replace the OS, Bill Gates was able to turn Microsoft around fairly quickly and produce a better browser. They also engaged in anti-competitive and illegal practices, as determined by a U.S. Federal Court, but we should never lose sight of the fact that by the time of IE4 Microsoft was offering a better browser than Netscape. The problem is that once they had dispatched Netscape the whole browser operation seemed to go into hibernation. This let Netscape’s successor, Firefox, come along and grab both market share and mind share. And since then Google Chrome has looked likely to overtake both of them. This threat has stimulated innovation again, though whether it is too little, too late is a major question. But IE9 is a credible alternative to Chrome and Firefox, and is notably standards-compliant.
One of the big problems Microsoft has is that it does not know how to sell the idea of its software innovations very well. The joke about this is that if Microsoft went into the sushi business, they would market their product as “cold, dead, raw fish”. Mmmm, yummy.
What brings on this observation is that Microsoft has what may be a genuinely innovative and useful product that almost no one knows about, and that is Sharepoint. This product is something that aids collaboration, is business-oriented, and can tie together a lot of separate products. It could be connected to all of Office, including Outlook, to create a product that wold get Microsoft back into the mobile/tablet market successfully. Right now iPads, and increasingly Android tablets, are coming into business environments despite being completely unsuited to that task. Microsoft is an Enterprise computing vendor that should have all of the natural advantages here, but it looks like they will give away this market through inaction.
Interesting position, but I would not agree with the point that IE9 is a credible alternative to Chrome/Firefox. The HTML5 and CSS3 support is pretty abysmal. Take my blog for instance. The title is all CSS, and on Firefox/Safari/Chrome its wonderfully 3D. In IE not so much. Same with my github ribobn.
Don’t take my word for it; http://people.mozilla.com/~prouget/ie9/
As to the innovation, it is true. Microsoft has done some very innovative things. Some of these have been years before the competition got wise. They employee a lot of really gifted people. Their problems run deep though, and I would say more than just being risk averse to their cash cows. Microsoft has been known for infighting between product teams, managment, and vision. Windows Phone as a perfect example. There was a simulataneous effort to create a different platform (Project Pink, aka Danger (T-Mobile sidekick company acquired by Microsoft)). The cancellation of which may have led to J. Allard’s departure (along with Courier tablet).
To your argument, for Microsoft to recover lost ground here against the web platform, Android, and Mac OSX/iOS, they’ll need some serious rethinking of their core. Sharepoint is something that could have great potential, but I doubt Microsoft will open it to the same level as is necessary. Instead they’ll continue down the road of entrenchment (Sharepoint as an aggregation point for Microsoft stack). Run your Sharepoint site with ties to Office365 on Azure accessible from your Windows Phone or using IE9 on your Microsoft Windows Install authenticated to Active Directory. This worked great for lock-in the 00′s, but the diverse web is going to limit their growth here and they’ll see migrations away from the Microsoft dominant enterprise.
People are going to start demanding more interoperability with their home setups (which is increasingly not Microsoft). They’ll see more slick free features outside of the MS world and start asking why their work IT is so X compared to their Y. The whole ‘Bring Your own Device’ IT play is a sign of that.
Well, as to whether IE9 is credible, we may just disagree on the threshold here. HTML5 is not, as far as I know, an actual agreed standard yet, and CSS3 is pretty new. As someone who once had to code web sites that worked in IE6 and Firefox, I think the current state is much improved. And the security model for IE9 is much improved as well. For my personal use I prefer Chromium and Firefox.
I can’t disagree with you on the long term prospects for Sharepoint. But the opportunity is there, IMO. I really do not think iPads are really suitable as a business device. And as someone who works in a hospital, I shudder to think of patient info on one. Apple created a consumer device, and it works fairly well for watching movies, but a truly secure and business-oriented tablet could do wonders. Microsoft has the capability, though I agree they will find a way to blow it.