Malek's Moorish Tales

All the people who know me know that I like Microsoft technologies. That is something that can hardly change.

However, my trip through the arcane rows of Microsoft employees have opened my eyes to other dimensions. I now believe that Microsoft has some fatal weaknesses, and that anyone who, like me, is a technologist, has an imperative to open up to alternatives...
The issues and problems started long ago (I would think that sometime in the late nineties Microsoft started behaving like they owned us, but they actually did then, so it is only surfacing now that real alternatives are slowly starting to make sense). As someone that was internal to Microsoft not long ago, I think Microsoft is behaving exactly as it shouldn't... Microsoft has lost track, and is now lead by people that have little if any understanding of their customer and partner base. The main problem with Microsoft is not technology, it is leadership. To make myself clear, let me give some examples :

- I had been envolved with mobile development since 2002, and Microsoft basically created the concept of smart phones back then. Everything the iPhone or even android are doing was already there then. What pisses me off the most is that Microsoft didn't miss on "ergonomy" or as my US friends like to call it "user friendliness"... They mostly missed on timing. And as the world was starting to embrace it, Microsoft stepped down on R&D in this field because the US was not reacting... The need was there, just not in America, and the technology was there... and we were there to do the field work... but because there were no strong case studies in NY or Chicago, it was left to die...

- Integrating systems from multiple vendors has always been a nightmare. Microsoft started trying to tackle the problem since Biztalk 2000 and started getting it right since around 2002/2003 ( Biztalk 2004, SFU 3.0 ...etc.) However, Microsoft managed to make it so low key that it didn't make any difference...

- You may have noticed (depending on geography, you may have noticed a huge difference or none at all) that Microsoft Marketing has switched in the last few years to a pure online communication model... Back in the days ( up to about 5 years ago) we used to quantify and bet on a person's reach and influence. Now Microsoft treats audiences as the same be it online or in person, and to value the reach in terms of audience rather than actual real influence. A conference speaker that impresses you on his speech and as you go to him at end of session, resolves a problem that you have been having for the last couple of years is seen as an equal to a blogger that happens to talk about Microsoft Tehnologies (and eventually incite you to look at something you didn't know existed)... The level of influence went drastically down...

Although there are so many other things I think Microsoft is doing wrong, I am trying not to exploit anything I only know because I was inside it, so I will not say anything about the sales or marketing strategies, but there is plently in that area that shows extremely bad management...

I remember back in the late 80s how I felt about "prolog" and "ada". They were languages that offered the best technology could do at the time, but had a lot to prove "business wise" before they became viable. Microsoft, with all it has in terms of brand and knowhow, is unfortunately getting itself into the same spot...

Can it recover ? in theory it can, but I strongly doubt the same people that got it so low will fix the problem... So, will there be a Microsoft in 20 years ? well, only if it is lead by different people...