Dropsafe

by Alec Muffett

Microsoft has failed | SemiAccurate # compelling and plausible from my experience

It’s a week old and for some reason cut-and-paste is not working on the article, but it makes a compelling case.

HT @adriana872 and @mjj122

Microsoft has failed | SemiAccurate.

The problem is that if you are locked in with a choice of 100% Microsoft or 0% Microsoft, once someone goes, it isn’t a baby step, they are gone. Once you start using Google Docs and the related suites, you have no need for Office. That means you, or likely your company, saves several hundred dollars a head. No need for Office means no need for Exchange. No need for Exchange means no need for Windows Server. No need for Office means no need for Windows. Once the snowball starts rolling, it picks up speed a frightening pace. And that is where we are. The barriers to exit are now even more potent barriers to entry.

⊞

Comments

4 responses to “Microsoft has failed | SemiAccurate # compelling and plausible from my experience”

  1. Dave Walker

    Here’s hoping every single word of it is accurate.

    Reply
  2. Chris Samuel

    I don’t see the link between Office and Exchange?

    The Uni here is tied to Exchange, but we don’t use office at all (and in fact I just forward my email to my home server, but have to use it for calendaring).

    Reply
  3. Dave Levy (@DaveLevy)

    People can and have started to liberate themselves, companies will find it harder.

    You will/may both recall how whenever asked for help in moving companies from one legacy mailserver to another whenever presented with the costs it was exceedingly rare that people went forward. ( I wonder what happened to them; do you think it became a cause of company failure, although there’s still a fair bit of Lotus Notes out there.)

    The next obstacle is that Sharepoint is the world’s most popular document collaboration solution. Don’t know why, but its another reason to keep Windows in the corporate data centre.

    However, it was the consumer success of Office and Windows that led to it becoming the world’s desktop and so the growing adoption of alternatives on tablets and phones may see a new demand dynamic amongst the corporate workforce. I always argued that Sun’s failure to ‘sell’ its desktop was based on skills supply rather than technical features and cost. Companies couldn’t go to Office Angels and get Star Office skilled temps.

    Everyone agrees it’s consumerisation that drives IT, and Microsoft is, as you point out, losing that fight.

    Reply
  4. Michael Jennings

    People use Microsoft Outlook with Exchange. Outlook is sold as a component of Office. Hence the connection.

    And to be fair, a great deal of the business world is running (just barely) on Excel spreadsheets. Is this in decline? Sure, but it will take a while to go away. Microsoft’s decline is happening faster than I was expecting, however.

    Reply

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