Gartner Says Vista Will Collapse. And That’s Why The Yahoo Deal Must Happen

The real question isn’t “What can Microsoft do to fix their Windows product?” but rather “Even If Windows and Office were perfect, would it be enough to keep Microsoft relevant in the medium term?” I think the answer to that latter question might be “nope.” And that, of course, is why they want Yahoo so badly. Online advertising revenue is their only real hope of long term survival.

Arrington is both right and wrong in many ways; yes, there is no reason for Microsoft to continue existing in its present form with any relevance to IT; and were I them I would also look for some sort of body-swap like ITT did with Hartford Group to get the hell out of the platform business, so leveraging Microsoft’s Big Wad O’ Money for other purposes.

But frankly, if I were MS, I would not be clamouring to get into the Advertising swimming pool. It’s full of sharks and may drain unexpectedly in the next few years anyhow.

Doing it with Yahoo!? Doubly so.

Also, an ex-MS friend of mine said last year that Vista was – at least according to internal plans – was always intended to be “the last Windows” – that from release onwards MS would move to a sort of rolling-release, that you just had “the latest Windows” and that was that.

This echoes what Gartner are saying, although Gartner are attributing to survival-of-the-fittest what apparently was/is MS corporate strategy.

Who knows? Me, I back my source. There /are/ smart people at MS who can see which way the wind is blowing.

I just don’t know how good they will be at steering MS away from being becalmed into irrelevance.