On Twitter, Jon Reed pointed me to a Microsoft commercial for Cloud. I checked it out, but low and behold: the above picture is what I got.
I’d like to draw attention to the fine print there:
To view this video, download the free Microsoft Silverlight plug-in (install Microsoft Silverlight)
I myself think it is extremely funny what is depicted there: the instruction to download (from the Cloud!) and install Microsoft Silverlight (on your local machine!) in order to be able to see how fantastically great Microsoft is for use with the Cloud…
The old world – it will always keep Microsoft pinned down to the last era. By the way, here’s the video ad
Watching the video, Microsoft tries to make a few business cases to draw customers to their superb Cloud products:
- Uploading photo’s to the Cloud? Wow, that’s so … 1990s
- Editing photo’s in the Cloud? Errr yes, sure, I can see how that would make no sense at all: video and graphics always have been making a firm business case against Cloud as the inherent file size for high-quality picture and video hogs any and all bandwidth out there
- Anything in the video that is even slightly making an impact? No, not at all
Cloud is the greatest threat to the innovation-free monopoly with which Microsoft luckily achieved world domination in the last 2 decades.
All their operating system has been doing, is incorporate the added functionalities offered by the market due to the lack of them in the previous Windows version. Every new functionality Windows brings, is just a bright and shiny version of what’s out there already, but this time neutralising the hardware upgrade you got with your newly purchased PC, so it’s now just as slow as your old one was.
All their Office suite has been doing, is moving functionality so you have to go look for it in order to use it, and take weeks or even months getting accustomed to it. The Office 2007 ribbon? The apogee of uselessness no one ever asked for, a flashy redesign and relocation of existing functionality, completely ruining each and every macro ever written in this world
What value has Microsoft added over the last 2 decades here? You tell me
Cloud (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) is killing Microsoft. Their Azure platform is an example of their reluctance to adopt or adopt: look at their slogans: they’re lost for words and don’t have a clue what good their product could possibly do when in the Cloud – and neither have I.
The Windows Azure platform is a flexible cloud–computing platform that lets you focus on solving business problems and addressing customer needs
That’s what I’d say, if I had nothing to say. Microsoft, you better wake up, even though it seems like it’s too late already.
(Cross-posted @ Business or Pleasure? – why not both)
Microsoft is in the buggywhip business – they just don’t know it yet.
I get Google App Engine and Amazon Web Services. They basically built their infrastructure for themselves and then said “we can re-sell the bits we’re not using, we can even make money from the infrastructure that runs our services that we make money from!”
But I don’t get Azure. Well, I get that Microsoft saw others going somewhere and had run to the front of the line and try to butt-in; and I get there’s always some butt-kissers who will buy anything Microsoft tells them to – and other’s that MS can always arm-twist.
But Google and Amazon (and others, those two are just the biggest fish) are eating their own dog food – they’re using their own platforms as well. Azure is just another product in the Microsoft line-up – it’s not critical to themselves, if the Azure platform goes down no one at Microsoft will know until a user tells them (well, I’m sure they’re monitoring it, but Steve Ballmer doesn’t log onto Azure every morning).
That’s funny – I was just ranting about the same thing. Anyhow, it’s worse than just a lack of understanding: If Microsoft adopts the cloud, it will make their desktop obsolete, but if they fail to adopt it, they’ll lose out to the innovators. I have some hope that this is the beginning of the end of Microsoft, but they always find a way to push what they’re selling.
Hi there,
Your main point is about the need to install something on your local hard drive before seeing a presentation / demo about the Cloud.
To me the Cloud does not have to be limited to Web-based applications and there is still a future for local apps (it even seems to me that downloading apps from Cloud Stores is very trendy these days, see Apple).
Google vision is: the device is just a host for a browser.
It used to be the vision of Sun few years ago (NC, the Network Computer). RIP.
IMHO, the future is in a balance of Cloud based resources accessed from powerful devices.
Just my 2 cents.
Thanks Mikey,
I have to agree with your comment there, I really wonder why MS doesn’t realise they’re indeed in the buggywhip industry – is it laziness from all these years of hammocking in the money?
Eric, thank you for bringing that up! That’s how Cloud came into existence, and no one really cared much about it in the first few years (let’s be honest). MS started from scratch here, cannibalising their main one product. It would have made sense if they’d just moved MS Office to a SaaS model as well, giving existing customers some discount
They’ll nev er make the culture change from standalone client to networked PC – just look how long it took them to get a decent wired / wireless connection – mine’s fine finally, now I have Windows 7
GMTA Anthony 😉 – I think it is the end already. Less than 3% share in the mobile market, Azure being a hopeless failure, but then again, who’s threatening their OS and Office suite? Server-side they’ve lost to Linux and are now at 40%, but client-side they’re still leading. Open Office, anything else?
I do think they think they’ve still got plenty of time, and just hop along with the trends to not odd themselves out
Thank you Erix, however true your comment may be, I always like to talk percentages: after all, it’s an age of AND, not OR. Funny indeed how Larry’s NC is now in each of our hands, and called a phone – isn’t it?
In the end, we’ll all form the Grid together: phones, PC’s, laptops, mediacenters, servers, heck even most household appliances will have some a fine amount of storage, CPU and processing power just a few years from now. Just like we make our own electricity these days and feed that back to the grid on surplus, IaaS will work that way as well
I’m now convinced that one of tech enthusiast favorite pastimes is to criticize Microsoft no matter what it does; any success will be downplayed and every failure ridiculously magnified. Put the Apple or Google brand onto almost any recent MS product and folks would be raving instead.
Anyhow, have your fun; keep yet again killing Microsoft as it has been for the past decade. In the end you know that you are just another secret admirer, throwing stones at the giant to see if it turns its mighty gaze to look at tiny you.