
Releasing products to the market too late with too little “wow” in them. Incapable of innovation. Incapable of design. Producing products of questionable quality. These are just some of the common criticisms I hear about the software giant. But, curiously, I find myself, never more excited in Microsoft technology and it’s future. Why?
Whether you’re a technologist or an investor, here are a few observations to consider.
Observation #1. Which mega technology corporation has invested heavily in redesigning the developer experience? Google, Apple, IBM, etc.? It is no secret that technology is changing rapidly. Not only is the technology itself evolving, but also how we build it. The difference between a development environment today and one ten years ago is significant. Similarly, some languages enable encoding some experiences better than others. Microsoft has invested significantly in retooling and pioneering new languages. Who else has done so? Not just new and exciting languages like F# and significant revving of C#, Microsoft has also made significant investments in resurfacing the development experience around user interfaces and communications with updates such as WPF and WCF. These investments enable developers to strike quickly. The deeper impact of these innovations hasn’t begun to hit the market yet. And, competition has much inertia to become like Microsoft, which remains a business committed to it’s developers.
Observation #2. Which mega technology corporation has such a broad spectrum of platforms to pull together for truly integrated experiences? Forget “three screen experiences,” consider ubiquitous compute. You are on the network 100% of the time. Every theater you visit, every camping trip, every store, every bus, plane, and train. With mature mobile, search, web, cloud, gaming, and desktop compute experiences Microsoft developers have their hands full making for deeply integrated experiences. Much of the envelope of innovating experience requires deep integration amongst these platforms. Companies with an ability to integrate easily will accelerate down the pathway of innovation.
Observation #3. The cool factor isn’t as far away as you may think. Has anyone noticed an updated image in Microsoft’s brand and software experience? Windows 7 is a solid hitting OS. Gone are the days of slow Vista. Not to mention Microsoft is now even teasing the world with a renewed focus on design and experience. Take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/design/. Anyone notice a shift in where Microsoft is connecting with the market? No longer limited to business, Microsoft is starting to connect with the individual and family in new ways. Consider XBox Kinect and Windows Phone 7. Although Microsoft’s legacy reputation of never innovating is still in the air, the business seems primed to shed that old skin for an entirely new image.
Observation #4. The smart factor isn’t as far away either. I’m a class “A” nerd with more math books than novels and over fifteen years of professional programming experience. And, having worked with academics and researchers, I don’t have a lot of memories of being “wowed” by the “smart factor” in Microsoft technology. It has a history of being a mile-wide / inch deep type platforms. But, with the maturation of BI tools, awesome data platforms, scale out compute solutions, a comprehensive set of libraries and systems, and a renewed commitment to quantitative research, Microsoft is on my map. Check out, the Modeling the World initiative by Microsoft Technical Computing team. If you are more into statistics, Matlab, and related tools, you might want to give Sho a try.
If the 80’s were the decade of apple and mac, the 90’s the decade of Windows and Microsoft, the 00’s the decade of OSX and Apple’s return, I suspect the 10’s to be remembered as the decade of Microsoft’s return. The stage seems set for the pendulum’s return.