Experts: The consumer brand of Microsoft died

Microsoft is late to participation in start of modern key technologies, such as mobile, search systems, media, games and tablets. It lagged behind even in the Internet, in the market which once managed an iron hand.

Leaving the company, once main software architect of Microsoft Ray Ozzie designated the lost positions of Microsoft in the blog. Despite early anticipation, competitors exceeded the company: in the mobile market, in merge hardware, the software and services, on social networks and a set of new forms of the Internet focused social interaction, he says.

It is unlikely that Microsoft did not expect the future changes, having nearly 90 thousand people and a great number of high-class specialists in the state. In the most different areas they lifted projects which were stopped later. Such experiments as Courier (the portable notebook of the tablet-PC format), HailStorm/Passport (digital identification) and Windows Media Center (content in "cloud") show - the company was ahead in many areas, but afterwards she or did not manage to bring these products to the market, or they are not finished.

What happened to Microsoft

The short list of the main consumer projects of the company shows the existing problems practically in each of them. For example, the popularity of the Internet Explorer browser decreased for many years. One of the last researches showed: for the first time, more than in ten years, more and more people use applications of other vendors. All main innovations of the last years: tabs and additional expansions (extensions, extras), left not at the initiative of Microsoft.

The Operating System (OS) for the mobile devices Windows Phone 7 is perspective, but Microsoft dug to itself a terrible hole, having begun with the Windows platform of Mobile. The Zune media platform died without having been born. Bing expands, but on - to a being everything that comes from this growth - at the expense of his business partner, Yahoo - not the main competitor of Google.

Microsoft tried to create social network using Windows Live, but its attempts did not gain strength. It did not become the reply of Facebook. Six months later, after release of Apple with its iPad, Microsoft it is still not presented at the market of portable devices. The technical director of the company of Lenovo told PC Mag recently that his company will build nothing around this platform: "The problem of Windows 7 is that it is based on a paradigm of 1985 - it is the interface optimized for a mouse and the keyboard".

Microsoft was successful an innovation with Xbox: the competitive brand of video games for inveterate gamers was created. But it was discarded by Nintendo with its Wii which overtook it, being attractive to ordinary fans to play.

However, the Universe of Microsoft has an epicenter - Microsoft Windows. The company likes to emphasize that its OS is the largest consumer brand which quickly is implemented. The sales volume of its new version was 240 million licenses, this year that does her to the sold OS in the history of Microsoft.

But not sellers - the driving force of Windows. Possibly, quick sales are created by business which significantly held the purchases of new licenses Windows OS as Vista was "a disorder among errors". Besides, there occurred recession. The overdue corporate turnover cycle of the PC occurs at all and now at once.

Meanwhile, executive bodies of Microsoft in confusion. The chief financial officer Chris Liddel, the head of division of entertainments Robbie Bach, the chief technical designer J Allard and the head of department of business Stephen Elop left the company last year. Ray Ozzie joined their company last week.

Question at consumers

To Microsoft there are a lot of questions, and it will have an opportunity to answer at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) conference which starts today, in Seattle. But PDC which was one of the most important and attended conferences of Microsoft will be rather small this year - several thousands of people, analysts say. The hottest news of PDC this year concern "cloud" calculations - vital and significant for the enterprises.

So, it is also Waterloo for Microsoft? Whether it will become one more IBM – extremely important for the enterprises, but not noticed by mass market? "Microsoft is in a point of a transient period and probably he occurs now", speaks Hilva (Al Hilwa), the analyst of IDCIs scarlet. As proved Apple, success in sale of consumer goods can give explosive growth. Apple it exceeded the market value of Microsoft at the beginning of this year, and in a step overtaking the company on sales for 2010.

If Microsoft concedes consumer market, it risks a basis of the business. The enterprises are almost ready to allow employees to use the personal devices for work, and the considerable share of these devices is made by Mac, iPad, iPhone and Android smartphones. For success of Microsoft it is necessary to unroll everything around itself, being the leader, but not slave, in consumer market.