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Book Reviews Other Resources |
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If
there’s any one outsider who’s qualified to write about Microsoft and its
plans now that Bill Gates has reduced his role at the company, it’s Mary Jo
Foley. Mary Jo is the author of the popular ZDNet All About Microsoft blog, formerly led the team producing Microsoft Watch, and covered Microsoft
on behalf of other industry publications for years before hooking up with
Ziff-Davis’s online properties. A History with the Company Readers
of All About Microsoft and Microsoft Watch will be familiar with
the products, initiatives, and personalities mentioned in Microsoft 2.0. That said, Mary Jo does
a great job of distilling her information into a compact format that lays out
the puzzle pieces for what the future might hold. And she did it all without
direct participation from Microsoft. Why
would Microsoft not provide official access to the company’s decision makers?
For competitive intelligence reasons. Mary Jo has covered Microsoft for over 20
years and could use any access to executives or product team leaders to sniff
out clues that would confirm deep background or off-the-record information
gathered from her existing sources. Here’s Microsoft’s dilemma: if the
conversations offered any information not available to the general public,
Mary Jo could leverage it against her existing sources; if the Microsoft reps
merely repeated what was already known, they could be seen as stonewalling a
legitimate journalist. Given the choice of risking strategic surprise or
appearing defensive, Microsoft chose not to participate. Breaking News Nightmare The
only area where the coverage in Microsoft
2.0 isn’t reasonably up-to-date is with regard to Microsoft’s attempt to
purchase Internet search competitor Yahoo. CEO Steve Ballmer has championed
the acquisition as a necessary step in challenging industry leader Google for
revenue from search and online advertising, but most commentators are
skeptical that buying the company running a distant (and declining) second in
search will help the company running a distant (and declining) third catch up
to the leader. Both All About Microsoft and Microsoft Watch
have devoted considerable time to the Microsoft/Yahoo saga. The first draft
of the book arrived on the editor’s desk before the initial offer occurred,
so the relative lack of coverage here isn’t particularly troubling. Content-Rich and
Interesting In
Microsoft 2.0, Mary Jo analyzes how
Microsoft stacks up in the many industries in which the company has staked a
claim, spending a bit of time on the Windows and Office franchises that
fueled Microsoft’s growth and continue to provide tens of billions of dollars
per year to the bottom line. Unlike other commentators, some of whom also
publish under the ZDNet banner, the author doesn’t see Windows or Office
collapsing under the onslaught from open source software or Software as a
Service within the next five years. Even
though desktop software isn’t going away any time soon, Microsoft does
recognize that online services, which the company addresses through its
Software + Services initiative, will gain traction and erode customers’
reliance on shrink-wrapped software bundles. Mary Jo spends quite a bit of
time on Microsoft’s plans to provide products and services that anticipate
these changes, but she doesn’t ignore the work done by Microsoft Research.
Microsoft invests heavily in basic research to advance the state of the art
in programming language design, natural language processing, speech
recognition, and numerous other disciplines. Unlike applied research, which
is meant to produce marketable products and processes, basic research expands
the overall knowledge base without the need to earn back the money spent on a
particular effort. Companies that invest in basic research do so because they
believe that the long-term benefits of their work will offset the costs; the
lack of specific return on investment requirements frees researchers to
pursue promising paths without looking over their shoulders to see if the accountants
are smiling or frowning. Microsoft 2.0 contains plenty of information on
the company’s cloud computing endeavors, micro-kernel operating system
development, and Microsoft Surface products, among other topics. Mary Jo’s
comprehensive coverage makes her book a must-read for anyone interested in
Microsoft’s potential directions for the next five years. Curtis
Frye Curtis Frye (cfrye@techsoc.com)
is a Microsoft Office Excel MVP, freelance writer, and corporate entertainer.
For more information on his Excel books and free help files, visit www.thatexcelguy.com. If you’re
looking for a keynote speaker or entertainer to kick off a sales meeting or
provide after-dinner entertainment, visit www.curtisfrye.com. |
