Ten years ago, Microsoft was the undisputed leader on the technology market. It only suffered from a ruling of a court. The judge ruled that Microsoft was enjoying a monopoly. This decision was made because the court accused Microsoft of crushing its competitors. Even Apple was not capable of competing with Microsoft.
Now, ten years later, Microsoft has many threats. First of all the old enemies, such as Apple, grew and became very successful. Apple is now making record profits with the iphone. Secondly, two students have blocked Microsoft in their successes. Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google which is now the most popular and successful organisation on the technology market.
Windows 7, the successor of Windows Vista must recover the damage Microsoft has taken. The problem is that Microsoft was unable to expand its dominance in technology to the internet, games or gadgets. They focussed on operating systems, software and hardware dough they missed the internet and gadget popularity.
Nowadays, the technology develops in a way nobody can follow. A gadget which is now very popular becomes old school within two years. It is very difficult for companies to always be up to date. They need to innovate and hope their new products will be successful. Microsoft was maybe too afraid to change a lot. Focussing on new products is always taking risks.
I think Microsoft still has a lot of clients. They lost their monopoly but they still remain a giant. And after all, competition is not bad, it keeps organisations focussed.
Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/24/microsoft-ageing-giant-windows-7
Abonneren op:
Reacties posten (Atom)
1 opmerking:
(By Hanne Snoeck)
This example showed us that a company can be the biggest player for a certain period but that it can change a lot in a short time. Especially in the technology sector, a company have to think proactive. It’s difficult to do that when you always was the only participant and you didn’t have many competitors like Microsoft. It is like Ben said, a gadget can be very popular now but within 2 years it is already ‘old-fashioned’. You have to be creative, innovative when you want to mean something in the technology market. Microsoft knew that they were the biggest and therefore were in a safe position, so they became ‘lazy’ and didn’t evolve much. By having more competitors now, they are more alert. Competition keeps organisations focussed, like Ben already said and I agree with that.
Een reactie posten