Ecosystem
I just watched the internal sales motivation video for Vista, Service Pack 1.
They talk a lot about ecosystem, so I thought about it a little bit. Traditionally you buy a Windows PC, which has Windows on it, and then you buy Microsoft software like Office. And then third party software makers want to get in on the action, so they start writing code to talk to Microsoft PCs. And there's your ecosystem.
But today, a large part of the ecosystem is online. Microsoft isn't doing well there. And next up, the mobile space. Microsoft isn't doing very well there either. And of course, Windows market share has been falling steadily for at least 3 years now, perhaps more. They're still number one, by far, but it's no longer because of their overwhelming quality advantage.
Microsoft is becoming the company you resort to when you don't know any better, and the old ecosystem isn't good enough anymore. Microsoft needs to be relevant in new, high growth areas. Endlessly trumpeting your "ecosystem" while all the innovation is done by everyone else is not the way to turn things around.
