In the last few years, Mac OS and Linux have gained popularity; Firefox (and Chrome) has eaten up Internet Explorer’s market share, and Windows Mobile has struggled against the new mobile operating systems iPhone and Android. To top it off, Apple recently launched iPad to leverage its existing lead in mobile apps, and Google is launching Chrome OS (a web-based operating system) based netbooks and tablets. Will Microsoft again survive the challenges and come back strong the way it did in the 90’s (when Netscape threatened to topple Microsoft’s dominance)? (more…)

Pundits are declaring mobile the new PC. The number of mobile phones far outstrips the number of desktops. Mobile phones are available to people in the developing world who never had an opportunity to buy or even use a PC. With phones becoming smarter, there will be even less need for people to own PCs. Microsoft has dominated the PC-based world ever since it drove Apple close to extinction in the mid ’90s. But with… (more…)

(This is part 4 of 6 of “Microsoft: Can Elephants Really Dance?” series. For earlier parts, please follow the links below the post)

It’s been a while since Microsoft’s heyday as the monopolistic king of technology.  Called “too big to innovate”, “inefficient”, and “crippled [by redundancy]”, the bearish outlook on Microsoft’s once glorious future seems pervasive.  But with the highly anticipated Project Natal arriving this year, a healthy 32.5 million Xbox 360 consoles sold, and a blossoming Xbox LIVE community of over 20 million users, Microsoft’s console gaming division has shown everyone that Microsoft can still come up with some cool new tricks. Let’s take a look at how the Xbox 360 is faring against its two fiercest competitors (*cue battle music*). (more…)

With Google Buzz, Google has launched yet another product to compete in the social networking arena. It’s just one week new, and already Buzz has a significant user base and poses a viable threat to several existing players.

Google, like Microsoft, keeps trying. In the social networking space, it has made several attempts to become more relevant: Orkut, though fairly popular in Brazil and India, never really took off in the US and became more irrelevant with rise of Facebook. (…more)

Since Apple announced its forthcoming iPad tablet device last week, there’s been quite a bit of banter about its shortcomings. The device has no camera, no phone, no Flash support, no way to project to a big screen (TV), and doesn’t allow multitasking, just to name a few of the issues.

But before you conclude Apple’s made a terrible mistake here, remember, this is exactly how Apple it’s launched several of its most successful devices…Continue Reading

Bing’s market share hovers around 10%, but according to most sources, is increasing, though at a slow pace, and mostly at expense of Yahoo!. Even Google is advertising its music service on Bing! It continues to pose a viable threat to Google’s dominance, and by looking at just Bing, it would be hard to argue that elephants can’t dance! Would Bing continue to gain market share or would it get relatively stable somewhere in low double digits? Read the full article »

Rumors surfaced this week that Apple is in the process of putting together a $30-a-month iTunes TV offering. This rumored iTunes TV is supposedly something altogether different from the currently available Apple TV.

Apple TV is a piece of hardware that makes it easy to watch… Continue Reading

I had quite a bit of backlash on my first part of the series, despite the fact that I gave a high score to Microsoft’s productivity suite. Wait until you read this part!

Mobile:

After Google declared at Mobilebeat conference that app stores are not the future – citing the power of HTML5 as the new platform for web apps, Microsoft also decided to join the HTML5 standard. Soon after, Microsoft announced a native version of Office 2010, the latest version of Microsoft’s ubiquitous productivity software on Nokia smart phones, a big diversion from its traditional approach of creating a lock in with its own operating system. Is Microsoft conceding defeat in mobile operating systems race? Read the full article »

In this series, I will evaluate health of various businesses within Microsoft. While it’s easy to bash the biggest software company on the planet, I will be as objective as possible and give Microsoft credit when it’s due.

Read the full article »

I rarely praise a product by Microsoft, but Bing forced me to do so. In fact, you will find a bunch of articles in praise of Bing today. Here, rather than discussing the features or UI of Bing, I would discuss a few core issues – namely vertical search and network effects, which will play an important role in the search engines war. Read the full article »