We here at OSAlert haven’t really been reporting on this, but if you’re following other tech websites, you will undoubtedly know that Microsoft has been axing a number of products and initiatives lately. It seems as if Microsoft is doing what many companies do in economically dire times: cut the cruft, and focus on your core aspects.
Over the past few months, Microsoft has axed a number of products that were either not working out for them as well as they’d hoped, or products that are considered legacy. For instance, Microsoft pulled the plug on its YouTube rival Soapbox, which turned out to be a waste of time. Also biting the dust are Microsoft Money Plus and Encarta, products that have been with Microsoft for over 15 years.
Another victim, announced today, is Razorfish, its digital marketing agency, which Microsoft has sold to the French advertising agency Publicis Groupe. Due to the deal with Yahoo!, Microsoft no longer has to manage the online advertising business, as this will be done by Yahoo! for both Microsoft and Yahoo!. Other victims include Popfly and PerformancePoint Server 2007.
“I think that highly strategically focused companies can use a downturn like this to reconsider what they’re doing, and decide what’s working and not working,” Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT Research, told eWEEK in an interview, “At the end of the day, Steve Ballmer and other executives have been looking at strategic groups and asking, ‘How well is this working?’ And if it’s not working well, ‘How long will it take to get this working right?’ And if the time frame doesn’t work, ‘Let’s cut it now’.”
The idea seems to be to get Microsoft to focus on its core businesses, meaning Windows and Office. Both Windows 7 and Office 2010 are right around the corner, and with the economic downturn, this is as good a time as ever to cut some of the underperforming cruft and focus on what you’re traditionally good at (financially speaking, that is).
Microsoft’s upcoming retail stores seem to fit well into this picture, with the stores clearly being geared towards five things: Windows, Office, XBox 360, Bing, and Zune. Microsoft is a big company, and a few setbacks won’t be too much trouble for them. The company doesn’t have a knack for coming up with the next best thing instantly. It’s more like throwing darts at a dartboard while drunk and blindfolded; if you keep it up long enough, you’re bound to hit 180 eventually.
I am sorry, I am pretty sure the Zune will be second fiddle to the Apple iPods/iPhones. Not advanced enough to make people switch, and too close in price too. I am not saying it is a Bad Product but it just doesn’t have what it takes to take on Apple. It seems like it is just a personal grudge against apple vs. a good business plan. At least with Yahoo/Bing they make money off of revenue. The XBox is big for gammers as Sony Overpriced them selfs in the PS3 and the Wii (while my favorite) is still under powered. Of course Windows and Office still has most everyone and in need of demand. But the Zune doesn’t really make much sense.
The Zune makes sense because if they didnt make it you’d be wondering why Apple’s competitors did not make a device to rival the iPod.
I personally enjoyed the Zune more than the iPod. And i enjoy my Sansa View more than all.
my .02
Go check out the recent articles on it at engadget.com and gizmodo.com.
The iPod will be the market dominator for the foreseeable future, but that doens’t mean that there’s not plenty of money to be made as 2nd or 3rd place.
The Zune has a killer app in the subscription service, which is a great deal now that you get to keep ten. But with the secrecy around which songs are actually available, there’s no telling whether it’s really worth the price until you have it. Then there’s the Zune HD, promising state of the art media playback, but it won’t mean much until a price is announced. Plus, I remember when the original Zune had tons of neat features speculated that all eventually ended up in the iPhone exclusively, like accelerator-controlled widescreen aspect and wireless music download. So, by the time Microsoft actually releases, Apple may be all set to embarrass them again.
So the killer app is a service that you pay for that give you a random selectiob of songs that you may or may not like and there’s no way to know this until you have paid? We have this saying in Sweden that roughly translated goes “Don’t buy the pig in the sack” and mean “check the wares before you pay” and if you don’t you’re pretty much a dumbass. Seems like it would fit for this service.
I had a fun time reading the word Yahoo in the news item because it had an exclamation mark after it. :p
I know it is supposed too. Still it was fun.
As the Zune is not sold outside the US (and maybe one or two other places) but not in Europe it was never going to have a chance to become an ‘iPod beater’.
I’m sure there are lots more things like ‘Plays for Sure’ that will come back and bite Microsoft in the future.
If anyone from Microsoft reads this and has any influence PLEASE, PLEASE kill off sharepoint & biztalk.
Ok, I’m dreaming but these two abominations give me more problems and any other their products by an order of magnitude.
Dear shareholder,
We at Microsoft care about the value of your investment. To that end, and due to the unique challenges presented by the current economic climate, we have decided to divest ourselves of our Raping effort in order to better focus upon our core competencies of Looting and Pillaging.
Sincerely,
Steve Ballmer, CEO
Microsoft Corporation
I was very saddened when I head they closed down the Flight Simulator franchise. That was far and above the competition, what little was there were years away. The industry has a whole has pretty much seen the death of simulator games, and Flight Sim X may be the last quality release we see in years. Sad.
This news also saddened me when it was announced… One of my main reasons for buying my first ever PC in the eighties was to run Microsoft Flight Simulator. It was amazing how much detail went into that simulator, and yet it all squeezed on to a single 3.5 inch disk.
I think our only hope now is Flight Gear, but when I last tried this it wasn’t nearly anywhere near to the quality of Microsoft Flight Simulator, but that could have had something to do with my integrated video card.
Well, lets hope some of the developers that worked on Microsoft Flight Simulator help out with Flight Gear – would love to see this turned into something as competitive as Flight Simulator.
RazorFish was sold because it overlapped with existing advertising business within Microsoft. MS didn’t even want RazorFish in the first place. It was just part of a bigger ad company, MS bought. That one continues to be part of MS. The ad business has not been spun off to Yahoo. Yahoo only manages “premium” customers now (whatever premium means compared to normal ad customers).
Soapbox was discontinued, because it overlapped with “normal” MSN Video — that service continues to operate.
I don’t know how closely everyone has been following this, but Office 2010 release could be critical to microsoft’s revival given that a large proportion of their revenue is from OS licensing and office, respectively.
They are basically offering a full fledged office suite that is web based with storage on public or private clouds or inside your enterprise/company network. This means that no matter what clients you are running, etc, the users can keep their office and Microsoft unlike google is allowing businesses to back up, protect, etc, their own data.
Microsoft has always been a crafty company. They will keep up the fight..
This downturn seems to be just what MS needed in order to toss out the crap and get down to business.
The Zune HD and Windows 7 show that MS is serious about putting out quality stuff that people want (well, we’ll have to wait and see about the Zune HD, but initial looks are promising)
Microsoft always seemed to be resting on their laurels to me, kinda’ like the American car companies were back in the 50s and 60s until they got their butts handed to them by the Japanese.
With their balance sheets in the red, and Apple stuffing money into the bank as fast as they could, I think that MS saw the need for a real re-focus. Good for them.
Does this mean there won’t be a Songsmith 2.0?