Microsoft’s Real Problem: Facebook is the New Outlook, and Ot...

What has really thrown Microsoft off, is that other companies have shown those consumers both most willing to try new technologies and most willing to open their wallets for technology, the consumers of Generation-Y, that they do not need Microsoft. Companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google, have changed the way that young consumers consume, and therefore purchase, technology. And that is a very dangerous position for a software company to be in, especially one that is not known for being nimble on its feet. Facebook is perhaps the clearest example of this. While Mark Zuckerberg and others, brand Facebook a Social Utility, for young people, who really only care about functionality, Facebook succeeds because it is the killer web application for communications and personal information management. Facebook Mail is not without its problems, but the combination of Facebook Mail, Facebook Chat, and what is functionally an auto updating address book, makes Facebook into the new Outlook not only for those who are inside of Silicon Valley, but for anyone of the millions of people who use Facebook as either their sole or their primary digital identity. LinkedIn, is even more explicit than FaceBook is, in trying to become a person’s primary stop for vital, in this case professional, communications, as it is functionally a digital Rolodex. Another example of Microsoft’s inability to understand younger users, comes in what I can only call their software design philosophy, which I can summarize as “Throw in More Features”. Yet, that seems antithetical to those products which are selling most successfully in the market place, especially to young people. Microsoft Office is the clearest example of this. The myriad number of options buried in Word 2008’s ribbons, will rarely be used by most users. And in Excel 2008, some users might need pivot tables, but vast majority of those that use spreadsheets will never ever need to use them, nor will they ever write a macro,

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What has really thrown Microsoft off, is that other companies have shown those consumers both most willing to try new technologies and most willing to open their wallets for technology, the consumers of Generation-Y, that they do not need Microsoft. Companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google, have changed the way that young consumers consume, and therefore purchase, technology. And that is a very dangerous position for a software company to be in, especially one that is not known for being nimble on its feet. Facebook is perhaps the clearest example of this. While Mark Zuckerberg and others, brand Facebook a Social Utility, for young people, who really only care about functionality, Facebook succeeds because it is the killer web application for communications and personal information management. Facebook Mail is not without its problems, but the combination of Facebook Mail, Facebook Chat, and what is functionally an auto updating address book, makes Facebook into the new Outlook not only for those who are inside of Silicon Valley, but for anyone of the millions of people who use Facebook as either their sole or their primary digital identity. LinkedIn, is even more explicit than FaceBook is, in trying to become a person’s primary stop for vital, in this case professional, communications, as it is functionally a digital Rolodex. Another example of Microsoft’s inability to understand younger users, comes in what I can only call their software design philosophy, which I can summarize as “Throw in More Features”. Yet, that seems antithetical to those products which are selling most successfully in the market place, especially to young people. Microsoft Office is the clearest example of this. The myriad number of options buried in Word 2008’s ribbons, will rarely be used by most users. And in Excel 2008, some users might need pivot tables, but vast majority of those that use spreadsheets will never ever need to use them, nor will they ever write a macro, or script

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