The Rise and Fall of the Microsoft Empire

CNN reports on the recent difficulty faced by Microsoft, a difficulty they've not experienced in their entire 23-year history.

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that declining PC sales hurt revenue, as the software giant reported quarterly sales that fell for the first time in its 23-year history as a public company.

The company has had a difficult time combating slumping demand for its Windows operating system, as the economic slowdown has dragged PC sales down 7% to 9%, according to Microsoft's estimates.

In January, Microsoft announced its first mass job cuts in its 34-year history in an effort to bolster its bottom line The company slashed 1,400 position during the quarter with another 3,600 expected to be cut by mid-2010. At that time, the company said it was also adding a few thousand positions, mainly in its online advertising division.

Do you raise a silent cheer at reading a story like this? Are you one of those iconoclastic types who roots for the downfall of the leader, especially one which has monopolized the market like Microsoft? Do you like companies like Google, Amazon and Yahoo, who although they aren't in direct competition with a software giant like Microsoft, represent the underdog, the come-from-behind, more tenacious competitor?

One area in which they do all compete is advertising. Even there, poor old Microsoft is taking a beating.

Microsoft has also continued to struggle to compete with rivals Google and Yahoo in the online advertising business. Microsoft's Online Services division, which includes the online portal MSN and its Internet advertising sales, lost $575 million in the quarter, and sales in the division were down 14% from the same quarter a year earlier. Microsoft said the loss in its ad sales division was due to the significant decline of average rates in display advertising.

What's your opinion? What operating systems and IT products have you used? I myself have used almost exclusively Microsoft products. It just went that way, not so much by design, but more by default. I guess that's what a monopoly is all about.

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The Amazing New Internet

The New York Times reported on the work being undertaken in Stanford University to create a new internet. The article traces the history of internet viruses, cyber attacks and spam, many of which we're all too familiar with. One of the best examples of the problem was Conficker.

That was driven home late last year, when a malicious software program thought to have been unleashed by a criminal gang in Eastern Europe suddenly appeared after easily sidestepping the world’s best cyberdefenses. Known as Conficker, it quickly infected more than 12 million computers, ravaging everything from the computer system at a surgical ward in England to the computer networks of the French military.

Some experts believe that the internet, as we know it, is doomed to ever-increasing problems of this nature and the only solution is to scrap the whole thing and start anew. To me that sounds a little drastic. Yet, the possibility of millions of "captured" computers working in unison for some nefarious purpose is indeed daunting. What do you think?

The problem seems to be in the explosive growth of the internet. What started out as an academic and military research network has become the depot of the entire world’s communications and commerce. The invention and expansion of the internet, for me, is one of the true wonders of the modern world.

The proposed solutions don't sound too attractive. Basically, they sound like larger versions of the private intranet systems many businesses and organizations now use. These can be controlled and made secure, at least compared to the free-for-all that is the internet at large.

But, isn't that what we like about the internet? Isn't it that very openness that makes it so exciting? One time I wrote a post about Teah Wimberley, the teen shooter in Florida. We had a lively discussion going on when all of a sudden a comment came in from Lucille, a fellow student at Dillard High personally acquainted with the girls involved in the shooting. That's the internet.

Another time I wrote about a former evangelical minister who now works as an itinerant evolution apologist. His mane is Michael Dowd and he himself commented on the post, thanking me for what I had to say. Now, that's the internet.

I realize there's a lot more to it than the insignificant little moments I've described above; they're just personal examples of my own experience as a simple user. The point is, more than sharing photos with family and friends, or communicating by lightning-fast e-mail instead of old fashioned letters, it's the possibility of reaching out to strangers that makes the internet so much fun.

What's your opinion? Is it doomed to self-destruct in some kind of implosion? Do you think there'll be a virus one of these days that will bring the whole thing down?

The article talks about the future internet being a sort-of gated community to which you'd have to be a member. Does that sound inviting to you?

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