Microsoft's 10 Luckiest Moments
It's Friday the 13th, and, even today, some companies have all the luck. How lucky has Microsoft been over the years?
My list of Microsoft's 10 luckiest moments:
10. AOL's acquisition of Time Warner, which early on looked like bad luck for Microsoft. The merger later defanged a long-time rival—or competitor—as perceived by Microsoft executives.
9.The February 2003 acquisition of the virtual machine technology of Connectix. Four years later, Microsoft is well positioned for a booming enterprise virtualization market.
8. Outlook 97. The e-mail, calendaring and contact program created a sales pull between Office and Exchange Server. The combination is the centerpiece of Microsoft's desktop-server's successful push into the enterprise and is serves as the model Microsoft seeks to recreate with it newer desktop and server products.
7. Software Assurance. Microsoft's Licensing 6 riled customers in 2001 and 2002 but Software Assurance smoothed out Microsoft's balance sheet with billions and billions of dollars in recurring revenue.
6. The browser wars. Internet late-comer Microsoft bolted Internet Explorer onto Windows and forestalled the Web's inevitable negative impact. A decade later, Web 2.0 is bad luck.
5. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's closed-door discussions. Jackson's meetings with journalists during Microsoft's antitrust trial led an appeals court to remove him as the trial judge. Microsoft later avoided the breakup of the company and settled with the Justice Department.
4. Separate, early-1990s Lotus and WordPerfect decisions to delay Windows versions in favor of MS-DOS. The delays opened the way for Excel and Microsoft Word to eventually dominate their respective software categories.
3. Windows 95. The planets aligned and people waited in line to buy Microsoft's pseudo-32-bit operating system.
2. Compaq's "Luggable," which opened up the PC clone market, widespread licensing of MS-DOS and the supporting partner channels.
1. Microsoft's MS-DOS licensing deal with IBM for its personal computer. Maybe in a parallel universe, IBM favored CP/M.
July 13, 2007 2:24 PM
Microsoft's 10 Unluckiest Moments
It's Friday the 13th! How unlucky has been Microsoft over the years?
Here is my list of Microsoft's 10 unluckiest moments:
10. Release of Microsoft Bob. Need I say more?
9. Windows XP's New York launch about a month after September 11, 2001. Microsoft had to greatly mute festivities.
8. The November 2005 rebranding of MSN to Windows Live. Microsoft's Online Services group has since been in the red, while Google's search domination has only increased.
7. Microsoft's 1997 investment of $150 million in Apple. The deal, which also ended a lawsuit and committed Microsoft to five years of Mac Office development, helped fund what would eventually become a resurgent Apple.
6. The February 1999 court room gaffe where Microsoft appeared to have doctored a video demonstration presented during executive Jim Allchin's testimony. The mistake galvanized the courtroom and further steeled U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's negative opinions of Microsoft.
5. The May 2000 "I Love You" virus which, for a brief time, made Outlook one hated e-mail client. A rash of Outlook-spreading viruses followed.
4. The October 2001 release of iPod. The device would blow a hole in Microsoft's entertainment strategy and make Apple's Fairplay-AAC the dominant rights-protected music format over the Windows Media Audio DRM (Digital Rights Management).
3. Jackson's ruling, in 2000, that Microsoft violated U.S. antitrust law and his subsequent order to break up the company.
2. Windows Vista's most recent ship date slip. The March 2006 delay announcement meant that Microsoft would do the unthinkable and ship its new desktop operating system after the holiday sales rush.
1. Microsoft's paranoid corporate culture, which is an ongoing moment of bad luck. The company jinxes customers and partners every time it bases strategy on what competitors—or presumed competitors—might do.