Last week I published two posts that had people wondering why I was so anti-Oracle. I’m not anti-Oracle. I am, however, against poor “research” that ends up in marketing materials. And I also believe that Oracle needs to shift their focus a bit in the near future otherwise it may find itself left behind by a growing market segment that looks for service providers (and I don’t see Oracle providing those same service for the same price as others currently).
So when I was reading this over the weekend (Microsoft’s Biggest Miss) it got me thinking about how others can view Microsoft in the same way that I viewed Oracle’s focus. The author here feels that Microsoft made a huge miss by not trying to shove Office onto every device. I don’t agree. I believe that Microsoft simply decided that their long-term future wasn’t going to be on client software and devices.
Instead they are betting on (1) entertainment and (2) cloud services.
Years ago Microsoft started pushing money into Xbox. They have done a great job getting into the entertainment markets. The Xbox is not just video games, you can stream movies with Netflix (while they are still alive, but that is a different blog post), you can watch sports through the ESPN widget, you can do so many things with your Xbox these days. Does Oracle have anything similar to this? Are they making a push into the gaming and media markets? If so, let me know, because I don’t see anything. And those markets are cash cows, forever. Even Nintendo is still alive after almost 40 years of switching to making toys in order to survive.
As for the author’s point about Office I would remind them that Office is being moved to Office365, which is a cloud based service. Microsoft doesn’t want you to stop using Office, they just want you to be able to use it in the cloud. So, if you were Microsoft a few years ago, would you have spent the money on building standalone apps for other companies devices or would you have rather spent the money on building the Office365 service first? Microsoft made it clear they were going “all-in” to the cloud, and every step they have been taking has been in that direction. Now, has Oracle been doing those same things? I only recently heard about Oracle looking to the cloud, almost three or four years after everyone else. I still don’t know what services they provide there, if you do please leave a comment as I would be interested in seeing the solutions they offer.
Did Microsoft miss by not putting Office on every device possible? You could argue that point, sure.
But I would say that Microsoft was aiming for a much bigger target.
