ON MICROSOFT RAY OZZIE'S "CHRISTMAS MESSAGE"

OUT OF THE BLUE

(UPDATE:  Om Malik has a good post on Apple in 2006)

ZDNet Richard MacManus's takeaway from Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie's "Christmas Message" post yesterday can be summarized as:

"Now that Microsoft has Web Tech royalty in-house in the form of Ray Ozzie, I'm expecting big competition for Google next year in the Web software arena."

That statement will continue to be true for years to come, not just the coming year.  And that competition will SLOWLY change the businesses and business models of both Microsoft and Google as well, over a period of years.

However, of all the GYMAAAE companies, the company that likely will see the most changes in it's business, and  MAYBE  SOME in it's business model next year, is the company that I felt was ignored by  both Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie in the now  infamous "leaked memos" earlier this year.  As I  described it  in a post at the time:

"Regardless of how it's done, the fact remains that APPLE is poised to employ a variety of strategies this time around that could result in increased market share on consumer desktops and laptops against the Windows world, for the first time in years.

And it should have potentially made it into one of the Microsoft Memos as a threat to watch."

We could start seeing some of these potential changes get underway next month, as Apple launches it's first computers based on Intel chips.  And that offers certain "game changing" opportunities to Apple vs. Microsoft for the first time in decades.  I riffed on some possible types of product strategies that could emerge in a post back in August. 

Given all the critical software and infrastructure battles afoot, most of the current media focus is on how a PC based operating and applications platform may give way to a network based operating and applications environment across many types of fixed and mobile devices, via wired and wireless connections.  That is true, and will take at least the next five years to come to fruition.

But these changes also present opportunities for a shift in the HARDWARE platforms consumers use as well.  The underlying approaches taken to how we compute today are being shaken to the core.

As Ray Ozzie says in his post yesterday:

"If 2005 was a year of “change” for me, 2006 will be a year to “build”

Ray, for all his accomplishments, is a SOFTWARE guy, and he's talking about the software infrastructure  "Builds" that excite him most.   But it's more than just about software.

It's not just about Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint files that a user maintains on a PC or across a corporate network.  It's about ANY INFORMATION in digital form that's RELEVANT to the user being accessible at any time, across a GLOBAL network. 

Apple showed this to be true coming at it from the MUSIC front, when you exquisitely design BOTH the software AND the hardware to work together from scratch. 

You take just what you need in a variety of form factors from a BIG AND GROWING POOL of it out on the Internet.  Whether you pick the relatively big Video iPod, or the diminutive iPod Nano is a matter of personal choice made possible by Apple's laser focus on the role HARDWARE can play in how this type of digital content is consumed. 

The same ideas apply to general personal computing as well, and we've BARELY BEGUN to break away from the relatively rigid HARDWARE computing framework that's defined that interaction for the past thirty years. 

Next year offers an opportunity to more clearly see this shift, assuming Apple continues to try and do for general computing what it's done for music to date.

So for Microsoft, it's not just about Google and Yahoo! anymore.

Comments

[Michael Eisenberg]

Good comments on Apple. It will be interesting to see what an Itunes like service might look like directly on mobile phones. Could it possibly include try-before-you-buy free sahring as well? I wrote a related post on Saturday looking at Apple from a "portal perspective." Posted on the internetstockblog at http://internetstockblog.com/article/5303

[David Abraham]

..not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I believe the iPod will become a full blown computer and the "dock" will be used to plug into what we know as "docking stations" today.

Once docked the iPod will have access to keyboard, mouse and display desktop with full blown OSX.

When undocked it's back to the familiar iTunes desktop.

[Marc Eisenman]

Operating a home based business, and frequently out of the office meeting with clients, I purchased a Mac Mini over the summer to act as a hub in my home. I attached a LaCie Disk Mini (232GB) to store my I-Tunes and home-related files and a LaCie Disk (190GB) to store work related files. Using a static IP and a Verizon Kyocera broadband card I am able to access all my files via my 17” PowerBook virtually anywhere. Over the holidays I purchased a Philips 42” Plasma TV (monitor) and attached the Mac Mini to it. Now, from the comfort of my favorite chair I am able to watch DVDs, listen to my I-Tunes collection, access the web using a wireless keyboard and mouse or watch cable. The Mac Mini is an amazing piece of equipment… best of all my wife thinks it’s cute and doesn’t object to a computer interfering with her sense of home décor (as long as I hide the wires and the LaCie disk). The most incredible thing however is that I was able to set everything up myself right out of the box without too much effort… not bad for someone in his 50s and someone who is hardly a geek.