Microsoft and Web 2.0
Here's today's internet column for PA. This column is written for use in regional newspapers around the UK, so the text is aimed at ordinary people, not web geeks.
Things are changing at Microsoft. The software company that has dominated the world's computer software (and consequently, hardware) markets for two decades is feeling the faint breeze of competition from young upstart companies, and has decided to act.
Those upstarts are mostly new names that most people have not heard of. Tiny little web companies whose offerings are so appealing that people are flocking to use them, simply because they fill a gap and fit a need. The giants of this world, Microsoft chief among them, are playing catchup.
People are flocking to things like Gmail (now called Googlemail in the UK), Flickr (www.flickr.com) and Writeboard (www.writeboard.com), all of them free services that replicate on the web services we used to think were confined to the computer we were working at.
That model has been blown out of the water in the last year.
Thanks to the increased availability of wireless broadband connections (soon they will be ubiquitous), computers everywhere can be expected to be online most of the time.
And with this in mind, the people who produce software are starting to wonder whether they need to produce anything physical at all. Why make CDs, wrap them in cardboard boxes, and ship them all over the world, when you can make software that works just as well through a web browser?
The web is moving towards becoming a platform for services, not just a glorified electronic newspaper or shopping mall.
This platform idea is known as "Web 2.0" and it is the primary motivating factor behind huge companies like Microsoft having to rethink their whole attitude to software and the way it is designed and distributed.
Think how Microsoft makes its money. The vast majority of its income over the past 20 years has been from sales of boxed copies of Windows and Office. These products, sold by the million to corporations the world over, have been incredibly popular and incredibly profitable.
But in a broadband society infused with computers (our mobile phones are computers, our stereos are becoming computers, soon our TV sets will be computers), all of them able to connect to the network all the time, people are moving away from having "a computer" at which they do their work.
Now, people want to be able to use any device to access their stuff. They want to keep files online and put them to use from any computer they happen to be sitting in front of, be it a traditional PC or a huge high-definition TV set.
So the move has begun. Microsoft's senior executives, Bill Gates included, have issued a series of memos spelling out the threats as they see them, and the new direction they think Microsoft should take.
The new direction is internet services. The path will be a rocky one, because everyone and his dog (remember, on the internet no-one knows you're a dog) will be busy putting together their own internet services.
In taking this step, Microsoft is effectively putting itself back on the bottom rung of the ladder, alongside all the upstarts. It has the benefit of huge resources and a bottomless pit of money, of course; but some argue that the key to success in the world of Web 2.0 is good ideas that just work.
And you don't need resources or money to have one of those.
Labels: tech
