The weekend papers were busy trying out new ideas. Like – does Bill Gates' departure mean crisis, the final unravelling, or hmmmm, let's think.
In the UK the Sunday Times ran a full page opinion piece that bordered on a mystical incantation. It used to be called wish fulfilment, calling on God to sink the enemy's boat.
Microsoft it said is in crisis, despite nearly doubling its profits under Ballmer (two statements, one article).
That's after the Times ran the day before under the headline: "Gates move opens way to brighter future."
The New Tork Times Saturday was more even handed citing the changing relationship between Gates and his number 2 Steve Ballmer as the only source of a potential oil spill.
Both papers agreed that Microsoft had its work cut out in the age of converged media.
True enough but from where I sit MSFT is doing pretty good and is already opening up a new franchise.
It's called the living room.
Why the pessimism and the mark down on MSFT shares?The most obvious of facts is: Almost everybody has a living room.
When the European telcos later this year launch their IPTV services, Microsoft will be powering them in the network and in the set top box.
The little processor behind the next generation of TV will project the Microsoft icon onto the TV screen and families will gravitate back from the PC to the hearth and engage in sit forward TV with MSFT.
If this is a crisis then I want to start one now.
There are plenty of areas where Microsoft does not enjoy a monopoly but to be in control of the PC and productivity software and diving for the tape in networking computing, enterprise computing, game consoles, IPTV, video-on-demand….
technorati tags: Microsoft, Bill Gates
