Dear Steve,
There is a lot of talk going on these days about how people want "freedom". Much of this talk revolved around "freedom from monopolies", "freedom from proprietary software", "freedom from Microsoft", etc. Why is this? Not because Microsoft is big, not because they are almost ubiquitous in the IT industry, not because people want freedom per se, even.
The fact is that NOBODY wants freedom from good things. Nobody wants freedom from a genie that grants every wish. Nobody wants freedom from a fountain of money. People only want freedom from "bad" things. Microsoft has repeatedly proven that, in most venues, the company as a rule does not hold honesty or ethics anywhere near its list of priorities. Quite the opposite, actually. Rationalizing the actions/statements by saying "well, we're not as bad as Larry Ellison/Enron/*nix Zealots" doesn't make it okay. The fringes are not the people you have to worry about. Statements like your imaginary (and dishonest) cost of Windows per year allow intelligent users (and buyers, managers, c-levels, journalists, etc) lump you into the "liar" category. If you're in that category, "freedom from liars" now applies to you. When the staged crash upon removal of IE from Windows occurred during the Federal trial, the techs, managers, etc, who were involved in setting that up should have been fired viciously, publicly and with much fanfare. Perception rules reality and you don't have to be a good person who stands up for truth, you just need to make it look like it. If you did, everyone would win as long as you keep up the illusion. If you stop and go back to the old ways, people will want freedom from your company again, though, so make the decision and make it permanent.
Microsoft is getting ready to throw its proverbial hat into the Search Engine ring. MS Search vs. Google is a textbook example of what I am talking about historically as well as going forward. There are 2 kinds of people when it comes to search: those who use whatever search engine pops up on their screen and those who know what they are doing. You have a monopoly on the former, google has a tight grip on the latter. If you really want to change that, you will need to understand why it is that people want freedom from Microsoft but "freedom from Google" is rarely ever heard. Microsoft search results are not technically in the same ballpark as Google's, but that will change. Technically superior is not enough, though, or else you would not have to worry about ethics at all, would you?
Google has a rule it tries to follow and, in the eyes of most of the IT world, Google manages to be "good" most of the time. There are some times when they've slipped toward (or even through) gray areas, but for the most part, Google does no bad. Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to revel in avoiding that whole "good" thing when it comes to their search engine. Unlike Google, Microsoft returns "real" search results as secondary citizens, after the "featured sites". The results are labeled so that you can see that there is a difference, but the labels are a small light gray font on a white background and thus very easy to miss, which may be the point. Also lending to the confusion is the numbering of the results. These numbers are black, not gray and clearly label the first featured result as number "1" and the first "web directory site" (meaning the first "real" result") as number "3" or "6" or whatever position is it in. Even worse is when there are also "sponsored" sites. Although these are not numbered, they are listed between the featured sites and the "real" results, making the results we came for 3rd class citizens in the MSN Search Engine. The same search on Google would have the first real result at the top of the list, as it should be.
"But most people don't care" you may say. Well, that's beside the point, isn't it? The people that don't care already use your search engine, you're not trying to get those people, you already have them. "But Google has ads, too!" you may say. Of course they do. Google is not into charity work nearly as much as Bill Gates is, Bill probably gave away more money last year than Google brought in. Google still has to pay their bills and will very soon have to start answering to shareholders, too. The difference is that Google VERY clearly indicates what results are paid for and which are the "real" results. That is indicative of the MS vs. Google conversation: big bad Bill vs. good guy Google. Who's going to say "free me from the good guy!!" and run to MS any time soon? If MS continues to act they way they have in the past, not very many people at all.
So what, specifically, should you do in the immediate future? I'll answer in reference to each coming battle.
MS Search vs. Google: You have to be better than Google. Better both technically and ethically. Otherwise you will have just spent a few million on a search engine for people who already use your search engine. If you're not going to do it right, just save the money.
X-Box 2 vs. Playstation 3: There are a LOT of gamers working for MS, I think they know the answers to any questions regarding consoles. Use them. They're free! I find it hard to believe that MS did enough internal research before releasing a coffee table-sized console with no "must have" games. The X-Box was a martyr for the cause of X-Box 2, if X-Box 2 isn't treated better by your company, there will be no X-Box 3. One of Microsoft's strengths has always been the ability to cut bait when the fish aren't biting, X-Box 2 has to succeed if the line is going to do more than dissolve into a 3-party game development house for Playstation 3.
IE vs. Mozilla (et al): I am not afraid to admit that I love "embrace and extend". Unfortunately, Microsoft has more of a "glance at and extend" habit. If IE was more standards compliant than the competitors AND had the add-ons, bells and whistles, then there would be no complaints from web developers. Why? Because you would give them exactly what you had promised and they would have everything they needed to deliver exactly what they wanted, whether they wanted strict xhtml with no funk or if they wanted the craziest/coolest web app ever that used every powerful IE-only feature. Right now, people have ammunition to use against IE. Take that ammunition away (by being the BEST browser) and then give them flowers (the IE extensions to the standards). Nobody will want freedom from that because you give US the power to do what we want. This is a no-brainer. Your competitors are playing catch-up and you're letting them by being the hare asleep under the tree. You have to remember that, unlike in that old story, the finish line never stops moving in this race.
SQL Server Reporting Services vs. Crystal Reports: This is going to make a few new enemies because when developers flock to your product, people will throw around the word "monopoly" and invoke "freedom" and "unfair competitive practices" when the truth of the matter is that most developers who work with Crystal Reports do it because they have to, not because they want to. Seagate had plenty of time to produce a superior product, they didn't do it. Learn from their mistakes and don't let this happen to IE, Office, or Windows.
Windows vs. Linux/BSD/OSX: First off, you need to stay honest. Every time you lie about your product or your competitors' products, a few more people start looking for a way to stop using Windows. If your product is better, you don't need to lie. If you lie about your product, people will stop believing you even when you tell the truth. If your product isn't really better, then make it so.
Yukon vs. Oracle vs. MySQL/PostgreSQL/etc: MS SQL Server is being attacked from all sides in the database arena because this is where the money is. Companies with money to spend are companies with very important data. Oracle is big and expensive. MySQL is small and mostly free. MS SQL Server falls somewhere in the middle. By adding new powerful features to compete with Oracle but keeping price, ease-of-use, stability, and security as priorities, MS SQL Server can be the database of choice for the a wider range of companies than your competitors can. It also helps that Larry Ellison routinely makes your "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!" chant look completely sane and normal. I think Larry should be a role model. For what NOT to do. Unfortunately, many of the quotes you and Bill and others provide to the press sound as crazy as the things Larry says about Microsoft. "No worse than Larry" isn't good enough; be better.
Office vs. Star Office: This battle is all about freedom and price. MS is seen as shady, the competitor is open. You can't win on price but you can win on worth and perceived price. Sure, Office is a steal at $400, but when you see Word and PowerPoint alone costing a total of $460, the perception changes because Office is the standard purchase, not individual applications. $400 is now seen as the normal price and $230 for Word seems like a steal. But a steal FROM the customer, not FOR the customer. I don't think many people could honestly say with a straight face that Word 2003 and PowerPoint 2003 should cost the same price ($230). Can you do it? If not, where do these prices come from? Foreign governments aren't the only organizations that are starting to notice problems like this. How long before the $109 Outlook 2003 + OpenOffice starts looking a lot better than $400 of Office when 90% of the improvements will not even be noticed by 80% of your customers?
I guess I could run through every product Just in case you actually read this all or skipped to the last sentence to read the bottom line, here it is:
People want "freedom from Microsoft" because Microsoft is not "good". All you have to do is be good. Nobody wants "freedom from good".
Shannon J Hager