I was thinking back to the Microsoft in 1990's and its public image. Microsoft used to be constantly in court defending acquisitions, paying out damages for auto bundling Internet Explorer and generally playing unfair and crushing the opposition.

This was when clouds were just fluffy things floating in the sky, iPad was spelt eye pad and were pads you put on your eyes and Windows and Office were all conquering standard choice for business and Internet Explorer had 95 percent of the browser share.

It shows how ubiquitous Microsoft products were/are because Microsoft still dominates the market with its windows operating system, Microsoft Office and other products. It's only recently an array of competitors (Google Doc's, Apple, SalesForce) have really started to reduce Microsoft's market share.

Bill Gates was seen as a bully who crushed smaller competitors with its size and wealth,

Microsoft was pitted against Apple, Linux/Unix, but Microsoft's Windows operating system controlled the majority of the market and on those machines Microsoft had Office and Internet explorer installed. The alternatives to Microsoft were cast as David's to Microsoft's Golath. This article of the relationship between Gates and Job's gives a good idea of the feeling against Microsoft

For years, Microsoft had engineers secretly copying the Macintosh OS and working on its own version of a Graphical OS: Windows. Not long after the Internal Event in Hawaii, Steve Jobs learned the crushing news. Microsoft wanted to compete with Apple; Bill Gates deceived him.

For the next 15 years, Apple would engage in a strange relationship with Microsoft. On one end, Microsoft was prying market share away from Apple, on the other, it was one of its biggest partner

This next paragraph seems to nicely sum the kind of attitude (from what I remember) and feeling people had against Microsoft/Bill Gates

Along the way, Jobs often sparred with Microsoft, criticizing the company’s lack of creativity.

“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste,” Jobs said in the 1996 public television documentary “Triumph of the Nerds.” “They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”

Windows

Gates was CEO before being replaced by Steve Ballmer, who was CEO of Microsoft from January 2000 to February 2014, I read this on Wikipedia, 20 billion!!!

Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer (born March 24, 1956)[4] is an American businessman who was the CEO of Microsoft from January 2000 to February 2014.[4] As of 2014, his personal wealth is estimated at $20.7 billion, ranking number 32 on the Forbes 400.[2] It was announced on August 23, 2013, that he would step down as Microsoft's CEO within 12 months. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and was succeeded by Satya Nadella; Ballmer remains on the Board of Directors.[5][6]

The transition from Gates to Ballmer didn't seem to change people's opinion of Microsoft as a company who lacked innovation, e.g. Ballmer is a business man not a technology man.

New versions of Windows rolled out and seemed to improve on the previous version , Windows XP was awesome (still is pretty good compared to windows . It was popular for people to dislike Windows, it had a reputation for being big, boring, corporate and basically not much fun.

Time rolled forward and versions of windows came out every 2 or 3 years.

Windows Vista (awful)

Windows 7 (pretty good)

Windows 8 (Where's the start button? How do I do anything?)

Apple, iPhone, iPad

In Jan 9th 2007 Apple released the iPhone., which was laughed at by Ballmer for being too expense in the video below



The sexiness of the iPhone/iPad (released in 2009) seemed in direct contrast to Microsoft's image. Google really started to improve Android around 2009 which also ushered in an avalanche of new smart phones and tablets. Oh, I almost forgot blackberry! Back in the days when texting was really sexy and cool!

Microsoft's adventures with phones/tablets didn't really take off (in my opinion), they seemed slow off the mark and not competing on price or features and definitely not in numbers of units sold.

Since I originally wrote this article I have a Windows phone for work. It's pretty good, battery is great, it's a Nokia. The main problem with a windows phone, is it doesn't have all the free android apps and it has nothing super to make me want to change to it.

Cloud

This article gives a great history of cloud computing, it's written by sales force but has a nice graphic, it shows you how fast things have progressed.

Microsoft's image

Microsoft were once a plucky startup!

During the DOS days were innovating and helping push computers forward to make them easier to use and bringing them into work places and eventually into people's homes.

The introduction of Windows and Office products saw them quickly dominate the market, but with accusations of stealing Apple's ideas and crushing small companies like Netscape (was it a lighthouse logo! I remember)

Microsoft's strategy was often to aggressively not to promote or integrate with other products, It was Microsoft's way or the highway.

Microsoft developed Cloud products CRM, NAV going online, Azure, SharePoint online and lots of others I think around 2011.

The introduction of Apple iPhone/iPad and the Android devices has seen Microsoft been pushed out of the Phone/Tablet market with a very small share, eventually buying Nokia in a bid to catch up.

2014 and is Microsoft's image changing

After years of accumulating wealth Bill Gates is trying to give it away, it's no easy task when it's around 30 billion pounds. He is using his money to get rid of dangerous diseases and now everyone loves Bill Gates.

Ballmer is remembered for saying Developer, developers, developers, along with lots of other iconic videos (I personally love the video with him shouting YEESSSSS, I LOVE THIS COMPANY)



Satya Nadaya the new CEO of Microsoft.

Bill Gates does the Ice bucket challenge (see he is a good egg), I actually think Gates, Ballmer and Nadella did it.



Microsoft products like office work with iPads and Android devices

Steve Ballmer takes the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Microsoft partner with Salesforce to allow their products to work with Sales Force, you can read my quick post on it here

Satya Nadella Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS

Microsoft's Cloud offerings are looking almost as good as their on premise version, gaining more customers all the time

There seems to be a change in Microsoft's attitude, brilliantly summarized by the quote below from this article

This is another example of the strategy shift at the top. Jim Cramer noted that this was not the "winner-take-all, loser-take-none" approach of Steve Ballmer. Nadella is kinder, gentler and more cooperative. At the press conference, when asked about the Microsoft CRM competing directly with SFDC, Nadella said, "There will be some areas that we will compete in. But at the same time, I think as being anyone who has got a broad partnership and a platform approach, you will expect us to do exactly what our customers demand of us on those respects."


I recently wrote the article below

What is the Microsoft CEO actually saying?

Some comments were pro Microsoft, one person noted the Microsoft team were excited about the direction of the company, this comment

Greg Aalberts

Manager - Desktop Engineering at AEGON
As a non-MS employee, I've seen this speech and also talked w/ many friends at MS who were there. I can tell you it was very clear to them and very positive on its impact! It has re-energized many of them who have been burned out over the last years. I guess if we start looking at all of the bits, bytes and nibbles of a speech (or anything else for that matter), we lose the overall message. So while I appreciate the 'play by play', I think I'd rather have seen a journalist spend more time on the impact or effect of the overall; which in my limited experience has been extremely positive and even evolutionary for MS.

I recently read this article written by Andrew MacKenzie who recently attended the Microsoft world wide partner conference

The author is obviously pro Microsoft because he is selling Microsoft products/solutions but the point he makes about Microsoft's new attitude to collaboration/partnerships rings true.

What struck me most was the short turn around in attitude from just a few short years ago (during which time) Microsoft, to their detriment, viewed other platforms and competitors as well as their users, as evil. If they walked past you and you were holding an iPad their staff would chastise you in a playful… but meaningful way!

This year at WPC there was an air of grace shown with demonstrations actually conducted on stage on iPads, announcements about partnerships with Salesforce and a Salesforce app to be released on the Windows App Store, commentary about the number of Linux servers being run in the Microsoft Azure Cloud. The short-sightedness about what users actually wanted has been replace with an embrace with Microsoft saying, “Come all, come many, we have something for you!”

Microsoft's attitude to collaboration seems to have changed, rather than competing and working against competitors they have started collaborating

In recent articles written about Microsoft, particularly articles mentioning Satya seem to have a more optimistic note to them. This might be due to Satya Nadella being in the honeymoon period and possible some people wanting Microsoft to innovate to see what they can come up and create an alternative to Google and Apple.

Is the attitude towards Microsoft shifting? Perhaps people have responded to the collaborative strategies Microsoft have recently started using.

What software will Microsoft create in the future? What is the direction of Microsoft with Satya Nadella at the helm? It's an interesting question and some people might suggest Microsoft have drifted along for too long and now is the time to be bolder or (very) slowly lose market share.

Satya recent speech's to Microsoft employees mentions innovation and exciting connected product, but it will be difficult to turn these words into winning actions but Microsoft will gain a lot of fans by trying





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