Last Thanksgiving, Joe Wilcox compiled a list of 10 things for which Microsoft should be grateful. It's a year later and there are 10 more reasons for which Microsoft should give thanks.
The list is in reverse order, starting with No. 10.
10. Anti-piracy Efforts - Five years of piracy-fighting tactics, including the much customer maligned Windows Genuine Advantage, are paying off for Microsoft. They had better. Microsoft estimates that PC shipment growth is 20 percent in emerging markets compared to 8 percent for established markets. Greatest growth is in markets with typically high piracy rates.
The payoff is impressive. Revenue CAGR (compound annual growth rate) in Russia is 80 percent, with Microsoft revenue jumping in three years from $200 million to more than $1 billion. In what Microsoft calls BRIC—Brazil, Russia India and China—revenue is about $3 billion, up from about $900 million three years ago. While some of the gains can be attributed to sheer volume of PC shipments, increased sales of "genuine," or legally licensed, versions of Windows are up, too.
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9. Live Services - Microsoft's so-called next-generation Web services platform may be MIA, but Live 2.0 is here and ready to kick some Web 2.0 ass. But the strategy is much bigger and broader than Office Live or Windows Live. During last week's annual Microsoft shareholders meeting, Chairman Bill Gates affirmed that, "We want to have all of our software available in both a service form and a server form to give our customers flexibility." Live is just a first step; Microsoft wants to plow hosted versions of CRM, Exchange, SharePoint Server into the Web 2.0 platform.
8. Notebook Sales - Windows Vista didn't give Microsoft or its partners the expected PC sales lift. Instead, the sudden shift to laptops is pulling Vista sales. Microsoft executives should bow in thanks to their mobiles. If not for the changing market dynamic, the company would be boasting about a whole lot less than 88 million licenses shipped. Just a reminder: Vista licenses shipped is a whole lot different than licenses sold on new PCs or deployed by businesses.
7. Google-DoubleClick. The company that claims that "you can make money without doing evil" suddenly is scaring some people. Google's planned DoubleClick acquisition has raised lots of questions about a company some people are calling "the next Microsoft." People that remember the last Microsoft don't want to see another one. Google's potential control over online information is a legitimate worry that Google could be worse than the last Microsoft.
Increased Google scrutiny, especially from regulators and lawmakers, would be exceptionally good fortune for Microsoft. Already, Microsoft operates under restrictions placed by trustbusters on two continents. Microsoft knows its enemy, and that would be Google. But the competition isn't about search; it's about platforms.
6. Windows Vista Enterprise - Some Microsoft customers will yell in anger, but Microsoft executives will cry out in delight because of the new operating system SKU. The Business division has successfully moved more than 40 percent of Office revenue to volume-licensing contracts. By comparison, 80 percent of Windows licenses are sold on new PCs. So Microsoft set out to change things, by making the Windows Vista version for enterprises only available through Software Assurance. The tactic is working. During Microsoft's 2008 fiscal first quarter, Windows Software Assurance revenue surged 27 percent.
5. $1 Billion Plus - Microsoft's 2008 fiscal year started off with a big bang. For the first quarter, ended Sept. 30, Microsoft brought in more than $1 billion more than forecast. The results reinforce that the company's product and licensing strategy can bring in the dough. Some customers will legitimately gripe about increased software acquisition costs; they'll have to give thanks for something else. The results demonstrate Microsoft's market staying power, and they modestly lifted the share price from year 2000 levels.
4. Zune - Apple is too arrogant to look over its shoulder, which is why the maker of iPod and iTunes won't see Zune coming up from behind. Zune v2 is a surprising achievement. The software is refreshingly simple and elegant and the revamped Zune Marketplace is easier to navigate than iTunes. The approach to marketing and user interface design should be standards followed by Windows, at the least.
What Zune lacks in design compared to iPod Microsoft makes up with Zune Originals. I predict that the free Original engravings will make Zune a sought-after tech present this holiday season. There is plenty more Microsoft could do right with Zune. But the major wrongs belong to v1.
3. Office 2007 - When Microsoft last shipped together new versions of Office and Windows, the productivity suite benefited from the operating system's sales pull. More than a decade later, roles are reversed—and then some. While businesses aren't rushing out to deploy or consumers to buy Windows Vista, they are pounding the pavement to get Office 2007. Enterprise deployments and retail sales show strong uptake for the productivity suite. Shocker: Maybe eight SKUs was a savvy, even if risky, move after all. The new user interface is wooing converts, too.
2. Silverlight - The technology formerly known as Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere is a beacon for other Microsoft product development and marketing efforts. WPF/E was a nowhere going technology until, a year after launch, Microsoft relaunched with the new Silverlight name and developer campaign. The tactic worked. Silverlight gained way more press coverage with the new name, and Microsoft successfully reached out to developers, with information, tools, community sites and 4GB of storage for Silverlight content.
Silverlight also made Microsoft Web development tools seem interesting again. The reinvigoration is important, given how much development activity has shifted from Windows to the Web. Silverlight is probably Microsoft's biggest success story of the year, and it's a model for emulation by other product groups.
1. The aQuantive Acquisition - Microsoft's thrift culture makes big purchases a rare, Haley's Comet-like occurrence. For Microsoft, the $6 billion aQuantive acquisition is historic and telling about the importance placed on multimarket advertising. Microsoft isn't just thinking online with aQuantive, but digital advertising everywhere. Last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told shareholders: "The line between technology, media and advertising is blurring increasingly. Software is at the center of how new ads are created, purchased and delivered." He estimated the larger advertising opportunity to be $600 billion compared to $80 billion online by 2010.
Going forward, advertising and search will become one of Microsoft's three major organizations. Microsoft paid more for aQuantive than Google did for DoubleClick and the software giant will get more, too.
The aQuantive acquisition gives Microsoft tools that, coupled with its other platforms, are much broader than anything Google offers. Google's platform is the Web. Microsoft has the foundation—albeit there must be executionto bring digital advertising to many more places, like ATMs, gas stations, in-store kiosks, game consoles, TV and much more.
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