Watching Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates go via the paces during his last Microsoft CEO Summit keynote on May possibly 14, I couldn;t help but ponder again why Microsoft thinks it requirements to be both a organization and a consumer software program vendor.From Could thirteen to fifteen, Microsoft officials are hosting 115+ CEOs in the International one thousand. Subjects around the agenda contain, according to Microsoft,”decoding financial markets, establishing cultures of execution and exploring how the Internet will evolve over the next five years.After observing Gates; Webcast CEO Summit keynote presentation — where he extolled the virtues of SharePoint, unified communications, small business intelligence, scorecarding and other subjects of interest to enterprise customers — I can;t assist but wonder whether Microsoft might possibly have been and will be able to grow its company better by focusing around the arenas it knows best. (And the ones where it has the most customers.)The wall-size, vertical touch screen (a Microsoft Research-Office Labs joint venture known as “TouchWall”) — which Gates touted as the “whiteboard of the future” — looks a heck of a lot far more compelling than the Surface consumer-focused prototypes I;ve seen.Microsoft undertands ERP, CRM and desktop-productivity software far better than it does gaming consoles, digital media players and consumer-focused mobile-phone services. In fact, I;d throw search-based advertising into the “why is Microsoft here?” category, too. Ad-funding is just 1 means of offsetting the cost of online services. Microsoft is building a whole family of subscription-based services that it is hosting itself and won;t be cluttering with ads — Exchange online, SharePoint Online, CRM Online, SQL Server Data Services, BizTalk Services, etc.Tech innovation is coming first and fastest through the consumer, not the company, side of the market, according to Microsoft;s brass along with a handful of other tech vendors (most recently, Sun Microsystems, whose execs voiced last week at JavaOne the same sentiment). That;s Microsoft;s main justification for why it;s dabbling in areas where it doesn;t have the right people, technologies and marketing.But I can;t help but agree with “MattyDread,” who posted on the Silicon Alley Insider blog yesterday (in response to an item on Microsoft;s vs. Google;s monopoly power). MattyDread said:“Look at all these stats together, and seems like they (Microsoft) should get out of search and advertising and sell off (or scale back to maintenance mode) most of the customer online sites, focusing instead on hosted organization apps–they;re already doing it with Exchange and SharePoint, why not Office? If somebody;s going to cannibalize their ‘real; enterprise,
Windows 7 Download, it may as properly be them.”A poster on my site made a similar point. “SwitchStories” said: “I don;t get that? Why Microsoft do everything from operating system to game consoles? Why can;t they focus on two-three areas and be the best in them. Instead they are just average. Average in search marketing, average in operating systems. Just average. I don;t understand this policy.” IBM isn;t trying to get a customer software vendor. Nor is Oracle. Or SAP. Or Salesforce. What;s wrong with sticking with your strengths and expanding on that base?