It’s true that Firefox is bundled with Dell in the UK. More to come…
Update: I see a lot of organizations covering this story and quoting me as the “official” source, but the only officials qualified to speak in that capacity are spokesmen from each company.
My last post seems to have touched a nerve among readers who think I’m jumping on the “Windows is dead!” bandwagon, even though I’m the first to roll his eyes when some naive writer spins that tale. I’m a Windows user. There’s a wide gulf between the death of a product and the decline of a brand, and my post was about the latter. Thanks to those who e-mailed me pointing out that “Windows is used by over 90% of the population, fool!” but I’m well aware of that. My post questions how many of those people know or care that they’re using “Windows” versus Generic Operating System. If they aren’t aware, then the brand is weakening.
Now, you could argue that the brand strength of “Windows” is irrelevant because it’s still going to ship on computers, but Microsoft is betting on the strength of that name for its products, and the post is questioning the efficacy of that. Not to mention that it’s difficult to convince people to upgrade their operating system when they’re not sure what an operating system is used for or which one they’re using. Google was just one example of a current brand that I believe to be surpassing the Windows brand, and in hindsight the post would have benefitted from a less incendiary example.
On the issue of Windows-only toolkits, I received different and more enlightening responses. To wit: “Windows is used by over 90% of the population, fool!” Yes, yes, I know that. The point there was that even the client development model—where Microsoft holds the home court advantage—has turned inside out in favor of the Web, to the point that it now makes better technical and business sense to embed a browser and code to the Web (which encompasses Windows and all other platforms) than to use a Windows client API. The sooner Google boards that train, the sooner Mac and Linux users can stop waiting for Google Talk and others.
Perhaps the post was poorly written or flat-out wrong, but the demeanor of the responses I’ve read suggests that many people just skimmed it with two biases—”open-source developer: must hate Microsoft” and “young: must be naive”—and fired back a stock post. That’s too bad. I’d be happy to engage someone on the merits.
The best way to determine the flavor of the month at Microsoft is to look at the names of its products.
When Microsoft’s chat program was first released, it was called “MSN Messenger,” reflecting Microsoft’s increased strategic focus on the MSN brand. I remember the day it magically morphed into “Windows Messenger” and suddenly became another integral part of Windows. Now we’ve got Windows Live Messenger, even though the latest version is not endemic to the Windows Live vision.
This kind of marketing strategy worked well when Windows was the most prominent brand on a user’s computer. Applications that carried the “Windows” moniker—Windows Media Player, Windows Movie Maker, etc.—felt comfortable and close, and those that didn’t seemed foreign. The only problem is that now Windows itself has become an island off the coast of the Web.
As a user, how many times a day do I see “Windows” versus “Google”? My generation doesn’t know or care about “Windows,” and why should they? For all the talk about Google trying to “get onto the desktop,” you rarely hear about the incredible brand strengthening that takes place every time a user types “www.google.com”. Users go to Google and know it; Windows is a foam peanut that comes in the computer box. More than Google trying to get onto the desktop, Microsoft is trying to get onto the Web.
And as a developer, I cringe now whenever I’m faced with a Windows-only toolkit. It’s not a Microsoft bias; Windows-only APIs just “feel” sequestered and disconnected from the rest of the industry. Even when I need to do client development, I’d much rather embed a browser and program in standard Web languages. The threat of Microsoft-proprietary extensions to IE7 and other platforms no longer seems grave. The game has outgrown Microsoft and reduced it to a mere player.
