Source: Market Watch
BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Investors in Microsoft Corp. must be beside themselves as the market climbs. The company seems to be dead money since 2000, and recent events aren’t rekindling any excitement.
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Microsoft /quotes/comstock/15*!msft/quotes/nls/msft (MSFT 25.91, +0.19, +0.74%) is hardly aggressive anymore, and you almost have to beg the company for products to review. (I asked for a copy of the latest Office almost six months ago, received nothing.)
I wonder whatever happened to the old Microsoft? I think the investors wonder too. Was Gates that important?
The latest fiasco appears in the Faster Forward blog in the Washington Post and in the Mary Jo Foley posts linked within that about Microsoft. Apparently the company cannot produce any sort of competitive tablet until 2012. Read “Reports: Windows tablets in 2012, demo by June?” in the Washington Post.
This is bordering on the ridiculous, since every Tom, Dick and Harry has rolled out a tablet already — and by 2012 the market will be saturated with the things. Apple Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!aapl/quotes/nls/aapl (AAPL 356.81, +1.45, +0.41%) is expected to roll out a third generation iPad by then.
Talk of this tablet comes on the heels of the slow-to-market Windows Phone 7 device, which was so late to the party it will never get traction, despite favorable reviews and genuine affection for the device.
I’m certain the Microsoft tablet will be outstanding too, but too late to have an impact.
The irony of this is that Microsoft was deeply involved in the first and second iteration of pad computing, and actually led an entire generation of the devices. The efforts failed, but were battling on the ground floor at least.Let us not forget that Microsoft actually invented the smartphone. Again, the company didn’t get it right, but was on the front lines fighting. Now it has has decided to take its place in the rear. How does that help?
Somewhere along the line, Redmond has gotten gun-shy.
The most telling example of this was the short-lived Kin phone, which Microsoft released then killed just about six weeks later, before it could even attempt to get traction.
The company looks like it has an ingrained fear of failure, resulting in an incredibly cautious approach to everything. You’d think this would result in a mistake-free corporate environment, but the opposite seems true.
Generally speaking, the high-tech sector is a lot like football. Playing not to lose results in a preoccupation with losing, and eventually losing.
Microsoft is in perpetual defense: When it has the ball, the company does not want to take any risks, so runs up the middle for no yardage.
So you have Vista, the Kin, the late-to-market Phone 7 and now the late-to-market tablet. I don’t want to even get into the various online strategies.
While Microsoft does have enough cash cows to milk for decades to come, it seriously has lost its edge, and many investors realize this.
The result: dead money.
