Microsoft’s Bad Breaks Could Change Everything
February 16, 2009 by Jason Bean
Filed under Computers
Joe Wilcox had an interesting in his eWeek Microsoft Watch column a couple of days ago on Friday the 13th. He talked about a variety of "unlucky breaks" that Microsoft has had to deal with. If they hadn’t been given these business blow, how would there company and development and public perception be different today?
Joe listed his top 10 unluckiest moments, but even said he had a bit of a challenge narrowing it down to just 10 with some of the more recent history of Microsoft.
I’m not sure how I forgot about it, but his #10 item was their launch of Windows XP. Compared to Windows Vista, Windows XP is the most wonderful operating system to have ever been released by Microsoft. Do you remember that it was supposed to launch in New York City just weeks after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings?
What was supposed to have probably been a huge launch event ended up being just average in the grand scheme of things, and given the mood of most American’s during this time, many of us weren’t really excited about much, particularly not a new operating system.
A couple of the unlucky moments mentioned by Wilcox revolve around Google, perhaps the biggest of which was Steve Ballmer passing on the purchase of YouTube for a third of the cost that Google ended up grabbing it for just a few weeks later. My, my, my how would that have changed things?
Other unlucky moments stem from general economy issues, including the DOJ cases against Microsoft.
Go read Joe Wilcox’s article and let us know what you think about his list. I think one he missed has been all the challenges with the Microsoft XBOX Red-Ring-of-Death. Remember that?
