Microsoft in it to win?

Friday, March 16, 2007 by Dave Winer.

I see Scoble is up pretty late too.  

I had this thought when I read that Microsoft is "in it to win," even before I read Scoble's essay. 

I'm a fan of Deal or No Deal. I know it's a stupid show, and that's why I like it. 

I can't believe the misplaced arrogance of some of the contestants. Last night I saw a guy who had one big number left on the board decide to go for it. The box he opened of course was the big number. So he went from having an offer on the table of $40K to $1K in a single move. That's okay, I'm still going to win, he says. His family backs him up.  

Okay, what else is he supposed to say, you might ask? Well, good question. 

He should be saying "My it's nice to have made $40K for 25 minutes worth of work." 

In other words, when you boast of how smart you are, when smarts has nothing to do with winning or losing, you look pretty fcuking dumb. 

Microsoft isn't in it to win because Microsoft can't win, any more than the guy with just one big number on the board can. Sure there's a infinitesmal sliver of hope, but not enough to bet your future on. 

I don't know what I'd say if I were Microsoft now. I would try to divest in the system that produced Vista as much as I possibly could. When a big tree falls, it creates room for new growth. It takes a long time for a tree the size of Microsoft to fall on its own. And it's very hard for an exec at such a company to make big parts of it fall before they have to. 

That's why IBM was the last of the Big Iron companies to collapse after the advent of the fractional horsepower computer (aka the PC). They were the biggest, so they had the furthest to fall. Microsoft is in the unenviable position of being the IBM of our age.