Prying Microsoft Open
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It sucks to be Bill Gates. He’ll have to dry his tears with all those
$1,000 bills.
The Microsoft desktop monopoly is under assault from many different fronts,
yet has remained impervious due mainly to a global addiction for Microsoft
Office. Even I, a big fan of Open Source and with a cache of Open Source
clients, uses Microsoft Office almost exclusively.
Market momentum is caused by two elements. First is the belief among
people that a product or technology is the best alternative, which leads to
initial adoption. The second phase of momentum is high switching costs
that prevent people from abandoning their current solution for something that
might otherwise be preferable.
Microsoft Office has maintained dominance in part due to the high switching
costs. These cost are not in software licenses (after all, you can install
Open Office for nothing). The switching costs are intellectual and content
based. Forcing humans who have grown accustomed to Microsoft Office menus,
short-cut keys, and behavioral quirks is damn difficult (though that can be
mandated if other factors are otherwise equal).
That leaves content as the last strand binding users to Microsoft Office.
A huge amount of organizational intelligence is held captive in Word documents
and Excel spreadsheets. Unleashing that, and assuring the data is
transportable into other office worker applications is an important milestone.
Which is why Microsoft is fitfully resisting the efforts of the
OpenDocument format. Should the market demand data
interchangeability via a neutral standard, Microsoft loses the inherent claim to
fostering productivity. Other office applications, add-ins, and
alternatives will rise to create new functionality faster than Microsoft can.
Every activity that pulls users away from a completely Microsoft desktop
experience will reduce their dependence on Microsoft, reduce switching costs,
and reduce Microsoft’s momentum.
The next reduction in Microsoft Office’s momentum came when the Open Source
community
developed a plug-in for Microsoft Office that allows those applications to read
and write OpenDocument formats. This allows current Microsoft Office
users to migrate data from proprietary Microsoft formats into OpenDocument.
If sufficient quantities of data are relocated, then switching costs for
deploying other applications suites drops, and Microsoft Office momentum is
halted.
This result is not inevitable, nor will it be quick. Microsoft has
already started counter initiatives with their
Open
XML proposal, that appears to be a non-starter, and some attempts to
influence OpenDocument itself.
The marketing lesson herein is that like life, the market always finds a way.
IT was content to suffer Microsoft Office licensing fees given a lack of
alternatives. But like a Darwinian nightmare, the bog couched up a genetic
mutant that competed for Microsoft’s food supply (customers).
Microsoft’s response must be Darwinian as well, adapting to the new ecosystem
order. Fighting OpenDocument will result in the limited food supply being
unevenly divided, and all species going hungry. Microsoft needs to adapt
and grow from this new mutant — to use it as food. In short, Microsoft
must embrace and extend OpenDocument. Microsoft is famous for this tactic,
and no doubt will repeat the process.
That having been said, there are no guarantees for even Microsoft. This
blog entry is a case in point. It was composed using a Microsoft Office
application . . . and will be spread to readers everywhere via a Linux server,
running an Apache web server suite, and processed by PHP.
Microsoft’s current mote is not deep enough.
