Before you put pen to paper on a topic like this you have to challenge yourself before you make such a bold statement – so note the question mark.

Peter Drucker wisely noted, “Business has only two basic functions: marketing and innovation.” High tech is uniquely a product of both. Inbound marketing leads to innovation, or at very least appropriately channeling innovation. Since technology markets are in perpetual change, and since the Internet has accelerated change, the key goal of marketing becomes tracking change and anticipating where this will cause money to flow.

Innovation requires vision and leadership -Microsoft has lost both. Gates had the vision, Jobs has the Vision and the ability to execute. Ballmer is an operations guy and for 10 years even when Microsoft have been out of the spotlight they have slowley been committing suicide – innovation and importantly the ability to make it happen which requires the vision to carry through.

The wider issue is that under this style of ‘operational management’ you create a culture – your managers mymic the big boss as they think this is the way it needs to be done and actually you just end up hiring a load of operational folks who dress themselves up in the sales and marketing field – box shifting mentality. Sure there are some great folk in MSFT – I know them and they are worth their weight in gold, they get this service way of thinking and long term value pitch but when your management teams right up to the head honcho just don’t get what innovation and vision are all about then it’s not good when you have the likes of Apple, Google, Cisco, Netapp, EMC, Oracle seeking to destroy you.

The analysts and press are having a field day – they have been for some months. News is big business, so when there is the slightest smell of blood the lions are out hunting. I despise the 24 hour news culture, I genuinly believe they are the ones who have deepened the recession – which normal person would have known about it if the news service did not report on their doom and gloom. Anyway, its the same effect – Microsoft is bleeding, the typical competitor FUD has always been in the cycle which is life when you are in a leading position but the decisions Microsoft have made over the past decade which more recently have come to the surface really demonstrate a complete lack of strategy and leadership.

I just read the update release on Windows 7, which clueless individual devised an ‘Apple’ strategy for managing applications in the enterprise. Ok, so the ethos of getting your consumer users to become ‘addicted’ to your business model and your way of doing things, has been a great way of getting Apple into the business space – the IT folks have to support it, no choice.

To deploy applications, Microsoft has suggested that businesses place their precious apps on the phone’s public Marketplace but keep out nosy consumers by restricting downloads only to users with Windows Live IDs.

This makes me want to cry, it’s beyond believe – this is my single argument having run hi-tech software companies in the past – with all the smart people you have and yes you have many of the smartest, why can you not deliver what is a ‘simple app’ store specifically for businesses whether small or global corporate – it can be deployed as part of a hosted offering, within the network operator, the service provider and even white labelled through the channel. Give it to the big guys with 0000′s of users and let their IT folk manage the delivery of services to the business.

Importantly – keep it OPEN. Here is a thought – link your private app stores to your public app stores. Let businesses in the same industries share ‘app stores’ – let your networks build the value. You just need to give them the tools and the guard rails. Simple, would it work – probably. So, why can Microsoft not get it right.

Microsoft have turned into a “me 2″ company but with that one fatal flaw – they try to copy the persons game who is hurting them whether its Apple, VMWare, Google by synthesising their kill stratetgy. It won’t work and will never work reference my Siemens story – that’s what they want you to do and into the pitcher plant you go.

For a normal business this would spell gameover but for Microsoft who just hit $4.5 billion in windows7 revenue this quarter its a crazy waste of cash, resource that will eventually drain even the biggest oil tankers.

Over the past decade, Microsoft have been running after those guys who are now hurting them. They have also in their ‘defence’ started to hurt those guys that were supporting them.

Some guys in MSFT would have seen the opportunities but they just could not execute on them – why? this is a management issue, period. Even if they did get something to the market, it lost them cash and importantly ‘face’.

Microsoft should have ‘owned’ and been the leaders in every space -web, search, smartphones, ‘tablets / pads, music, virtulisation and clouds. They had the opportunity but they focused on preserving their monopoly – true innovators know that the market will change and use the headstart to do exactly that, stay ahead.

Microsoft have sat in an operational washing machine, which every now and again throws something out a bit wet and not very wearable. The failures have been catastophic but the cash machine just keeps paying out. Equally they have made some monumental screw ups – Vista.

The cloud piece annoys me, i have been in the hosting community for 15 years, my career has been based upon it. Why didn’t they get to this early – they were protecting their datacentre revenues, they did not want to open up, focusing on ‘operational management’ rather than innovational leadership. For sure, some guys would argue hard at this and I am always open to the discussion. A latter trait over the past 10 years and something they have been accused of is ‘stealing’ ideas which isn’t great – its ok to closely follow and acquire the smaller guys but not to try and copy like for like – you get it wrong.

Ballmer will step down if he really cares about the company – the guys got passion and that maybe and probably is the problem as often the right thing to do is totally the opposite of what we passionatly believe.

What ever the stock has fallen, they are off the top and people keep exposing the flaws in their business model. Microsoft need vision and leadership again.

Sign out, kids on holiday and I am going to spend some time with them - much more important.

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