Recently, numerous posts have been found on the web heralding the end of Microsoft, in a world where cloud-based initiatives are gaining traction, and Microsoft is seen as not grokking the cloud. One of the more visible of these arguments came from Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com’s outspoken chairman and CEO, who was previously a top executive at Oracle. Benioff noted that Apple’s market share is not far from Microsoft’s, proclaimed that we are “entrenched in the world of Cloud 2,” and pointed specifically to “the end of Microsoft.” Neither the cloud nor Apple will erase Microsoft’s own entrenchment so quickly, though, and part of the reason why has to do with prevalent plumbing, infrastructure and application needs at enterprises.
In a recent post, Matt Asay noted the following:
“Microsoft, after all, has a history of making dramatic changes in direction, changes that have saved it more than once from software obscurity. This was hammered home to me over the past few days in conversations with executives from a broad spectrum of the technology industry: hardware, software, and media. Each has an interest in seeing Microsoft buried, yet each suggested that Microsoft is on the path to resurgence.”
