Everyone knows I am a big fan of Microsoft technology. For example recently at work I was asked to be able to speak about the business value of Blackberry, and I cannot even get that sentence out of my mouth! J

However, it continues to amaze me how complacent SO MANY people at Microsoft are. I am currently working on a deal where we have a chance to displace not 1, not 2, but 3 (that’s right, 3!) major competitors, and when I pinged some people at Microsoft to ask for help what did I get? “Check the website”. Nice. One MSFT employee actually told me to check http://arsenal/ which is a bloody Microsoft internal site! Brilliant.

Hey Microsoft employees, time to wake up! You’re getting your ASSES kicked all over the map in pretty much every product area, and for some reason the company continues to pour bad money into stupid products, ala the Zune. If it wasn’t for that damn Office cash cow, MSFT would be in serious trouble yet there is this overall attitude of complacency I just don’t get. For example take MSCRM. I work very closely with this product, and Salesforce.com now has 646,000 Subscribers!!! Holy crap! How many licenses does MSCRM have? I am not sure of the exact number today, but the latest slides I have say about 180,000. Here’s a bulletin…that’s a good old-fashioned ASS KICKING!

The Zune debacle is even worse. The iPod owns the portable music player market, much the same way Google owns search. As to whether Google owns search because it is better, or just because people like to say “Google” is up for some debate, I use http://www.live.com/ exclusively and I’ve never managed to not find something! So anyway let’s take on the iPod and release the Zune. BUT let’s not make the Zune BETTER than the iPod, and let’s certainly make sure e come up with some bizarre scheme for the online music store and use points as opposed to simple cents! Brilliant, what did that cost, about a billion dollars??

So what’s the point of this? Microsoft is BEHIND in pretty much every market segment excepting the Windows desktop and Office, and it’s time the employees started behaving as such. Many of the product groups need to adopt a “startup “mentality and when a Microsoft partner needs help, don’t just blow it off with a “look at the web site” reply…Get off your ass and let's kick some!