Microsoft recently celebrated its 30th anniversary making the software company one of the biggest software vendor and at the same time one of the oldest.  At the annual Microsoft meeting, Bill Gates said that he is most proud of their making 'big bets' on technologies like the graphical user interface or Web services and watching them grow into something people rely on every day. And the long-term research they're doing today on some of computer science's toughest challenges such as helping computers listen, speak, learn and understand  will lead to what he thinks will be the next wave of growth and innovation for the I.T. industry.

For his part, Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer said that Microsoft is more excited than ever about the opportunities ahead. "We have an amazing pipeline of new products we'll be releasing over the next 18 months. With our 30-year heritage of delivering low-cost, high-volume innovations, we're in a great position to provide people and organizations with the software and services they need to achieve their potential." added Balmer.

In the span of 30 years, Microsoft has been to the best and the worst situations a company could experience.  Microsoft has enjoyed software dominance for a long time with its popular operating system Windows and with its business suite Microsoft Office.  In 1997, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4.0 marking the beginning of the takeover of the browser market from rivals.  Microsoft also entered the gaming market, the mobile market, the multimedia entertainment market and a lot more and has enjoyed respectable success.

With all the gains, Microsoft also has its share of unpleasant experiences.  On May 18, 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states filed charges against Microsoft, stating that Microsoft illegally abused its monopoly power in its sales of Windows.  During the trial, Bill Gates stepped down as CEO and Steve Ballmer became the new CEO, with Gates remaining chairman and Chief Software Architect.

The biggest technology issue about Microsoft is Security.  Being the creator of the world's most popular applications, Microsoft products became the target of attacks from hackers.  The company came up with some solutions but has not worked so far.  Just recently,  Microsoft announced a new  security strategy combined with new products to help protect both home and corporate users.  The programs that the software company will introduce are Microsoft Client Protection and Microsoft Antigen.   Microsoft is aligning its strategy around three core pillars named as: 1. fundamentals; 2. threat and vulnerability mitigation; 3. identity and access control.  Microsoft has ensured that its application developers for the upcoming Windows Vista operating system has placed security at the top of their priorities list.   Internet Explorer 7 included with Vista will also includes new features that will protect users against malicious websites and malware.

Now, Microsoft is facing the most serious threat to its software dominance, and that is the challenge from Open Source.  At a Gartner Symposium in Florida, Steve Balmer was asked to comment about platform migrations - more people are moving from Unix to Linux than from Unix to Windows.  Balmer replied "We're not winning more than we're losing." Another way of saying that Windows is losing to Linux more than winning.  The answer of Balmer is a far cry from the Microsoft of before.  When was the last time you heard Microsoft conceding to competition?  The challenges posed by Linux to Windows will do Microsoft more good than bad.  The success of Linux will push Microsoft to develop better, more secure and more affordable products.  As much as Microsoft would want to prosper their business more, it should always remember that "user benefit and interest" should come first before anything else.  Otherwise, Microsoft will be out of business before they know it.

To thwart the gains of Linux, Microsoft recently unveiled three newly drafted template licenses (Permissive License, Community License, Reference License) for its so-called Shared Source Initiative, which is designed to give developers, customers and partners access to the source code for Windows and other software.  Viewing the code enables other companies to create closer integration with Microsoft products, such as Windows CE, or build new products based on that code. Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative Jason Matusow said that Microsoft has learned from the open source community and has made some code and some projects available, many via open source-like licenses and some via other means.

Also, Microsoft announced a rationalization of its original seven business groups to three core divisions: the Windows Client, MSN and Server and Tool groups were merged into the Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division; the Information Worker and Microsoft Business Solutions groups were merged into the Microsoft Business Division; and the Mobile and Embedded Devices and Home and Microsoft Entertainment groups were merged into the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division.  Three new groups with Presidents reporting to Steve Ballmer.  A clear sign that Microsoft is facing the challenge and the solution is to reinvent its central process of building software from the ground up.

So whether you love them or you hate them, Microsoft is here to stay.  Whether it's going to be the dominant software vendor after another 30 years will all depend on how fast they can adopt to the ever changing requirement of the I.T. world.  With old and new competition coupled with a totally different battleground, Microsoft will have its hands full.  Getting to where they are 30 years ago will definitely be a hard task but with the proper focus, it is achievable.

Happy 30th Anniversary to Microsoft Corporation.

Am logging off.  God Bless us all!!!

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