CFed

Blodget Blasts Ballmer: 'Face Reality'

While the criticism is justified due to poor execution, the issue MSFT faces is where to find growth, so their intent to enter these markets is really justified. Doubling down in the enterprise business, where the growth is in areas where MSFT is absent, or severely lagging just won't do it. They have an imperative to enter, and succeed, in meaningful growth markets. Unlike Sony, which finds itself in the right markets, but with poorly performing products, MSFT's key growth options involve 'eating their own babies' in huge markets that are showing themselves to be incredibly vulnerable arenas as technology is moving away from the desktop. In their core business, the choice is to embrace open source, commoditize the pricing of their apps, or (heaven forbid) liberating the OS to do well in a cloud world (see Tim O'Reilly's great piece on Google Wave bit.ly/16vpHM).