Ozzie’s parting message: The PC is dying
Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s retiring chief software architect, has warned his colleagues they need to prepare for a post-PC World. In a lengthy memo he argues that complexity no longer guarantees a long lifespan when it comes to the tech world.
The memo, “Dawn of a New Day”, is published on Ozzie’s own site. Whether it’s a sincere appeal for change, a score-settling attack at colleagues who didn’t share his views, or both depends on your degree of cynicism.
Ozzie praises Microsoft’s efforts to make products and services more relevant to today’s market, noting the new approach of Bing, the conversion of Windows to run on netbooks and the move of Office to an online edition.
But in a statement with a distinct appley taste, he notes that, “Certain of our competitors’ products and their rapid advancement & refinement of new usage scenarios have been quite noteworthy. Our early and clear vision notwithstanding, their execution has surpassed our own in mobile experiences, in the seamless fusion of hardware & software & services, and in social networking & myriad new forms of internet-centric social interaction.”
Noting the impeding 25th anniversary of Windows 1.0, Ozzie also argues that although Microsoft came pretty darn close to its once ludicrous-sounding goal of ” a PC on every desktop and in every home, running Microsoft software,” that model is becoming obsolete.
Instead, he claims, “We’re moving toward a world of 1) cloud-based continuous services that connect us all and do our bidding, and 2) appliance-like connected devices enabling us to interact with those cloud-based services.”
And what does this mean for Microsoft? In Ozzie’s opinion it means simply thinking of producing desktop operating systems won’t be enough. Instead the company needs to produce services and applications that are totally coherent across multiple devices, which will require a major change in the way Microsoft designs and plans its products.
Much of the media coverage of the memo has centered on the politics and whether something that could be taken as critical is really appropriate for a parting shot. But what really matters is whether the memo is correct — and while I don’t see the PC going anywhere soon, it has to be said there’s a lot of truth in what Ozzie says, however uncomfortable that might be for Microsoft management.
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