Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research Officer in an interview with Spiegel explaining a major reason why Microsoft is behind in mobile computing
“During that time, Windows went through a difficult period where we had to shift a huge amount of our focus to security engineering. The criminal activity in cyberspace was growing dramatically ten years ago, and Microsoft was basically the only company that had enough volume for it to be a target. In part because of that, Windows Vista took a long time to be born.”
So many questions spawn out of that statement:
a) What about Microsoft’s massive PC ecosystem – did Intel, HP, Dell etc not contribute to Win security engineering?
b) Where is the proof that the large focus on security engineering has actually paid off in later Microsoft software?
c) “Only company” to be a target? What about banks, government agencies, Google’s clouds, Apple, Sony and countless others which have been targets of constant intrusion and other cyber attacks in the last decade?
d) Do Apple and Google deserve no credit for transforming the mobile landscape? Microsoft had a comfortable mobile OS market share just a few years ago, especially with Asian device makers like HTC. Microsoft’s partners like HP were some of the first with tablets almost a decade ago. Even with a shrunk mindshare could Microsoft not have relied on its partners?
e) Is Microsoft capable of only fighting one “war” at a time? So, while it was fighting cybercrime, it chose to not go after promising markets? Or did XBox and gaming deserve more of the shrunk mindshare?