RealitySells

Peeling Back The Microsoft Curtain

The pressure to be Transparent has become too great for even the 800-Pound Gorilla of software. 

Microsoft has announced that it will now openly share some of its secrets regarding its popular operating systems and programs over the Internet to anyone who wants to see them.  The announcement came as Bill Gates is preparing to step down as Chairman, and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer looks to move the company into the future.

Smart move.  Ballmer and his people see what’s happening in the world, and the old model of a business monopoly just doesn’t hold water any more, especially in the globalized world of software. 

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software architect, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal acknowledging that it’s a different world out there.  *The world really has changed as a function of the growth of the Internet, and how developers are choosing to write applications for it.*

Google and others have been openly sharing their technologies online for free, and programmers have been building applications that work with these technologies easily, which means they need Microsoft products less and less.  What Microsoft hopes to do is to make their products easier to integrate for those who use Internet programs and services. 

The 30,000+ pages of documents that the outside world has never seen include the Microsoft Office suite of programs and the Windows Vista operating software.  Now that those documents are out of the vault, the real question is: will it be considered too little too late? 

The European Union, who has been in a dogfight with Microsoft over alleged antitrust violations, has taken a wait-and-see attitude.  Many programmers have long despised Microsoft and its heavy-handed way of controlling their products. 

In our book *Reality Sells*, we advocate being as Transparent as possible from the get-go, so that consumers can feel more confident in their choices.  Sharing information about your products and services may seem like you’re giving away the store, but if done properly, it can integrate you into the mainstream of where all the commerce is taking place.  And we believe a smaller portion of the mainstream is a much better business model than a 100% stake in the desert.