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Newspaper writer: Microsoft will be dead in 10 years, too

Posted by Don Day on June 10, 2008

Remember Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s prediction that all news would be delivered over an IP network in the next ten years? One of Microsoft’s hometown newspapers is batting back – making the case that good ol’ Microsoft will join them in history’s recycling bin by 2018. The Seattle PI’s Bill Virgin seemed to start with that thesis and work backwards. Supporting arguments? He says MSFT’s bid for Yahoo proves its Internet incompetence, notes that the Wii is eating the XBox’s lunch, talks about Apple’s dominance in the MP3 world and even says Vista is disliked even in Redmond.

So Virgin rhetorically wonders if Microsoft should just shut its doors, give up and say “Hey, we had a great run, but it’s over, no one in business is guaranteed perpetual existence, can’t stand in the way of progress.” He then tries to make the case that Microsoft’s “woes” echo that of the print industry:

Is it absurd to write off Microsoft as a has-been in waiting? No more than it is to assert that print is in its twilight.

  • http://www.joelprice.com/blog Joel Price

    I side with Microsoft on this one. Print is in its twilight.

  • http://tvbythenumbers.com Bill G

    Print’s current business model definitely is in its twilight.

  • Aaron

    Wow. The P-I columnist totally missed the point of Ballmer’s prediction.

    Ballmer didn’t predict the end of newspapers per se — merely the end of printed papers.

    Looks like someone’s worried about being replaced by bloggers.

  • Anonymous

    Replaced by bloggers! The human race is going to commit suicide, no doubt. It was fun knowing you….

    Let the hangovers wear off and get back to work, kids.

  • http://www.scripters-literary-review.blogspot.com Jade

    It is sad (for those of us that sometimes still like to see things in print) that the print medium may dwindle. But, like Aaron said above, Ballmer was not predicting the end of newspapers altogether, but rather that papers would be converted into news sites, and the paper form phased out. Whether or not we like it, it does not seem as if his prediction should be shocking to anyone; it seems as if his projection is just the continuation of current trends.

  • Cory Bergman

    This is why columnists should not run newspapers.

    Not only did he miss the point, which underlines the vast cultural changes still required in newspaper newsrooms in order for them to survive in an IP-delivered environment, but he alienated 35,000 readers — Microsoft employees.

    Throw in former Microsoft employees, startups that have grown out of Microsoft, companies that depend on Microsoft for success, local business and political leaders and he’s alienated half the white-collar workers in Seattle.

    Very smooth.

  • Don Day

    And he’s just plain wrong. MS or some successor company will be here in 2018 — but the Seattle PI (of all papers) but does anyone think that Seattle will be a two paper town in a decade?

  • A. Reader

    I’m with . . . Microsoft? That can’t be right, can it? Hmm, I’ll roll with it.

    Microsoft has only been around for about three decades or so. Newspapers have been around for . . . ever. Microsoft and other similar tech-based companies know that evolution happens every day in the industry. Technology evolves and access to these technologies are are evolving. Who knows if computers will even be around ten years from now, especially in the form we’ve grown accustomed to them? Microsoft and other companies are looking beyond the computer and looking ahead to the new technologies, including an integration with television.

    Television as we know it is coming to an end in a few years (the digital transition is just phase three), and soon, the internet and television will intertwine as one new media. It’s so new, there isn’t a name for it yet. It isn’t the internet, and it’s sure as sugar isn’t television.

    Print media can’t evolve any more. It’s been around for centuries, and there’s nothing else they could do. Newspaper and magazine circulation has dwindled in the last decade thanks to the advent of the internet. Who wants to read about yesterday’s news today? What can print media do to change with the time? Print using new fonts and typefaces? That’s short-term changes, but in the end, it’ll be for naught.

    Newspapers and all print media are in its final days; its twilight is nigh.

  • http://johnpwise.blogspot.com John P. Wise

    Nothing is “as we know it” anymore, nor has it been for quite a while. Cable TV was supposed to knock newspapers out of business 30 years ago.

    And when I wrote for my college newspaper more than FIFTEEN years ago, the daily vets insisted to me then that the twilight was indeed nigh.

    Print continues to die, but the painful death is much slower than we think, methinks. It’s not happening as quickly as everyone expects.

    Has anyone seen my hula hoop?

  • Anonymous

    John, I think it’s next to my Hotpoint HI-VI TV.

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