Archimedes’ Lever

The truth is that the Zune is not the success Microsoft hoped for. Even now there are rumors that Microsoft will look to shut down the Zune as the company tries to cut costs.

Instead of trying to beat Apple using Apple’s trategy, Microsoft could beat Apply by conceding defeat. Instead of trying to build an eco system of proprietary adaptors and peripherals, Microsoft should make the Zune compatible with the ecosystem that Apple has already created. The Zune should be able to plug in and use every iPod enabled product already available.

Even if they have to pay a licensing fee to Apple, Microsoft needs to adopt the adapter standard. This will lower the cost of switching and consumers will be more willing to ‘try’ the Zune. Microsoft’s greatest strength is embracing the existing ecosystem. This is how Microsoft won the first round of the OS wars.

Microsoft’s strenth is compatibility, while Apple’s strength is usability. Microsoft should bat to their strengths instead of trying to emulate the competition. As I see it, this is the only way that they can win the music player wars.

Microsoft should stop developing Office for Mac and instead ship Office for Windows running on a Virtualized Windows environment on OSX.

Microsoft Office for mac is a paradox for Microsoft:

• Microsoft can’t risk losing the income from Office for Mac – It’s 10% of Office sales.
• Office for mac makes it easier for PC owners to switch to Mac.
• Microsoft makes money from office, regardless of whether the person is using OSX or Windows.
• Its cross platform support means 2X the cost of development
• Making sure it works consistently between OSX and Windows increases the cost substantially
• Features in Office Mac lag that of Office Windows.
• Feature adoption slows because of the lack of cross platform support – especially in enterprises.

So what should Microsoft do? Microsoft needs to get back into Virtualization.

At the same time that the Mac has risen in popularity, so has Virtualization technology. Virtualization allows you to run a different Operating System inside your primary Operating System. This way you can run Windows in OSX with very little performance loss. VMWare and Parallels are just two of many companies competing in this space. Unfortunately, Microsoft pulled its Virtual PC product for Mac several years ago.

Instead of developing a separate product called Office: Mac, Microsoft should develop one version of Office. The Mac version would simply be Office for Windows running in a virtualized environment of windows.

The benefits?

• single development cycle
• consistent user experience
• additional revenue from selling the virtualization environment as a standalone product
• Office for Mac would mysteriously runs a little slower than the Windows counterpart (because of the virtualization shim).
• The best side-effect? How do you speed up Office for mac – Use Windows.