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I was browsing around some blogs a few days ago and came upon a Microsoft memo by Ray Ozzie. The memo discusses Microsoft’s new online strategy for the coming years, specifically their service-oriented strategy (a.k.a Windows Live and the Microsoft Office web interfaces). It was a fairly interesting read, but I found one section especially funny.

RESPONSIBLE COMPETITION – We will compete energetically but also responsibly and with recognition of our high legal responsibilities. We will design and license Windows and our internet-based services as separate products, so customers can choose Windows with or without Microsoft’s services. We’ll design and license Windows and our services on terms that provide third parties with the same ability to benefit from the Windows platform that Microsoft’s services enjoy. Our services innovations will include tight integration with the Windows client via documented interfaces, so that competing services can plug into Windows in the same manner as Microsoft’s services. We will compete hard and responsibly in services on the basis of software innovation and price – and on that basis we will offer consumers and businesses the best value in the market.

There are a few things about this section that I find humorous:

1. Is this really something you should have to state as a “strategy”? Isn’t fair and responsible competition sort of the de-facto moral standard? In my opinion, honest business practices should just be a given, not a strategy.
2. This piece also seems to imply an admission of guilt on the part of Microsoft (or at least Mr. Ozzie) that they haven’t been competing responsibly in the past. Otherwise, why would he include this?

Just some observations on my part. I’m not a huge Microsoft supporter, especially when it comes to their online initiatives. In the past, they have consistently tried to take advantage of their large share of the OS and browser markets by deviating from public standards and forcing web developers to “choose” between developing for standards or developing for IE. The obvious choice based on market share, given that a developer doesn’t have time to support more than one browser, is the one with the largest market share. As a result, more people develop for IE, thus putting Microsoft in control of the most commonly used “standards” and rendering the other web standards groups obsolete. If they accomplish this, then they are free to do pretty much whatever they want. In my eyes, this has been their very divisive and devious strategy from square one.

Here’s a question Microsoft. If you’re really going to exhibit “responsible competition” this time around, why don’t you support the existing public standards (W3C) instead of trying to fragment and control the market for your own commercial purposes? If you really want to compete with open-source “on the basis of software innovation and price”, then you’re going to have to do things right instead of continuing to come up with proprietary garbage. Or maybe this whole memo is a lie and they will continue to compete on the basis of market monopolization and proprietary lock-in.

I really do hope they are reforming their ways. Only time will tell.