This had the long-term effect of creating an oligopolistic market and the short-term immediate effect of driving smaller, less-capitalized competitors out of the market. Microsoft also did this with their bundling strategies with Internet Explorer and was ordered by the EU to unbundle the browser from the operating system and allow for a greater level of free market dynamics, thereby making the demand curve for elastic (Gisser, Allen, 2001)
At this same time Microsoft also devised a pricing strategy that made it economically impossible for its OEM customers including Dell, Gateway, IBM and many others from installing or even supporting any other operating system. Most recently Microsoft was fined by the European Union (EU) for bundling its Internet browser, Internet Explorer, with the Windows XP and later Windows 7 operating systems (Meese, 1999)
Customers seek out alternatives, looking to drive down costs and increase the number of options they have for solving their problems. A monopoly can unleash a level of creativity and innovation that would otherwise not happen in a market without the artificial constraints monopolistic conditions provide (Stucke, 2012)
While Microsoft has long asserted it is one of the most efficient competitors there are in an oligopolistically-based market of enterprise and consumer software, in reality its strategies and tactics show a pattern of deliberate monopolistic behavior (Information Management, 2009). Microsoft initially used complex contracts that defied legal interpretation to limit their Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) from installing any other operating system besides MS-DOS and later Microsoft Windows (Werden, 2001)
The best means of assessing the impact of these forces is revealed by their applicability at the level of the four functions of management, namely planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The impacts of globalization Globalization impacts the managerial function at Microsoft at several levels, as follows: The planning function has to be expanded to also consider the international operations, such as international sales of the opening of new research and development laboratories outside the United States (Blau, 1997) Organizing the corporate resources in order to be able to respond to the needs of the international operations (such as staff requirements, budget and so on) Leading the people and the culture towards embracing globalization Controlling the operations linked to globalization and the internationalization of the Microsoft products and services
This has catapulted the company's internal systems, implementation plans and approaches to system compatibility far beyond competitors in the Cloud arena (Upson, 2011). Fully 57% of total Google revenues today are derived from products and services initially developed from the "Rule of 20%" including the Google AppEngine development, which is the basis of their Cloud computing initiatives (Anthes, 2010)
Analyzing the Competitive Landscape: Google vs. Microsoft Google has the advantage of having created a culture that thrives on innovation and prides itself on the "Rule of 20%" meaning engineers have the opportunity to spend a fifth of their time on new products (Chesbrough, 2011)
Fully 57% of total Google revenues today are derived from products and services initially developed from the "Rule of 20%" including the Google AppEngine development, which is the basis of their Cloud computing initiatives (Anthes, 2010). Google has also been pioneering the development of rapid development platforms and programming languages including Python, now one of the most popular development platforms globally for Web-based software development (Golden, 2009)
Google vs. Microsoft The Competitive Dynamics of Cloud Computing Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other technology leaders including UIBM are competing for a share of the rapidly growing and highly profitable Cloud computing market (Moore, Hebeler, 2009)
Microsoft Google has the advantage of having created a culture that thrives on innovation and prides itself on the "Rule of 20%" meaning engineers have the opportunity to spend a fifth of their time on new products (Chesbrough, 2011). This has catapulted the company's internal systems, implementation plans and approaches to system compatibility far beyond competitors in the Cloud arena (Upson, 2011)
Users typically run Microsoft Office products and a single specialized accounting package. Windows Vista upgrades for 5,000 Windows XP clients needs to be managed using a technique called "ghosting" where the master image of software is placed on a production server in a configuration center, and the 5,000 systems are upgraded online from that server (Hong, Dean, Yang, Tu, Xue, 2010)
The encryption system will protect all the company data from an unauthorized access because external intruders will not be able to read the data since they do not have access to the decrypted key. (Bruce, 2005)
Moreover, the company should use SmartCards to securely store personal information and enhance authentication. (Mike, 2008)
Using these strategies, the company should be able to protect its Window system from holes and vulnerabilities. (Popa, 2013)
Essentially, the firewall program will assist the company to control the network traffic thereby enhance security posture for the company proxy servers. (Scarfone, & Hoffman, 2009)
However, many attacks are focused on the Microsoft Windows due to their wide use by many organizations. (Smith, 2000)
3. Opportunities: Microsoft can expand its business operations in new potential target markets and introduce more innovative products in order to cater the changing expectations of its customers and target larger market segments (Cadle, Paul, & Yeates, 2010)
The major focus areas for Microsoft for its future competitiveness can be software, communication, and virtualization which can help it to achieve a distinctive position in its industry. It can further diversify its product lines to strengthen its market positioning in both high and low sales areas (Kurtz, MacKenzie, & Snow, 2010)
The major focus areas for Microsoft for its future competitiveness can be software, communication, and virtualization which can help it to achieve a distinctive position in its industry. It can further diversify its product lines to strengthen its market positioning in both high and low sales areas (Kurtz, MacKenzie, & Snow, 2010)
This effective and well-organized leadership pattern has greatly contributed in making the Microsoft successful in its industry. However, Microsoft should also adopt a divisional organizational structure parallel to the functional structure in order to improve its decision making hierarchy and get better results from all its individual business units around the Globe (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2012)