Foley on Microsoft

Microsoft's Internal Tug-of-War: The Open Platform vs. Closed Camps, Who Will Win Out?

Mary Jo Foley looks at Microsoft's back-and-forth decisions on whether its software and other offerings should be locked in to the Windows ecosphere or be available to everyone.

• By Mary Jo Foley
• 11/02/2010

There's a tug-of-war happening inside Microsoft. On one side, we have the 'Softies who believe that making Microsoft products and services available on as many platforms as possible is the way to win. On the other, we have those who believe that software and services are the company's greatest assets and should be treated as incentives for Microsoft-centric users.

I'm not sure which side -- if either -- will triumph. With a dollars-and-cents guy like Steve Ballmer at the helm, ideology will likely be less important than revenue stream. If making ZunePass subscriptions available to Android and iPhone users can be shown to be more lucrative for Microsoft than keeping ZunePass a Microsoft-users-only service, I'd bet multiplatform ZunePass will become priority No. 1.

This is hardly the first time that the "open versus closed" debate has raged at Microsoft. Ever since the mid-1990s -- when Bill Gates backed the idea that Microsoft should build around the Windows ecosystem first and around the Web "someday" -- warring factions have faced off inside the company.

Since Ray Ozzie stepped into Gates' chief software architect shoes in 2006, there have been a number of visible victories for the "open" team. Microsoft ended up supporting Safari and Firefox with its Office Web Apps. The company let developers use PHP, Eclipse and other non-Microsoft dev technologies with Windows Azure. And the Bing team has been developing versions of the Bing app for all kinds of smartphones.

Supposedly, the Office team is working on some kind of Office port and/or Office Web Apps offering for the iPad, but this project still has no officially announced plans or due dates. And Microsoft is actively entertaining the idea of making its Zune software client -- which would be a head-to-head competitor with iTunes -- available on the Mac, I hear.

However, all that said, this holiday season the "closed" camp is the one that looks stronger at Microsoft.

Company officials are touting the availability of Xbox games and services as possibly the biggest selling point for its Windows Phone 7 devices. Zune music and video content is being integrated with Windows Phone 7, and the Zune software client is one of the primary vehicles by which Microsoft will be updating those phones.

On the PC side of the house, the big Redmond holiday push will be focused around Windows Live and its set of services designed to flesh out Windows. Windows Live Essentials, the core set of these services, is a pure Windows-only play. Even though these services are, in part, Web services, they're not designed for use with anything but Windows PCs.

There's nothing wrong, or even unique, about Microsoft wanting to reward loyal customers who buy a lot of its products with a better, more seamlessly integrated experience. Apple does the same, as I've come to appreciate as the owner of an iPad who's found iTunes on Windows and a lack of Zune integration to be a less-than-optimal combination. If you're willing to go all-Microsoft, you get a superior experience. That's true on both the consumer and the enterprise fronts.

There is a difference, though. While there are still a number of businesses that could be considered "Microsoft shops," there seem to be almost no households that are free of iPads, PS3s, Droids and other non-Microsoft-centric goods. My point: Multiplatform support and integration of other platforms in homes isn't just an option -- it should be a requirement.

Which side do you see winning the tug-of-war? Will Microsoft go totally multiplatform or will the old-school crowd win out and keep Redmond's "crown jewels" for its loyal Microsoft-centric users?