A lament on the passing of independent news – not quite dead, but certainly dying

Before I say anything else, let me just say that I really, really like Sophos; and I really, really like NakedSecurity; and I really, really like Graham Cluley. This is really, really just a comment on how the internet has upset the status quo rather than a criticism of any of the above.

But…

Purely coincidentally I was talking to a fellow freelancer who, like me, is old enough to remember the golden, halcyon days of freelancing back in the mists of the last century. The internet has destroyed all that, along with the majority of magazines I used to write for for whom I used to write.

“Today,” I said, “company blogs have replaced independent magazines. Just take NakedSecurity, which competes head on with the security magazines in terms of content.”

I stand by that. It’s a great blog and a great read written by experts in their subject. But the one thing it isn’t is ‘independent’.

Consider one of today’s news items: Microsoft and Symantec jointly took down the Bamital botnet (my news story is on Infosecurity Mag here). The problem is that Symantec, a direct competitor of Sophos, gets hardly a look-in on the Sophos blog – which is headlined: Bamital botnet dismantled, as Microsoft seizes control of malware servers.

In fact, you wouldn’t think that Symantec was involved in the actual takedown at all judging from the Sophos account – despite the fact that it published an excellent and detailed analysis of Bamital today.

Coincidence? Possibly; but I doubt it. The problem is that NakedSecurity is so good and so popular that it is often taken as news. It isn’t. It’s a marketing machine for Sophos – and readers should always bear in mind (not just for NakedSecurity, but for all of the company blogs that are replacing the magazines) that the one thing you cannot get from a company blog is independent news.

Microsoft: if it needs to be said, it’s said here first

Ahem… I refer my honourable friends to my earlier post last year.

In which, I said,

So Microsoft’s new strategy could be to own both hardware and software – starting with its own tablet but moving into phones (perhaps by buying Nokia?) and desktops (perhaps by buying Dell or Acer, or even building new from scratch?)…
Toward a new strategy for Microsoft

Yesterday, Reuters reported,

Microsoft Corp is in discussions to invest between $1 billion and $3 billion of mezzanine financing in a buyout of Dell Inc, CNBC cited unidentified sources as saying on Tuesday.
Microsoft in talks to invest up to $3 billion in Dell

Keep up, chaps.

Toward a new strategy for Microsoft

Back on 7 August I suggested that Microsoft’s plan for its own tablet was a big mistake (A Microsoft-made tablet? Big mistake). I may have been wrong – but only if it is part of a completely new and wider strategy.

Let’s look at the Big 4: Apple, Google, Microsoft and The User.

Microsoft’s strategy is built on the predominance and continued dominance of the PC. Without the PC there is only a small Microsoft – and the PC is in decline, and possibly a terminal decline. Microsoft’s strategy is in decline.

Apple’s strategy is built around owning everything, both hardware and software – and charging an obscene price for that monopoly. So far it has worked very successfully; but if you listen to the undercurrents from The User there is growing User dismay over both the price of that monopoly, and the frequency with which loyal subjects are asked to dump existing product and buy new product. Apple’s strategy is at the apex, and the only way is down (with a slight delay when it dumps OS/X in favour of desktop iOS).

Google’s strategy is to base everything in the cloud, and to own the cloud. This makes distribution very, very cheap, and upgrades cheap, seamless and invisible to the User. Google is proving very, very successful in this strategy.

But what about The User? The User’s strategy is to demand everything now, preferably free (but at least very cheap), anywhere and anytime. Microsoft provides none of this. Apple provides some, but not much, of this. Google provides it all.

So on current strategies, Microsoft is doomed, Apple will decline while Google will grow and thrive. (Incidentally, Amazon seems to have seen the writing, and I rather suspect that all three will have to watch out for Amazon in a few years time.)

But what if Microsoft has also finally come to its senses? What if the Microsoft tablet is not just a one-off foray into hardware, but part of a completely new strategy aimed at combining Apple’s hardware/software monopoly approach with Google’s cloud efficiency?

There are growing rumours that Microsoft is about to switch from, say, 3-yearly Windows releases to yearly releases. This makes no sense whatsoever under the current strategy. Expecting users to buy a new operating system every year won’t wash. Unless…

Let’s say that the MS plan is not new operating systems delivered in box or on disk, but new downloads delivered from the cloud just as its current patches are delivered every second Tuesday of the month. This model would require something like an annual license for the OS rather than a fixed price for the box. If that license were around £25 per year (preferably less), few users could say that use of Windows for just £2 per month is excessive. Let’s now take that to the logical conclusion: Windows and Office both migrate to the cloud and are both upgraded or patched on a continuous basis, as and when required, and paid for on a low-cost rolling license.

So Microsoft’s new strategy could be to own both hardware and software – starting with its own tablet but moving into phones (perhaps by buying Nokia?) and desktops (perhaps by buying Dell or Acer, or even building new from scratch?) – in mimicry of Apple; and then maintaining its software in and distributing from the cloud in mimicry of Google. Such a strategy would combine the best of all possible worlds; and while it is by no means certain that Microsoft could do it, if successful it could reverse the decline of Microsoft.