Microsoft's Case Study: A Gap between Mission and Capabilities

Microsoft has their dominance of the industry at stake. They could potentially come out on top if left to continue their current tactics. They are masterfully “marketing their products” and it is paying off for them (Love, 1997).

Over time, the gap has changed for the better. The gap has improved for many reasons but many of

They have expand their business from only on computer software and hardware to online search engine, home gaming devices and smartphone, those business are the popular business in the world, Microsoft is trying to adapt the new market.

“Microsoft aspires to be a great company, and our success depends on you. It depends on people who innovate and are committed to growing our business responsibly. People who dedicate themselves to really satisfying customers, helping partners, and improving the communities in which we do business. People who are accountable for achieving big, bold goals with unwavering integrity. People who are leaders, who appreciate that to be truly great, we must continually strive to do better ourselves and help others improve.”

Brand positioning is essential to the success of any firm because it delivers a perception into the consumer’s minds which differentiates them from their competitors. Microsoft began to grow their brand over 20 years ago with Bill Gate’s an underlying vision of “a computer on every desk and in every home”. This resulted in Microsoft developing into a huge multinational company with personal computing at the forefront of their business. Microsoft dominated this industry for many years which is reflected in the high brand recognition of Microsoft products worldwide.

Microsoft has grown into an enormous and powerful corporation by a combination of aggressive business practices and having written operating systems (DOS and Windows) for personal computers. From operating systems it branched out into other software which has, along with the operating system, become something of an industry standard.

census data. The gap has worsened in the last decade, and the United States now has a

The main empirical claim opposing sides disagree on is that Microsoft is deliberately trying to shut out its competitors in the software industry. While this issue might seem like a matter of opinion, there is hard evidence to back it up. The most striking example of Microsoft shutting out its competitors is with its Internet Explorer software. In 1997, Microsoft packaged an Internet Explorer Access Kit with Windows, thus shutting out Netscape, who did not create a similar service until nine months later. Unfortunately, purchasing the software from Netscape would cost $2000, whereas the service was free from Microsoft. To make matters even more interesting, Microsoft struck a deal with AOL where in exchange for using its Internet software, “Microsoft placed an AOL icon on its Windows desktop, leading more than a million new customers to sign up for AOL” (FAQ). Microsoft supporters assert that this service “increased general familiarity with the Internet and reduced the cost to the public of gaining access to it” (FAQ). However, critics suggest that Microsoft intentionally add the Internet Explorer feature to Windows in order to shut Netscape out the industry. Additionally, because Microsoft is so wealthy and powerful, it can be a hazard to the economy and consumers. If Microsoft ever crashed there would be complete economic chaos. Also, Microsoft controls the prices of their products and could decide to raise them at any time. Consumers would be forced

Microsoft was founded in 1975, and is the worldwide leader in software, services, and solutions (Career). Microsoft is proud to offer great products and employ outstanding people. Previous Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer once said, “There are many things that are true about Microsoft. We have big goals, big dreams, and big aspirations for the future. We are both competitive with our products and in the way we attract and retain talent. For me, the most important factor is competition for talent, because I know our success comes from the people who work here” (Foley).

in the most part, states that Microsoft is truly dismantling the competitive market. IBM and Apple created OS/2 and the Mac OS, respectively. Because of this “barrier of entry,” these top companies have not been able to “compete effectively with

One of the four corporate social responsibilities that Microsoft has to keep in balance with the others is maximizing profits for shareholders. Microsoft does this by constantly improving their products, which in turn raises the price of that stock; a rise in stock price is beneficial to stockholders. Microsoft improves their products often, they typically come out with a new version of Windows office every couple years, as is the same with Microsoft Windows operating system. Another way Microsoft keeps its shareholders happy is by continually paying out more and more money through dividends in November of every year. While Microsoft treats their shareholders very well in terms of dividend payments, their generosity doesn’t end there. Microsoft has a program where they buy back shares from their shareholders. Essentially, they are giving their shareholders cash for a piece of the company that has an outstanding balance. Just how much money has Microsoft paid out to their shareholders for these outstanding shares? A large $73 billion since 2010. This is a great way to keep the company’s shareholders happy, by ensuring the shareholders do not suffer a loss if the price of the stock plummets. When Microsoft is decreasing the number of shares, their shareholders are gaining from this once again; when Microsoft’s income increases, so does the pockets of the shareholders, because they will be getting even more profit. Personally, I think Microsoft is doing an

Microsoft had to split their operating system company from the rest of their organization. Another action Microsoft took was its relations with Java. They licensed a version of Java that worked mainly with windows where they tried to drive out the competitors and in later years they didn’t even allow Java to work with Windows XP (Rivkin 4). Microsoft tried to basically kill Java and with this the producers of Java sued Microsoft. Last, Microsoft took actions toward their competition in open-source software: Lunix. Microsoft responded by opening up into own server OS code like Lunix did. They actually sold stripped-down versions of the code to emerging economies and they also set up a lab that’s sole purpose was to find competitive weaknesses in the Lunix OS (Rivkin 5).

Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop

For Microsoft to be able to enjoy their current leading market position is all due to their wide range of products, services and hardware solutions offered to their customers. GlobalData (2014) states that the revenues generated by Microsoft are due to their expertise on developing, manufacturing, licensing and supporting software and services globally and Microsoft focus on developments to expend themselves such as developments of systems, server applications, information worker productivity applications, business solution applications, high-performance computing applications and software developments tools . In addition, with their constructive product portfolio, the wide variation of customer’s needs across

in order to create possibly the most effective and versatile workforce of any corporation in existence. To study Microsoft's way of doing business is to look at the company from many angles, from a managerial and organizational standpoint to its process of developing products and services for its customers and its competitive environment. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Microsoft from a strategic fit