Microsofts 10 Unlucky Breaks
link: original article - section: microsoft
It's Friday the 13th, the unluckiest day of the year. How unlucky has been Microsoft over the past 34 years?
This is the first of two parts. We'll be back with "Microsoft's 10 Lucky Breaks" when Friday the 13th returns in March. Yes, your lucky day will come around that soon.]
Microsoft has had many lucky breaks over the years. The company's rise through the 1980s and 1990s is really a series of lucky breaks combined with business savvy and execution on the vision of one PC on every desk.
More recently, Microsoft hasn't been so lucky. Since the mid-1990s, the company has stumbled a few times and been unlucky even more often. Recent unluckiness is so great, I had a really hard time whittling down this list to just 10 items. I consulted the independent analysts at Directions on Microsoft for their advice; these guys have followed Microsoft since 1992, and some of the analysts are former employees.
The list is by no means comprehensive, and to some people may seem somewhat arbitrary. Well, yeah, there were just so many unlucky breaks to choose from. My list is unlucky breaks with monumental impact on the company—past, present and future. I encourage you to offer your own list of unlucky breaks in the comments or by e-mail.
Microsoft's unlucky breaks are in order of descending importance, with No. 1 being most significant and No. 10 the least.
