Microsoft continues to want to rule the world

In business school, we were told to focus on the good or service you and your company were providing. If possible improve it when and where it was feasible to better meet your consumers or customer needs. Also, it was always a good idea to think strategically by looking at brand extension or business partners that would help complement your offering, and allow you to reach a larger base, and improve your bottom line.

On the other hand, Microsoft seems to be just greedy and forever extending their line of business into anything technical, seemingly without any regards as to how a solution fits into its portfolio. In eWeek, it is being reported that Microsoft is:

...readying an online marketplace, code-named Fremont, which is apparently in response to a similar feature that rival Google Inc. Introduced a few weeks ago.

Fremont is a free service in which people contribute listings, whether it's about a couch for sale or someone looking for a commuting partner.

The point here is that they are getting into this market, simply because Google is doing something similar. The philosophy out of Redmond is if another major technology company is doing something that could potentially bring a windfall of positive revenues for us, we need to get into the area as well.

It would seem to make good business sense for them to work on improving their existing solutions, justifying their 80%+ market share and give consumers a better product, rather than using their power to force their way into additional markets and solutions (and presumably more profit, which is not a bad thing). Everyone knows that the Microsoft solutions are sketchy at best, when first released and never really produce confidence. They don't take the necessary time developing and testing, and figure they will fix things in production. Not a solid business model for anyone else, but good enough for them.

Bottom line, if you are a giant you can do whatever you want even if it goes against common business practice. The major concern is how business schools will reflect this in their curriculum. Will they look at this model and exemplify it as the standard, or rather than the exception based upon the scale of the organization which can force itself into many disparite areas and continue to teach good practices about building brand and loyalty? Time will tell.

On December 14, it was reported in Top Tech News, that Microsoft would partner up with MTV to distribute music online and compete against iTunes. In another story from the London Financial Times, Microsoft is getting into the VOIP market.

Same story, different day.