• GigaOm, Monday, March 10, 2008 11:17 AM

Microsoft is fighting on three fronts: consumer, enterprise and developer. On the consumer front, blogger Alistair Croll says Microsoft is "struggling", facing intense competition from Apple's desktops and devices, Google's advertising prowess and Nintendo and Sony's video game consoles.

On the whole, the company's response to these threats has been disappointing: says Croll: "Windows Mobile isn't a consumer handset like the iPhone. Live hasn't really taken off. Vista flopped, with the company embroiled in claims that it overstated the number of machines on which it would run. And the Xbox, despite its success, has an alarmingly high recall rate." Meanwhile, adCenter, its advertising system, has failed to make a dent in Google's Web domination.

On the enterprise front, Microsoft faces competition from software makers like Oracle, Salesforce.com, and increasingly, Amazon and Google. Microsoft answer to these challenges has to be the "cloud". Creating the ability to move processes seamlessly between the Web, the desktop and mobile devices would be a crucial win for the company. On the developer front, Microsoft is finally opening its doors. The right move, but is it too late.

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