A Feb. 2008 survey conducted by ChangeWave Research showed that only 8 percent of corporate computer users with Windows Vista were “very satisfied” with the software. The year before, when Vista was released to the public, tech. magazine PC World named Vista “The Biggest Tech Disappointment of 2007,” with Microsoft Office 2007 claiming the no. 9 spot. Although various updates and patches provided relief for some, they only created more problems for others. Along with these software woes, lawsuits and headlines such as DailyTech’s “Retailers Estimate Xbox 360 Failure Rate High as 33 Percent,” it’s safe to say that the last few years have not been as nice to Microsoft as they could have been.

Or is it Microsoft not being nice to us? As our society’s dependence on computers has grown, so has our vicarious dependence on this multi-billion-dollar corporation, or so it seems. Microsoft has continued to release products that are met with overwhelming disapproval, yet they continue to sell in obscene amounts. Has the company gotten lazy and stopped trying to make good products because it knows the money will come streaming in regardless?

Maybe. But if this is the case, we the public have given it the right to stop caring by purchasing products we don’t believe in. So what’s its motivation to solve the problems if the cash flow is still strong? Sounds like the good old American dream to me.

From the look of things, that attitude isn’t going to cut it anymore for Microsoft. Competitors are finally emerging on every level of service that Microsoft has to offer, and the company that Bill Gates built will have to provide new releases that stop simply being protocol and start being innovative again.

Take Google, one of Microsoft’s biggest contenders, for example. Due to the success of the Google Chrome web browser in 2008, Google announced in July 2009 that it would be releasing the Google Chrome Operating System. In its official blog, Google stated that “Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.” Google has been expanding tremendously over the past few years, taking over everything from radio advertising to our very own university e-mail, CyMail.

In 2005, Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates told Ynetnews “We do not fear Google, but there is intense competition between us.” Since then, the competition has only grown, and many speculate that if Gates still isn’t scared, he should be.

The thing that everyone’s forgetting, however, is what Gates should be scared of. He shouldn’t be scared of Google: he should be scared of us. We, the consumers, decide what is successful and what isn’t by where we choose to put our money. So while Google may represent a threat to the empire of Microsoft, it’s only because it provides some healthy competition that consumers have been wanting for a long time.

There should be no worry from Gate’s end of things if Microsoft is doing its job. The company’s success isn’t happenstance, and it should be expected that their dominant status needs work to be maintained. So, if Microsoft is scared of Google, its really only scared that it might take some actual work to keep its customers.

With the Oct. 22 release date of Windows 7 rapidly approaching, perhaps Microsoft has changed its tune. The software’s beta version has been available to the public for some time, allowing home users to act as testers and give Microsoft feedback on the product. So far, Windows 7 has received quite favorable reviews from users and was called “a successor worthy of Windows XP” by tech. magazine MaximumPC.

Microsoft certainly won’t be going away any time soon, but that doesn’t mean it’s earned the right to slack off. Rather than basking in its success and merely keeping up with the times, it needs to be looking at its history and remembering what got it to where it is in the first place. If it doesn’t, more competitors will come along and beat it at its own game.

And it’s about time someone did.

– Thomas Hummer is a junior in English from Ames.