Microsoft Swott

External Opportunities

There are many opportunities for growth for technology companies today, the mobile workforce is increasing rapidly in today's business environment and will continue grow in the future. This is one opportunity that Microsoft has foreseen and is ready for with a strong mobile workforce product line. As a result, has a large market share in the mobile worker environment by providing operating systems for personal digital assistants (PDA) at 45.5 percent (Gartner 2005). The company's smartphone operating system is also gaining on the industry leader, Symbian (Gartner 2005). Another opportunity for Microsoft is in the entertainment industry, Media Center computers are gaining in popularity. Again, Microsoft has foreseen this opportunity and in is a key player. Microsoft currently "offers music download service in 19 market versions in 17 countries, including 13 western European countries."() There is significant opportunity for Microsoft in the area computer security. Anti-spam, anti-spyware, and anti-virus are hot topics today for technologists and currently a plague to consumers. In this case, Microsoft did not have product to fill this gap, so they acquired other companies. The acquisitions are: Sybari (anti-spam), Giant Company (anti-spyware), and GeCAD (antivirus) (Gartner 2005). These acquisitions, with the exception of GeCAD, were industry leading vendors with good brand recognition and position Microsoft to take lead in yet another technology area.

External Threats

The technology industry offers almost limitless opportunities for companies like Microsoft; however, there are also threats. For example, alternatives to Microsoft products are improving and gaining brand recognition, such as Linux and Macintosh. Another threat has been the inability to manage security vulnerabilities in Microsoft software. Loss of revenue from decreasing public and private sector industry technology spending budgets due to the state of the economy is also a threat. Software piracy is yet another threat for loss of revenue. The company has put great effort into preventing piracy in future product lines. A final threat to Microsoft, as well as all other technology companies, is that technology changes daily. What is hot today may not be tomorrow. As the industry progresses technology lifecycles shorten. Microsoft must be able to adapt or the company