Summary: Oslo gets folded, Vista 7 passed over by enterprises, Microsoft compared to General Motors, and Windows Home Server fails again

Microsoft's league of dead divisions and products keeps growing and Mary Jo Foley reveals another item which is on the verge of death. When Microsoft folds a product into another or sometimes reassigns it to another division (e.g. WinFS) it means that something went wrong and Microsoft tries to salvage something out of the existing code. We have examples of this in the list of dead products. Oslo seems to be heading in the same direction:

Tomas Restrepo: Cynical thought of the day: Oslo == Longhorn. OK, could’ve been worse (i.e. Cairo).

James Hart: Any expectations anybody had for what Oslo might turn out to be came from their own imagination. Disappointment was inevitable.

Ryan Rinaldi: The Oslo story just got more confusing.

Steve Bohlen: good lord; Oslo follows in the footsteps of WinFS; big (if nebulous) idea degenerates into dull implementation w dubious value

To make matters worse, Vista 7 does not turn out to be much of a cash cow because businesses, as expected, are not adopting the operating system.

Peter Whatnell, CIO for Sunoco Inc., said the petroleum retailer won't move to Windows 7 for at least two years.

It's like Vista all over again. As a reminder, just over one year ago large companies like General Motors (GM) said that they would not adopt Vista.

General Motors (GM) may take a detour around Vista, the latest computer operating system from Microsoft (MSFT).

Based on this new CNN writeup, Microsoft may become the General Motors of software (and it is not a good thing).

The more I learn about the current situation in software, the more Microsoft’s position seems to mirror General Motors’ position in the auto industry a few decades ago. Like Microsoft (MSFT) today, GM was an icon in its industry, held a quasi-monopoly, produced eye-popping profits and was often distracted by antitrust lawsuits. When a company experiences this kind of environment over a couple of decades, it eventually loses its competitiveness.

Will Microsoft be virtually nationalised in the face of hardships?

This question was actually raised before, with such comparisons between General Motors and Microsoft being made at the beginning of the year.

How about this classic from 2007?

GM vs Microsoft

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For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: “If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics...

Also in yesterday's news we find the latest major failure of Windows Home Server. There were many other such failures.

Many Windows Home Server customers have been unable to access Microsoft's Windows Live Custom Domains service since the weekend.

Tough times for Microsoft. ⬆