Microsoft! HUGE opportunity, click here...

My son's laptop started crapping out the very day before school started. This is his senior year, and his school's new "tech policy" has all the students leasing an iPad from the school. Except for the seniors. They can choose the BYOD (Bring your own device) route. Which can only work if, well, you have a device. We have his usually reliable machine coughing up a lung at the least convenient time. So with a questionable hard drive, the built-in diagnostics failing, I have to troubleshoot first. I know this because the operating system's tools can't see the hard drive, it has to be replaced. We visit a Tigerdirect.com store and purchase a 500Gb drive for $59 (Crazy, huh?) and install it. Now we are at a standstill. It is naked, nude, stripped bare bones with no operating system. Where will I get one of those from? Windows disks are aggressively protected and serialized, if that what I need I'm in trouble. Unless I have some fancy downloading footwark planned on unscrupulous websites, I am stuck.  I figured our best option was to return to the "mothership" and see what our options were. Prepared for shell shock, sticker shock, or version upgrade shock, this is my equivalent of taking a car to the dealership. Yes, you trust it will be done correctly with all of the proper authorized parts, but you also run the risk of paying the highest price for this repair. With school looming and knowing he won't be borrowing my device for the semester, we fold and agree to inquire about our options.

We went to the mall and I asked the blue t-shirt clad rep how I could get help. He says I could walk over to one of the machines, make an appointment and take matters in that direction. Easy, the machines are programmed to the store's website and appointment scheduler, I ring us in for a 3:45pm meeting, just 2 hours ahead. That will give us time to go home, get the machine and return at our leisure. We do just that, no receipt, proof of purchase or warranty papers. We didn't buy this machine from the store, my son bought it on craigslist from another guy. Not a worry, our appointment is honored, we explain the problem and within 15 minutes, the Apple Genius Bar rep has a network cable plugged into the machine. This links to Apple's servers, and it's loading the version of OS-X that this computer was shipped with. No questions, no hassle and NO CHARGE! This Macbook Pro my son has is from 2009 I believe. It does not get the very latest version of OS-X, Mountain Lion, but since we purchased that upgrade already, I can log into my iTunes account and re-download that upgrade for free. Immediately. If I didn't have the Mountain Lion update on my iTunes account, the cost for the operating system that all Mac computers are using, for business or personal, is $19.99. That's not a typo or errant decimal point, twenty dollars minus a penny. Within half an hour the downloading frezy has ended and my son's laptop is ready for another year of school, and hopefully a year of two of college, also. Total cost to repair the dead hard drive was $59 plus gas to the mall. Wow.

I'm not going to rail on Microsoft vs Apple or about the customer experience. Everyone knows you can't get Windows help in person, nor can you hopscotch an operating system from one dead hard drive to a new one in 30 minutes. Someone with more of an axe to grind with the folks in Redmond can complain about that. What I see is opportunity. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, is leaving. Time for a change. Maybe they're overdue for a change... either way we know this is happening. Guess what? This is the same position Apple was in during the mid 1990s. They were struggling, Microsoft was the top dog, and a new CEO was chosen. We know what happened when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, think retail stores, the iPod, iPhone and Apple's re-emergence as a tech powerhouse. Because largely in part, the new CEO had a fresh vision and he chased it.

Microsoft is now in that role. They are profitable, but in the Ballmer years, the stock price is down more than 35%. The old model of selling software for hundreds of dollars a box is dead. They certainly have the brainpower and the resources to make big waves. Microsoft need a new leader, but more than that, they need a new plan. Or a dream to chase. Bill Gates' dream of a PC in every home became reality. What's next? Who steers the ship? All to be determined. A board of directors, Bill Gates or whoever chips-in on the selection process, they will make the choice of a new CEO. This decision could send the giant software company in any direction, up or down. I think they'd be wise to get an outsider to lead Microsoft. Have this person spend six months inventorying what's possible, then move forward. This great company has the power to bring incredible advancements to us all - the proof is everywhere. Can they or will they depends on how they handle the opportunity they're staring at today.