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....