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Alistar Croll over at GigaOm wrote an interesting piece on Saturday about Microsofts current battles on three fronts: Consumer, Enterprise and Developer as seen from Mix08.  In each battle, Microsoft is portrayed as a lumbering giant, struggling to catch up to where Croll says are the market drivers.  Multi-front battles are tough to win, how will Microsoft face each challenge?

Here is a breakdown of his position:

Consumer: We live fragmented lives.  We use Google for search, iPods for music, Windows for home PC needs…Microsoft will push it’s One OS theme that will effect our lives here, there and everywhere.
Enterprise: Expect MS to put some cash into mobile.  With the purchase of Danger, Windows Mobile is free to attack Blackberry.  No one is ready to trust the cloud completely and Microsoft will ride that pony to the bank.
Developers:  Microsoft is breaking coding down and making it easier to retain developers. 

Flanked by Apple’s cooler desktops and devices, Google’s insight into users, and the Nintendo/Sony console world, Microsoft is struggling. Windows Mobile isn’t a consumer handset like the iPhone. Live hasn’t really taken off. Vista flopped, with the company embroiled in claims that it overstated the number of machines on which it would run. And the Xbox, despite its success, has an alarmingly high recall rate.

Croll puts a lot of emphasis on Silverlight and its ability to be the cash cow; the connecting cool tool to income.  Could Silverlight become the future path for Microsoft?

Read [GigaOm]