Last September I was browsing in a book store and looked at a copy of Entrepreneur magazine. The cover story that month was titled “Next-Gen Innovators” and the blurb on the cover read:

Forward-thinking entrepreneurs are making strides in promising areas—from nanotech to biotech to semiconductors. Will any of them build the next Microsoft?

My first thought was “who would want to be the next Microsoft?” The article holds up Microsoft as a gold standard for successful companies and Bill Gates as the quintessential entrepreneur. Certainly Microsoft is a successful company and Mr. Gates has earned a significant amount of money from his business venture. However, I don’t think Microsoft is the right role model for today’s entrepreneurs. Microsoft got where it is today by building a monopoly and aggressively defending it. There are many areas where Microsoft’s behavior was detrimental to the industry as a whole.

I am not going to rehash Microsoft’s behavior over the last decade or so, but I am going to point out that Microsoft is poised for an inevitable decline. Having dominated the markets for PC desktop operating systems, web browsers and office productivity software the company reached the pinnacle of its influence. The markets that Microsoft has historically dominated are completely saturated and all of its money cannot buy success in other markets. I think there are better role models.

One would seem to be Apple. The company was an early innovator and then fell on hard times. With analysts regularly sounding the company’s death knell they have seen an incredibly resurgence since the return of Steve Jobs. Now Apple is doing well in its traditional markets and is making bold moves into other markets with its iPod and the recently announced iPhone. Apple will never dominate the PC desktop market like Microsoft has, but that is OK. In fact, it is good. The company has identified a profitable niche and exploited it to good effect.

Google is another company that seems to fit the bill as an entrepreneurial role model much better than Microsoft. Before Google’s AdSense program analysts were decrying the end of web advertising. But, I think that there are even better role models available. For example, companies like 37 Signals and OmniGroup are never going to dominate the industry for anything, but they are very successful by almost any measure. They are proof that it is possible to create software that users love and have fun in the process. You don’t have to be a billion dollar company with 90% market share to be successful.

Tags: business, entrepreneur, microsoft, success