The Empire In Decline? 488
An anonymous reader writes "Pundits continue to weigh in on Steve Sinofsky's sudden exit from Microsoft (as executive head of Windows Division, he oversaw the development and release of Windows 7 and 8). SemiAccurate's Charlie Demerjian sees Microsoft headed for a steep decline, with their habit of creating walled gardens deliberately incompatible with competitors' platforms finally catching up to them. Few PC users are upgrading to Windows 8 with its unwanted Touch UI, sales of the Surface tablet are disappointing, and few are buying Windows Phones. On the Sinofsky front, Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley is willing to take the Redmond insiders' word that the departure was more about Sinofsky's communication style and deficiencies as a team player than on unfavorable market prospects for Windows 8 and Surface. Meanwhile, anonymous blogger Mini-Microsoft had suspiciously little to say."
So, this is just the semiaccurate.com one? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
Sinofsky is J. Allard's next-of-KIN.
"Walled gardens" are in (Score:2, Interesting)
with their habit of creating walled gardens deliberately incompatible with competitors' platforms finally catching up to them.
Everybody from Apple to Comcast has a "walled garden" now. Even Canonical has an "app store". The New York times is thriving behind its paywall.
Re:"Walled gardens" are in (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:"Walled gardens" are in (Score:5, Insightful)
A walled garden is a system where the user is somehow prevented from using anything outside of the intended system. Let's see now, on Ubuntu (or any other modern Linux distribution) you can:
- Add/remove repositories for the package manager
- Install local packages using only the installation tools
- Unpack archives manually or otherwise manually add software to the system
- Compile your own software
It's not the presence of a package manager that makes something a walled garden; it's the absence of other methods of installing software.
Re:"Walled gardens" are in (Score:5, Informative)
In the Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Mac OSX world (so, almost all users), the standard method of installing software is still:
1) Go to the website
2) Download the installation file (or get a disk if you're feeling retro)
3) Run the installation programme
This works in Ubuntu too- you go to the website, and download the .deb package. Double click it, run it. You don't have to be a geek to do this; the fact that mobile phones don't let you do this doesn't mean it's been scrubbed from the users' skillset quite yet. And as long as this remains an option, it is fundamentally not a walled garden.
"Walled garden" (Score:2)
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Canonical's "garden" has no "walls." The use of "technical measures to limit access" (if I may borrow some DMCA-speak) against the user is the main distinguishing features of walled gardens. If you let the user do whatever they want, it doesn't make any sense to call it a walled garden. It's just a garden.
It was his people's skills, not products. (Score:3, Informative)
From what I can find around the web, he was asked to leave due to his way of working with people, not the products he created, which frankly are good. Windows 7 is good. Windows 8 is better (not perfect but better).
Now that may mean he gets the job done but they didnt like his methods, or they didnt like the job he did, and the methods. but whatever. NEXT
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or, it was something to do with the successes he had.... which reminds me, why did Bob Muglia leave... was it:
a) because he was useless, only taking Server and Tools from a cost to a billion-dollar sales engine?
b) Because of his communication style?
c) because of his inability to plan for the future?
d) because he was a shoe-in as Ballmer's replacement when the shareholders kick him out.
Re:It was his people's skills, not products. (Score:5, Interesting)
He was asked to leave due to politics. Metro was the brain-child of the bitch succeeding him. He wanted to ditch it after the feedback came in and the suits told him "No" in no uncertain terms. He tried to spell it out for them what a disaster it would be and was asked to leave because they have already pulled the trigger on the project, and put too many dollars into it.
At a company like M$ once a decision is made to go with something you back it until it's well and truly failed.
I think uptake of windows 8 is going to be so fucking horrid that they're going to issue a patch to remove metro, add the windows store as a regular program, and quietly fire their new Melinda. Unfortuantely for the new bitch her lover(Ballmer presumably) isn't as rich as the last Melindas and could lose nearly everything if he pisses the board off too much.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:It was his people's skills, not products. (Score:4, Funny)
I like to call it Zune 8.
Re:It was his people's skills, not products. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with everything you've said here.
My problem is, what's the foundation of any desktop operating system? The UI.
Windows 8, on a desktop, stinks. Metro is horrible on a desktop. The fullscreen "start menu" is horrible and useless as a standard launcher. Things like the network menu give me hives. The difficulty in getting out of the metro interface? Why can't I turn that shit off? Why is the default music player a metro app? Did no one suggest to them that maybe it'd be a good idea to have "metro mode" instead of kludging the two together? Separate file associations for when I'm in desktop mode & metro mode. Now that would work well.
I know, if you're not using the keyboard to find&launch apps you're an idiot, but my dad doesn't use the keyboard, and likely never will as he's prone to forgetting what the app he wants is called, it's just not relevant to him. I would recommend someone learn the OSX interface than learn the Windows 8 interface (although I wouldn't want to support either).
All the technical brilliance of Windows 8 doesn't matter, I didn't wonder where those features were in Windows 7 and I'm not going out of my way to expose them in Windows 8. It's the UI that matters.
Re:It was his people's skills, not products. (Score:4, Funny)
The biggest walled garden is an Apple orchard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple still does well with walled gardens all over the fucking place. Not that I approve of that, but lets not rip MS apart when the competition is fucking worse.
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IOS is Apple's only walled garden and quite frankly, it makes more sense and as a result their app store is a far better experience than the Google store. If you don't like it then jail break it. No one will stop you. But Macs aren't in a walled garden. You're free to do what you want with them including putting another OS on it and, unlike iOS their
Re:The biggest walled garden is an Apple orchard. (Score:4, Insightful)
The link you provide doesn't back up the assertion that Apple will turn OS X into a walled garden. Demanding that apps provided on their app store meet rigid standards that increase security and stability is in no way evidence that OS X will one day have the restrictions that iOS has.
You're trolling, your claim is FUD, and you know it.
I can lay out a counter argument with one word: Economics.
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Apple still does well with walled gardens all over the fucking place.
No Apple is in pretty much the same status quo it was on the Desktop since forever...and its influence in mobile has dropped to under 15%. Android is doing pretty well...Apple not so much.
Re:The biggest walled garden is an Apple orchard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only on slashdot can you get a comment that Apple is not doing well in the mobile market. You are absolutely out of your mind.
Apple sells expensive products. It has become the most valuable company in the world by paying attention to detail and selling at a high price. Now, I don't mean to call you a stupid person, but your comment is extremely stupid. There is absolutely no way that Apple could conduct its business in the way it does and capture a majority of the mobile market. Most people can't afford such luxuries, and it would be a poor idea for Apple to cater to those who can't. They are doing more than well enough, and the fact that several other companies produce lots of handsets using the same operating system is neither here nor there.
Likewise, they make a lot of money from Macs, and the fact that most people use Windows does not spoil this. The goal of a business is to maximise profits, not to maximise market share. The reason we hear about market share as if it were the true goal is that it's always good to have more. That doesn't mean that a company should go head over heels to gain more of it. They might lose a lot of money in the process.
This is coming from someone who has little time for Apple. Please think before you speak.
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http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/09/apple-its-mojo-and-doug-kass/ [cnn.com]
LOL that is the funniest think I ever read. Its market share drop is due to Apple performing less well than they expected [Apple were not the only one down, Google to name one were down]. The main reasons were poor sales of the iPhone 5, The iPod market vanishing, and lower gross profit %.
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"Less well" by what metric?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1002261-apple-why-the-recent-drop-is-unjustified [seekingalpha.com] Its a nice little article that covers why apples shares recently dropped, and unlike me argues for a brighter future so you may consider it balanced, and covers some of the measures of performance of a company like Apple in easy to read language, and some nice graphs.
Re:The biggest walled garden is an Apple orchard. (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple had a decline in Gross Margin from 40.3% to 40.0%, in the context of a 33% increase in profits compared to the year-ago quarter, is selling more iPhones than it ever has and has $121 Billion in cash reserves: Apple is currently very successful. (Based on its 2012 Q4 earnings release)
If you want to claim that in the future they will decline you can, but to credibly claim any current decline requires more evidence than a tiny variation in gross margin.
Apple does not sell Easter eggs or Christmas trees it sells electronics. Apples market share has dropped from 23% to 14.9% [IDC figures others are worse]. I'm not really sure why being cash rich is good. I'm glad that you brought up the Q4 earnings which contained the bombshell that Apple only managed to sell 14million ipads [a drop of 70%] guess we are going to see a further drop in Market share from its current 50.4%. Oh and Gross Margin has dropped from 47% to 40% :) Its expected to drop to 36%
The bottom line is Apple is sacrificing market share for the sake of profits, and that will end badly.
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It's all about how you phrase it -- Apple's market share dropped, but the market itself grew. Mostly, it grew by expanding low end products, products that Apple doesn't sell. This analogy is used way too much, but apparently you haven't heard it: Ferrari isn't concerned that Ford sells more cars than them. Ferrari isn't a failure because Ford makes and sells less cars.
Companies that cater to high-brow users don't worry about market share. There are some interesting statistics out there that show that iOS us
Re:The biggest walled garden is an Apple orchard. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ferrari isn't concerned that Ford sells more cars than them.
Except Apple is terrified, that it is losing relevance, because unlike a Ferrari, its hardware is arguably worse than the competition [Its brand is being damaged]. Unlike Ferrari Apple rely on a ecosystem of App developers/Content Providers that will lose interest in its platform if its market share continues to drop. Unlike Ferrari without a controlling interest in the Phone market. Its 3rd party ecosystem will die [signs of this are everywhere], damaging the brand.
Lets face it Apple is not Ferrari, they are not even ford, they simply commanded the market because they were perceived as first mover in a new market and cashed in on all the early adopter money, where companies can always charge a premium...ask Sony.
Like I said Apples Losing relevance...Microsoft never had any.
Re:The biggest walled garden is an Apple orchard. (Score:4, Informative)
Where you getting your figures?
http://investor.apple.com/results.cfm [apple.com]
2011 - The Company posted quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.3 percent compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.
2012 - The Company posted quarterly revenue of $36.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.2 billion, or $8.67 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $28.3 billion and net profit of $6.6 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.0 percent compared to 40.3 percent in the year-ago quarter.
Quarterly figures you compare to the same quarter, x years ago. Not Q4 to Q3, but Q4-2012 to Q4-2011. Holiday sales, summer slacking, start of school sales, etc. All those have an impact.
On the iPads, as previously stated. Market share is not important here. You don't aim for max market share, you aim for max profit.
2011 - The Company sold 17.07 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 21 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.12 million iPads during the quarter, a 166 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 6.62 million iPods, a 27 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
2012 - The Company sold 26.9 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 58 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 14.0 million iPads during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.9 million Macs during the quarter, a 1 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 5.3 million iPods, a 19 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
The market is bound to grow as a whole, how can it not? iPad sales have gone up 26%, and that was in the quarter just before the release of the new iPad which is bound to have an influence.
Two thoughts: 1. Pies 2. Innovation (Score:2)
I have two thoughts on this issue.
The first is:
Pies.
Microsoft has stock in a lot of corporations. Lots of pies they have their fingers in. Don't count them out.
The second is:
Innovation.
That's dead there.
Re:Two thoughts: 1. Pies 2. Innovation (Score:5, Funny)
I have two thoughts on this issue. The first is: Pies.
That's my first thought on any issue.
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No, it's not dead there, you, and many other can't see innovation unless someone says 'look this is innovation, cause I said innovation!"
Citation Needed (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not fan of Microsoft. It's a huge bureaucracy that stifles the innovation of a lot of very bright people who work there. I would not be surprised at all to learn that their late-to-the-party tablet isn't selling well.
However, I've not seen any concrete evidence that Surface tablet sales are "disappointing." There were some vaguely-worded comments by Ballmer in a French magazine or something, and something about a few people returning the table after discovering that they couldn't run their existing apps, but that's about it. From what I've read, Surface seems to be selling. Does anyone have any concrete numbers?
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Well, that only took a quick google.
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http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20121112PD219.html [digitimes.com]
Well, that only took a quick google.
Ah, I should have searched the intertubes again before my post. That one is relatively new. Thanks.
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Here's one: http://blogs.computerworld.com/tablets/21317/microsoft-ceo-ballmer-says-surface-windows-rt-tablet-sales-are-modest-hopes-boost-intel-windows-8-version [computerworld.com]
The specific quote is "modest", and I agree with the characterization of " 'modest' is to Ballmer as 'poor' is to a neutral observer" (particularly when compared to Apple or Android alternatives.)
I can say this (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I am a nobody. A simple techie. I left Microsft last year because I felt they were in turmoil internally. Managment where I worked was heinous and ineffective.
MS has long seemed like it's playing catch up with the IT world. They don't seem to grok what people want. People WANT to move to the "cloud" -- as amorphous as that term is. When I met with customers I was expected to use Bing to look things up in the MS universe and say that I was "binging" this or that. I was asked to also bring up Office 365 at every opportunity.
What keeps MS alive is the corporate sector. What with Google and Apple eating MS's lunch at every turn in the consumer space, it doesn't matter why Sinofsky left. MS is an also ran in the Internet/device/OS world. They are becoming like RIM... irrelevant. Nobody cares anymore.
People want devices and software that are "now" and hip, that are scalable and easy to use. Win 8 is a point and click nightmare. I "lived" with the RP for a few months and was constantly going back to Linux to get real work done. No thanks, MS. I'm done with you. I've embraced better solutions for me and mine.
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Not trying to flame here, just would love another data point.
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No they don't! A subset of self-proclaimed "geeks" who spend their time guffawing away on social media, "cloud providers" and Orwellian security services want it.
We've had fuse drivers for a long time, I use the openssh command line tools. We've had rsync for a long time, I use removable drives (before USB it was IDE caddies). We've had network capable versioning for years, my personal stuff was in RCS before I switched to local git repositories.
I don't want "the cloud"
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People may don't want to "move to the cloud" per se, but the cloud can be a way to archive what they want.
People want to have access to their stuff anywhere, anytime, from any device, even one they're only using for a few minutes. Not only do they not want to know what a file is or where it's saved, they don't want to have to "save" it at all. They should just be able to get it when they want it and any changes they make should instantly be available wherever else they want to use it.
This is what the cloud offers, and people really DO want it.
Innovative companies fail a lot, MSFT included (Score:3, Insightful)
Zune
Bing
Surface
Windows Phones
Windows 98, ME, Vista, 8
Tons of Server products that suck
But for each that sucks there are a ton that are great :
Windows 95, NT, XP, 7, Server 2003, 2008, 2012
Exchange Server, SQL Server, Sharepoint, ISA Server
XBox, Xbox 360
It's important to test new business models and related fields they may be able to compete in (search, mobile, etc.) but they won't win them all, they can't, else they will be balls deep in Anti-Trust suits again. Declaring the decline of the "empire" is horse shit.
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XBox's success comes from Microsoft plowing billions into it. It's like bragging about your car being worth $50,000 when you've spent $1,000,000 to get it there.
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Surface hasnt failed, and I dont think it will fail.
The problem is Windows RT. No one wants windows RT because theres no application support. However, I'll gladly take a Surface pro tablet with Windows 8 Pro that can run all of my regular desktop apps.
Is it even worth it to watch them anymore. (Score:2)
Not a team player; or was he a threat (Score:3, Interesting)
By saying that all they needed to know was on his blog it seems he was basically saying, Microsoft join the 21st century and get out of the 19th century.
I have seen teams that would appear to be dysfunctional people yelling and stomping out. But these teams produced wonders. I have seen other teams that were quiet and respectful of each other and were nothing but deadweight. I am willing to bet that there is an inverse ratio to the time showing people powerpoints and the genuine productivity of that team. The worst is when someone puts up a powerpoint and then starts reading it to you. Icing on the powerpoint cake is when you have a central item with other items surrounding it with arrows pointing to the central item. A perfect example would be a powerpoint slide saying "Team Player" in the center with items around it that are things that make a good team player.
So assuming this guy wasn't throwing feces at people I suspect that MBA types who had everything to lose spent the rest of this conference making sure that this guy was gone. My suggestion to him is to sell his MS stock sooner than later.
On a whole other page it could be that Windows 8 is a giant turd and this is one of the first heads to role. Either way I just don't see a bright future for MS. Unless they have a world beater about to come out of their R&D people nothing they have catches my fancy. In every category of product I prefer something else. MySQL to SQL, Linux to MS Server, Bean to Word, MacOSX to Windows, Sublime or XCode to Visual Studio, PHP to ASPX, C++ or Python or java to
If MS simply stopped selling products I would not be greatly inconvenienced. This is a massive sea change from say 1998. If they had vanished in 1998 I would have cried myself to sleep.
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From the second-to-last paragraph, it sounds like they really had a chance to pull you into their ecosystem with Windows 8. I bet you gave a really serious shake too.
It's pretty obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
Ballmer needed to blame someone and started throwing him under the bus. Being a smart guy, he left before the bus arrived.
The board should have fired Ballmer and given Steve a huge bonus to return and run the place.
The summary disagrees with itself? (Score:2)
followed by
If the second statement is to be believed, then why should anyone be worried that the person behind it leaving the company?
Alternatively, if you choose not to believe the second
So instead of WIndows, what's the choice? (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this not an Apple Article. (Score:3)
Apple shares are now priced at 535 from 700 just a couple of months ago. Its market share in tablets has dropped to 50.4%, and its smartphones down from 23.1 to 14.9% in a couple of quarters. Its saving grace [as a company, not so good for its consumers] are its massive mark-ups on it products, but even those proving difficult to maintain, as its cost of producing devices has increased, driving its gross profits down. Its now announced that Apple themselves in a new step is letting 3rd Party retailers take a large profit in its "me too" device the ipad mini, in the hope it will gain traction in the saturated with great devices "small tablet" [or as Jobs says "Tweener"] market. Apple did awfully well under Jobs bringing in all the early adopter money, but now these markets are mature, and its arguably behind the opposition [Android] in both hardware and software; Apple are undeniably in decline.
In context of this article Microsoft is a "never was" in mobile, and still has a monopoly in Desktop, the fact that they are taking a safe [and lets be honest profitable] gamble on making Windows 8 a hybrid!? OS that fails in all areas. Following Apple into an established market with the same bullshit and bullying tactics [lol and Office] it always has, using New Apples [Old Apple would have tried to reinvent...or find a new market] playbook, taking everything people don't like about Apple [whatever the fanatics say] and pretend those are the things that made Apple successful, rather that being more Open; Standard orientated...and hell being innovative, and Cheaper...like say Android...Oh!
Don't believe the FUD (Score:2)
/. this is Charlie Demerjian, one of the biggest tech trolls out there. He has a personal vendetta against Nvidia, Microsoft, and Intel. Ignore the troll. They're called SEMIAccurate for a reason.
Have you tried Windows 8? (Score:2, Informative)
I see a lot of criticism of Windows 8, but I don't see a lot of folks that have actually tried to use it with a touch screen device.
I have played with the all in ones and touch screen tablets at the Microsoft store. As much as a cringe when a co-worker touches my monitor, I think there is something to this adaption of the tablet interface. I actually like the live data features of the icons, I get information without going into the apps. I get that this is a new take on the old widget concept.
I would not co
Re:Have you tried Windows 8? (Score:4, Interesting)
> I see a lot of criticism of Windows 8, but I don't see a lot of folks
> that have actually tried to use it with a touch screen device.
If you think students are going to write 10,000-word-essays, or corporate types will do large spreadsheets or reports, or programmers will code 10,000-line-programs with a touchscreen device, you are totally out of it. And no, I'm not going to pay twice as much for a Surface as for a real PC, and then go out and buy a bluetooth keyboard plus mouse.
In the mid-1980's, the MS-DOS PC walked all over VT100 terminals as far as getting serious work done was concerned. That's why it was adopted so fast. Touchscreens are so-so for 140-character tweets, or short Fecesbook updates. They suck for real work in the corporate world. Windows 8 is going nowhere, fast. MS better release a "back to the future" Windows 9, or simply start charging for Windows 7 service packs.
Senior Manager Deficiencies? (Score:3)
If Sinofsky had been around for over 2 decades with 'team player deficiencies', what does that say about Microsoft's management methods.
Metro (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Some of us know you're right.
It's the Microsoft shills that have invaded over the past couple of years that this "downmodding of MSFT dissenters" has happened.
Also note the vast number of newly minted accounts when an article critical of Windows 8 comes out. You never hear from these again, they are used and abandoned for new accounts created when a new Microsoft article comes out.
Slashdot should rangeban Microsoft.
--
BMO
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It's not likely the shillfest is coming directly from Microsoft, it's probably contracted out by some other group(s). I noticed it on most the major sites that I read not long before release that the number of blatantly obvious shill posts skyrocketed. It would be interesting if all the sites could get together and build data metrics on the shillyness of each user, there IPs, how long the accounts had been created and so forth to see if it points to a shill group, or how many of the shills are just blind Mi
MIcrosoft on /. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Sure i did. I admit i should of added it to my original comment, but i wasn't expecting this much attention.
I didn't know anybody outside of Microsoft had any access to it. It was just a demonstration a week ago http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Nu-nlQqFCKg [youtube.com] .
Microsoft can "fail" (Score:3)
It doesn't matter how horribly Microsoft fails because there are no competitors trying to take over. Microsoft wins by default.
This is why companies like Canonical are making a big mistake by trying to chase after the Apple crowd, when they should be going after the enterprise.
Microsoft can still pull this one off. (Score:4, Interesting)
I understand what this was all about. Microsoft's plan was to quickly force the RT environment on people so they would automatically be members of the new ecosystem and feel naturally inclined to buy the phones and tablets, especially once they realized you could do more with RT than with iOS. But as things stand now, every time someone is forced to use the RT interface against their will, they are reminded of how their options have been restricted. No matter how good RT is, if it serves as a reminder of a bad feeling, it will be tainted by that. Instead of bringing people into the fold, RTs involuntary start screen drives people away.
Even so, I think Microsoft can still rescue Windows 8 if it just does a few things.
1) Issue an apology and bring back the start button as an optional item, and allow people to boot directly to the desktop. (Yes I know... just like Start8 / Classic Shell) It seems to me that a huge percentage of gripes have been about those two things, starting long before RTM. Why fight against what your customers want?
2) Buy up a couple of good RT games and release them as free gifts to upgraders. $45 in free software! The OS pays for itself!!
3) Reposition Windows 8 as an improved desktop environment PLUS free games PLUS a Windows Phone 8 compatible OS skin which people can use or not use.
Yes, the restoration of the start button and starting desktop means RT use will grow more slowly, only at the pace that people want to try it out. But in the long run, it will make for a better user experience, one that people will want to return to.
The marketing of Windows 8 has been horribly arrogant. By pissing off geeks, MS has alienated its proselytizers and enthusiasts. By pissing off businesses, it has affected its own bottom line. Every day that this debacle continues is one less opportunity that MS has to set things right.
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try using Arandr, it does the hard work for multimonitors for you.
Re:Still going (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't count them out due to one word: Inertia.
Enterprises still use the stuff, and will use it for quite a good amount of time. This gives Microsoft something that few others have: time to correct its screwups.
The debacle of Vista would have killed most other tech companies, but thanks to inertia and near-total monopoly, Microsoft had room to breathe while it fixed its messes. I think the same story will hold true here. This is similar to Intel having a chance to clean up all that NetBurst/RAMBUS bullcrap when the Pentium 4 first came out, as an example.
Now how long and how much breathing room? Hard to say, especially now that the competition has stepped up its game by quite a bit more than they had in 2006, and with mobile consumer devices forming a huge wildcard.
Re:Still going (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey!
Microsoft will sell to "Enterprise".
GM will ALWAYS fleet cars.
They just won't make a sedan you'd buy, yourself. Mazda and VW will trounce the value/dollar every day of the week.
Re:Still going (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't really true at all. A GM car is fine in a fleet car - it has a dealer network, a steering wheel, instrumentation, pedals, and a shift lever... Just like every other car.
If Microsoft loses the consumer market, it will lose the corporate market as well. Microsoft owns the corporate desktop market, because users are familiar with it's products. Although it might be cheaper from a licensing and maintenance perspective to put everyone on Ubuntu, the cost of re-training all your employees to use LibreOffice and Unity greatly exceeds the cost of licensing the products.
If however, users become more familiar with another platform, it would start to make much more sense to simply employ that platform in your corporate space. Consider ChromeOS; it's cheap, easy, and readily available. If users become comfortable with that platform, there's absolutely no reason why most of the corporate desktop work couldn't be done on that platform. Microsoft would be in trouble.
Re:Still going (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about everyone else, but the users where I'm at are way more comfortable with using something different than they've ever been. Sales staff push for services like salesforce. All kinds of users gripe that they'd prefer to work on a mac, both on the desktop and with laptops.
The remaining mental lock-in nowadays, where I come from, is really just Exchange+Outlook. Of course you can get Outlook to work with other combinations of services, and you can use different clients with Exchange, but what the users are used to is the utility afforded by using the two together.
Obviously this is just what I see at work... your situations likely differ.
Re:Still going (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is trained to use consumer websites, but they still get considerable use. The web is like touch interfaces: Developers are wary of off-screen features (right-click, long, tap, etc). As these better rules roll out, the next major UI platform is going to be the web (on any architecture), because all people need is their software.
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Cost of training is in lost productivity, not necessarily on actual training courses. I'm an admin with 10 years of experience. My productivity would suffer significantly if you gave me a Mac or asked me to manage an unfamiliar distro. A week of lost productivity would easily cost my company thousands of dollars worth of my time.
Spread that out over a company of hundreds, or thousands and the numbers really add up.
Re:Still going (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? I would never hire any admin that can't handle at least a handful of OS'es. If there is a new OS, as an admin, I am supposed to learn about it and get some hands-on experience. It's built-in to my job to learn new things.
Re:Still going (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed the point dude. It's not about whether or not someone is able to learn a new OS, It's about the cost of doing so. No matter how flexible you are, you are going to be slower work in an environment you're not used to. Lost productivity probably costs a lot more than you think.
Re:Still going (Score:4, Insightful)
You are not an admin. You are a regurgitator. I'm not trying to be a dick, I just want you to realize where you actually fit in the food chain.
An admin has no trouble shifting to new environments on the fly. He/she doesn't think twice about doing so, its just part of the job. No OS is so different that it matters, even the jump from UNIX to Windows is trivial if you are qualified to call yourself an admin.
Just because you have root on some boxes doesn't make you an admin.
Yes, there is a cost to the switch, but if that cost is significant for a given 'admin' then it shows that you are unable to quickly adapt to a new environment and find the resources you need to complete the job. Windows admin really isn't THAT different now days, the answer to any problem is almost certainly a Google away in any case you're likely to hit. I can safely say that because someone at your level isn't going to be doing anything that hasn't been done a million times before.
In my career, I've dealt with more than one person like you. Not that there is anything wrong with you, but you think you are more capable than you are in one respect while realizing you aren't in others. My typical treatment towards someone like this is to nudge them towards finding a 'higher paying' job else where and get them out of my umbrella. They'll generally fail, but then they also generally get the point and learn the difference, and their next job works out a whole lot better for them. This may not be 'nice', but being nice typically doesnt' get the point across or you would have realized it already.
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I disagree with you completely. The more proficient your team is on a specific operating system, the more expensive it's going to be to move to a new one. My focus is on RedHat based distros, since that's what's used in the business world. If you asked me to admin a Debian site, or a Freebsd site, or a Solaris site, I'd be absolutely able to pull it off, but my productivity would suffer for a while.
For example, right now I could build a Cobbler host and Kickstart a hundred machines inside of a day or two. I
Re:Still going (Score:5, Insightful)
... Although it might be cheaper from a licensing and maintenance perspective to put everyone on Ubuntu, the cost of re-training all your employees to use LibreOffice and Unity greatly exceeds the cost of licensing the products.
It is surprising to me (jaded as I am) that businesses and governments fail to recognize that the conversion effort and retraining needed to shift between the recent (read: last decade or more) "upgrades" of MS products is no different than that required to move to open platforms.
I moved from MS to Linux (and associated open applications) many years ago. I have saved hundreds (nay, thousands) of dollars in license fees by doing so. Open data formats have saved my bacon on more than one occasion. I've been able to rescue and reformat data for my friends and employers with open source applications on many occasions.
Re:Still going (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft loses the consumer market, it will lose the corporate market as well. Microsoft owns the corporate desktop market, because users are familiar with it's products.
That logic might apply for the Desktop OS, but like most MS bashers you seem to have not taken into account the monopoly MS has with AD/DNS/DHCP/GPO/Exchange/SQL/IIS and the corporate back office ecosystem that everyone knows and understands. There simply isn't anything that comes close to this*, and if you're not moving away from that, then you may as well make life easier for yourself and keep an MS desktop too. I don't see MS going anywhere. Worst case is Win8 flops, and MS maintain support for Win7 until they release a replacement, then life carries on. *Feel free to post a suggested replacement. But don't bother with a hodge podge home brew mix of unsupported free apps. Any viable replaceble has to have the same or better features, with the same or better UI, and the same or better support.
They'll never go away (Score:3)
There's too much of a customer base for Windows, SQL Server, and Office.
But I do think there's a good chance they'll be acquired sometime in the next ten years.
Re:Still going (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't count them out due to one word: Inertia.
Microsoft has a monopoly on two things: Desktop OS and Desktop Productivity. Every other market (Server OS, Database, Consoles, etc) has healthy competition.
Microsoft's problem is that the concept of the "Desktop" is in question. We are still going to use monitors & keyboards for a long time, but we're also going to be using tablets and phones/pdas. We want all of our data and work and entertainment to transfer seamlessly from one device to another. On top of that, we're going to want our session state to transfer, so we can resume things right where we left off. We want total hardware agnosticism.
Accomplishing this will require a UI revolution on the order of what windowing did to the command line, and nobody has invented it yet. The answer may not even come from one of the established players (although MS, Apple, and Google have the biggest head start). Whoever gets it right will win big.
Inertia only helps if your market is stable. Microsoft is, and probably always be, the King of the Desktop, in the same way that IBM was King of the Mainframe. Their problem is that their empire might be built on quicksand.
Re:Still going (Score:4, Interesting)
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So the investors will pull out, and MS will coast on "inertia" for a while, but then what?
Then they either succeed or fail, like any other company. They don't need investors with all the revenue they have.
What's their long-term plan for growth?
They are trying to transition into mobile. They still have a chance to convert their desktop users to mobile.
I don't see them competing effectively in any market, at least with Ballmer at the wheel.
I don't know why Ballmer gets all this bashing. Yes, he's a chair-throwing, sweaty gorilla yelling, "Developers, developers, developers!" But it's not like he's run the company into the ground, and Gates didn't have the Steve Jobs magic touch when it came to mobile or other consumer devi
Re:Still going (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? (Score:3)
In general growth is seen as essential because the world grows. There are more and more computers in the world, if MS keeps selling the same amount of OS installs, they are not stagnant, they are shrinking as measured by market share.
If your customers grow and you do not, you are shrinking.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Still going (Score:4, Funny)
The debacle of Vista would have killed most other tech companies, but thanks to inertia and near-total monopoly, Microsoft had room to breathe while it fixed its messes.
Vista peaked with a global market share of 20 to 25 percent.
Not half bad considering that most installs can be traced back to the retail purchase of a fairly muscular and expensive 64 bit OEM Home Premium system bundle.
Re:Still going (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is a huge sham, and makes all kinds of claims that it simply can't back up.
For example, the claim that Windows phones aren't selling. They've only been on the market for a couple of days, and 3 phones are on the market, and only one vendor has them. There is absolutely NO way to know whether or not Windows phones are going to be popular or not.
Based on initial reaction, however, and long lines outside ATT stores, it looks like they're off to a good start.
Likewise, the Surface tablets are only available online and in a few dozen stores so far. So there's no possible way to judge how well they will do overall once they're available everywhere. Plus, the more powerful Surface Pro's aren't even on the market yet, and many of the third party devices (like Sony's new models) have yet to ship.
Finally, we can see tell-tale signs of bias in the writing. "Unwanted touch interface"? Really? Who doesn't want a touch interface in a tablet? or Phone? And lots of people seem very keen on having a touch interface in their desktops.
There is an interesting class of internet troll that loves to find any outlet they can to claim that Touch in windows is unwanted, and this seems to be the case here.
Re:Still going (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is a huge sham, and makes all kinds of claims that it simply can't back up. For example, the claim that Windows phones aren't selling.
I'm pretty confident that Windows phones aren't selling. in fact its still being outsold by Symbian and Bada...and RIM. Moving exclusivity to windows Phone destroyed Nokia.
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You're talking about previous versions of Windows Phone. Windows Phone 8 is a different OS, and the phones are actually decent now (hardware wise, on par with top android phones).
Windows Phone 8 has only been on sale a few days, so there is no possible way you could be confident in that.
2013 will be the year of Windows Phone :)
Re:Still going (Score:5, Insightful)
But, it could put a huge dent in both's market share.
I'm intrigued how. Microsoft Phone failed when it had positive reviews; Nokia still had reasonable market share, and a plan to convert existing users from Symbian it didn't work. Samsung and HTC and LG [now android exclusive and profitable again] were manufactures that didn't work. It had an opportunity to convert that tiny market share by growing its own group of fanatics; It threw them under the bus with an OS update. Arguing its an improved OS on improved hardware is not enough, iOS and Android both have improved hardware and OS's, and will not stumble. In all likelihood Microsoft will be less successful, and is less resilient to mistakes..
The bottom line though is right now people desire iOS and Android phones...but aren't interested in Windows Phone whatever the version or hardware. The new strategy looks a lot like the old strategy, with the exception of Windows 8 ecosystem [sic], and the treat to OEM's of first party hardware [whatever you think of that]. I personally cannot think of one single compelling reason why my next phone should be windows, and multiple reasons why not, and your arguments reflect that.
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Sorry you should re-read my post. LG used to make windows phones, and was suffering as a result. Like Nokia is but Nokia were stupid enough to go exclusive. They are now Android exclusive and are now profitable again. I said nothing of the other manufacturers.
As for your new claim that Windows Phone is a failure because of marketing I'm not even going to bother to refute. Again re-read my post. Its not great but covers the main point new windows strategy looks like old windows strategy from a worse starting
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I think the complaint is touch interfaces on the desktop.
Windows 8 overall has some nice changes (I am currently running it myself) however what sucks are the so called "immersive" apps. Basically, any app that comes from the windows store.
When you have a large (in my case, 46") high resolution display, having apps take up the entire screen is downright stupid. Overlapping windows allow you to view multiple different things simultaneously, even if they aren't provided by the same app. This is why windows re
Re:Still going (Score:4, Interesting)
I know the thought process behind forcing the apps to be full screen, but the problem is that this model simply doesn't work for the desktop. Currently, the main reason for having a desktop as opposed to a mobile device (at least, to ma and pa yehaaw) is that a desktop is where you get real work done, e.g. drafting, creating a powerpoint presentation, etc. Touch devices (even with large screens) don't really work too well for that. The keyboard and mouse will be around for a long time to come for this reason. Likewise, the full screen app model simply will not fly on the desktop, that I am certain of.
A perfect example I can think of, is just now when I was entering in configuration commands into some cisco routers, I had three telnet windows open, an excel window which contained subnet layouts and IP addresses, one visio window which contained a physical network topology, another visio window which contained a logical network topology, and a web browser with a command reference page open.
How on earth would I do such a thing using metro? I'm sure you could, but it would be dreadfully slow and downright frustrating compared to being able to have multiple windows open at once. Imagine having to alt-tab through all of those windows each time I need to refer to something else. It would be a nightmare, whereas with overlapping windows I can simply glance at my references rather than figure out how many times I have to press tab in order to get what I am looking for.
While I'm aware of the ability to run two apps alongside one another (I think they might call that "modern UI snap" now? lol) it is really wanting in the face of having multiple windows open. Telnet and excel both depend heavily upon being able to have page width, and not height, which is what metro snap aims for.
Re:Still going (Score:4, Insightful)
Metro works nicely on handheld touchscreen devices. On the desktop? Meh. I have a couple of 2560x1440 panels. Windows knows that I have a mouse and keyboard and the monitors are not touch screens. It should be smart enough to come up with a better UI for this configuration. It's ridiculous that when I open the weather app, it goes full screen. Does Microsoft really believe four million pixels are needed to tell me if it's going to rain tomorrow?
As a developer, Metro sucks. Windows really are invaluable when programming. I want my IDE open, API docs open, the application running, a console tailing a log, and maybe even a chat window or email client running. I have more than enough pixels and I'm running an operating system called "Windows". Why can't I actually have windows?
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Ironically, they are just know starting to produce technically good products.
I'm no Microsoft fan (Windows 8 has my ire up currently), but some versions of Windows have been solid. Windows 98SE was a very nice blend of stability and speed. Windows 2000 was bulletproof. Windows XP was very strong after SP2. Windows 7 is actually a nice upgrade as well.
Office has a more checkered past. It has improved with age, but the ribbon gives it a major ding.
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When you think about the innovation at Microsoft I can't see a decline. Rather Microsoft is drawn into the economic turmoil and will experience slower growth rates. I am a PC! Microsoft should reinvent itself and beat Apple with an open source strategy. That would win the hearts and mind of the ubergeeks.
On what class of platforms? PCs? I don't think so... That's the big change that's happening; the PC is not dead, but its growth is severely limited.
And it's not "ubergeeks" who buy most machines and make profits for hw/sw vendors, but consumers and corporate CIOs.
Sinofsky's Out? (Score:2)
Maybe he slept with his biographer.
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No one expected MSFT to do Apple-like business on their tablets. Not like they're going to have people camping out overnight for a Surface. No one, including Microsoft.
Really? You have a source for that?
Because from the pre-release hype, I would say it was expect to be at least the Second Coming Of Android. I didn't see any articles before the release saying 'look, we've got this new tablet, but it we don't really expect to sell many'.
When even Ballmer is calling sales 'modest', it's clearly a failure. He wouldn't say that if the sales had met expectations.
Re:Change was forced on MS - but they reacted well (Score:4, Interesting)
>I don't really understand why there is so much hatred of the Windows 8 interface.
Because on anything other than a tablet, it's shit. It's a schizophrenic interface that tries to deprecate the desktop interface in favor of this new touch bullshit.
The thing is though, keyboards and mice are better input devices than touch. Touch is only useful when you have no other way to input, have an enviroment that is hostile to other input devices, or external input devices are inconvenient, even if it's just a stylus.
Microsoft is chasing this mythical beast called the "universal interface" which doesn't friggin' exist. They've been doing this shit since trying to force a desktop metaphor onto tablets and PDAs, eventually finding out that people don't like poking at tiny icons with a stylus which can be lost down a catchbasin. But instead, we have error in the opposite direction - forcing an interface suited to tablets and phones onto the desktop, where it SUCKS.
Also
>new account
>buzzword bingo
Shill.
--
BMO
Re:Change was forced on MS - but they reacted well (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, so I'll take that back, as you're reasonable.
It's been happening a lot lately though (the new-account shill thing).
With regards to your argument that 8 is for tablets. Microsoft *had* to go to a touch interface for tablets . I agree, totally, that touch is needed on tablets, PDAs, music players, and phones. It's even better than vocal control. What Microsoft has done is continue on this path to their mythical "universal interface" that totally ignores the fact that people use different sized devices for different purposes. What they did instead was take the touch interface for tablets and shoehorn it into a desktop operating system. This goes against every study over the past 40+ years showing that people don't like holding their hands in front of them with light pens or their fingers touching a screen. SAGE is dead. Light pens are dead. Touch on the desktop never took off, and that wasn't because of a lack of touch software or touch enabled monitors (NEC had a great one in the mid 80s). Touch winds up doing data collection on factory floors, industrial equipment, and POS terminals, tablets, PDAs, and phones, for the reasons I listed in my previos message.
Anyone who has seriously interacted with Metro on the desktop hates it and it's not like you can avoid Metro. And you can't claim that I don't know what I'm talking about, because I've used it ever since the same day the Developer Preview came out. People have been talking about this for over a year.
Yet Microsoft refuses to listen to the desktop and laptop users, because they have an agenda to push, and they think that pushing touch on desktop and laptops will get people to do everything on tablets. The first sign that they don't give a shit about the desktop and laptop users was when they ripped out, the start menu registry entry and the code tied to it just to make sure.
Touch on a desktop or laptop? Not a chance. I'm not rubbing my greasy fingers all over a 27 inch monitor. I'm not doing CAD on a tablet. No.
The hate for 8 (hey that rhymes) is not unfounded. It's from people who have screwed around with this Frankenstein Monster since 2 Septembers ago. And despite all the naysaying of the Windows shills that "Microsoft's gonna fix that" even past the RTM, the root criticisms of 8 were never addressed. Instead, the reaction was more like the reaction from the Gnome 3 devs - "Fuck you, we know what we're doing."
8 is a failure on the desktop. It is inconvenient to the point of unusable.
--
BMO
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But isn't the point that Windows 8 is to force change. Most of the new Windows 8 tablets and PCs come with touch. The interface Windows 8 is built for and seems to work fairly well on (at least as well as Android or iOS). I see no sign that Microsoft ever hoped we will also use Windows 8 on equipment released before October this year.
The point of Windows 8 is to force change...I suspect their goal should have been to meet users needs. As for Windows 8 working well. You need to use it. It is trying to be both Wimp/Widgets+Launcher at the same time and ends up a mess; its awful for both Mobile and Desktop users. Comparing it to the mature products of both iOS and Android [or even earlier versions of Windows] is an insult to both.
The sad fact is maybe if they hadn't used Windows 8 to force change you could have ended up with two better pro