Can Microsoft Survive If Windows Doesn't Dominate? 497
Nerval's Lobster writes "In his latest Asymco blog post, analyst Horace Dediu suggested that Windows' share of the personal-computing market is declining at a faster rate than many believe, once Microsoft's cash cow is put in direct competition with Android, iOS, and other platforms built for tablets. In that context, Windows' share of the personal-computing market has dipped past 60 percent on its way to 50 percent. The big question is whether it'll keep plunging. 'If Windows tablets start growing as fast as the tablet market overall then Windows could stabilize in share,' Dediu wrote. 'But if Android and iOS tablets follow their phone brethren in growth then it will be far harder for Microsoft to maintain share.' Yet despite that gloomy scenario, Dediu doesn't necessarily see a market-share dip as a cause for concern on Microsoft's part: 'Even if Windows dips to only 20 [percent] of the world's computing market it will still be perfectly 'viable' for some time to come,' he wrote. But even if Windows can perpetuate, will its decline fatally undermine Microsoft as a company? All that Windows (and Office) money also allows Microsoft to launch projects that lose money for years before they gain traction. Without that monetary base, for example, it's possible that the Xbox (which bled money for the first few years of its existence) wouldn't have survived long enough to become a viable platform from a financial perspective—much less the center of Microsoft's future plans for living room domination."
Yes they can (Score:5, Insightful)
Server & Tools too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention the Server & Tools Division that sells Windows Server, IIS, SQL Server,Lync Exchange, Visual Studio etc. keeps getting record revenue every quarter.
From http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/20/with-19b-in-revenue-microsofts-server-and-tools-chief-says-hes-just-getting-started-interview/ [venturebeat.com]
Meet Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft’s server and tools division, a division that builds and runs the company’s computing platforms, developer tools, and cloud services. Nadella leads a team of over 10,000 employees, and his group alone makes $19 billion in annual revenue – which is more than the combined revenues of Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Zynga, Netflix, and a few others in the Valley.
That doesn't even include Office and Azure recently became a one billion dollar business by itself. Microsoft is pretty well diversified, unlike Apple with it's reliance on iPhone and iPad and Google with 95% of revenue from ads. As usual, Asymco comes with shortsighted analysis that mistakes the trees for the forest.
That's why the people with their own money on the line are buying up MSFT (stock went from $27 to $35 due to the last earnings report) instead of the air-headed armchair analysis that we see on here of 'lol my grandma ditched her PC and got an iPad so that means M$ is dying'.
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is literally doing better than ever financially. Ignorant tools are worried about market share percentages instead of market volume.
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The problem is that Apple makes more than that off just the iPhone.
And, given projected growth, iPad will be making more than that by itself too.
Yeah, MSFT is doing better, but much less better than everyone else. Hence the problem described in TFA.
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Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:5, Insightful)
So long as Microsoft is profitable, it will always be around regardless of other parties. Microsoft will make iPhone and iPad apps if that's what it takes.
They wouldn't be in the privileged position that they're in now though. It would be much harder for them to lock customers and developers into their products. They would probably survive, but they would shrink substantially. MS's strategy always revolved around controlling the platform, not just writing software.
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt it. Maybe for the consumer space, but nobody in business land is heading towards OS X and only a few Really Big hitters are going Linux. Microsoft is going to be the core mid level business platform for a while yet.
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Yeah, it is. PC sales have been flat to negative since the iPad came out.
http://allthingsd.com/20130304/another-annual-decline-for-pc-sales/ [allthingsd.com]
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would imagine the reason for this is because of MS's enterprise penetration. I don't see Microsoft leaving the enterprise any time soon. But I can see its consumer market shrinking considerably.
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, for a natural market, but lock-in is lock-out at low adoption rates:
- Office requires (works completely in) Windows, and hasn't been able to un-require it despite trying for years. Sure there's a Mac & Online mode, but they're behind.
- Lync, SQL, Exchange, IIS, Windows Server: Only Windows businesses care
- Visual Studio: (Mostly) only Windows businesses care.
Tie all those to a minor OS (instead of a dominant OS), and they won't be billion dollar businesses.
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You know - people say that about Office, and have been saying it for years. It doesn't make it any more true than saying it three times. I haven't used a MS Windows version of Office for at least 6 years, and yes, I do interact with Office for windows. You know the primary reason that Mac Office and OOO/LO are perfectly acceptable? Because the majority of MS Office users I deal with are still in the dark ages of Office 2003-2007. Even the minority who are somewhat current are only running 2010. Also, most o
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Also, most of those users only use the basic functionality,
That is the biggest thing. I know less than a hand full of people that need MS Office. That is mostly Excel. One of them would have a hard time without word (she could do it, but it would be a bit painful), and none of them need PowerPoint.
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In my experience, Impress's biggest problem is that their stock templates are pretty amateurish. Given a good professional template, it can do everything that really is necessary for presestation software to do. Excessive use of the bells and whistles in my mind takes away from a presentation rather than adds anything. Having to endure presentations where a speaker pauses to allow his bullshit aimation to finish is mind numbing.
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:4, Informative)
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If windows ceases to dominate the desktop PC market -- which is a
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:5, Insightful)
It also makes no sense to slam Apple because they 'rely on iPhone and iPad' because the number of phones sold every year totally dwarfs the number of PCs sold every year. Furthermore, Q1 PC sales in 2013 were down 14% from Q1 2012. Smartphones and tablets, on the other hand, are in total growth mode.
MSFT has become a creaky, reactive company and always seems to be following the market rather than defining it. They might well dominate the PC industry for some time, but their bread-and-butter is in a rapidly declining market (desktop PC OSes and applications) and even there they are losing market share.
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or people are pointing out that Microsoft is just becoming like IBM. You aren't sure what they do. You own nothing from them...but somehow they continue being more successful year over year.
Time scales of traders and slashdotters.. (Score:5, Informative)
That's why the people with their own money on the line are buying up MSFT (stock went from $27 to $35 due to the last earnings report) instead of the air-headed armchair analysis that we see on here of 'lol my grandma ditched her PC and got an iPad so that means M$ is dying'.
The time constants of slashdotters discussing future of MSFT and the traders are vastly different. Slashdotter think 1 year is short term, 5 years is medium term and 10 years is long term. People buying MSFT @ 35 think 1 quarter as short term, 1 year as medium term and 3 years as long term. And the hedge fund honchos think 1 micro second as ultrashort term, 1 second as short term, and 1 minute as medium term and 1 hour as long term. And these hedge fund honchos will happily risk 1 trillion dollars for 1 micro second to pursue a possible profit of 25 dollars. And they will happily do it 1000 times a second. No wonder we are hosed.
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Hypothetically speaking, Windows tanks, MS will still do just fine with their business and solutions.
...after they port them to Linux or Mac OS X? Because, hypothetically speaking, if Windows tanks, you won't have a system to run those installation packages.
Re:Parent has got it. (Score:5, Informative)
Think about it this way, Microsoft got started in the OS business by being an app provider whose apps a lot of people liked. They then leveraged that and the money to build an OS and then used the app business to build on their OS value. It was only later that the OS and the apps flipped in value, with the OS dominating everybody.
What the.... ?!@#$ parallel universe history are you talking about!??? Microsoft started as a language vendor (not typically considered an "app") selling BASIC, then got into the O/S business by buying QDOS and selling it at a ridiculous markup to IBM, who just wanted something quick for their (they though) ill-fated "personal computer".
They later used the profits from their DOS O/S to build "app"lications like Word to outcompete Word Perfect and Excel to outcompete Lotus 1-2-3. In the future, please take the time to have some clue what you are talking about before posting...
Re:Parent has got it. (Score:4, Funny)
Ill bet his universe has Unicorns in it.
And loose women.
Sigh, sucks to be us, I suppose.
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They'd do just fine. In fact, I think they'd do better.
Windows is a good product. I mean, the windows ecosystem as a whole. XP and 7 are great. The server OSs are fantastic. Office and exchange are de-facto business standards.
If they had a bit more competition they might actually start listening to their customers a bit more. That way ever-other windows release won't be an unsellable pile of garbage. Vista had a business adoption rate of less than 9%. Windows 8, which is completely inappropriate for a busin
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That said...
Microsoft has everything to worry about,.
Unless and until Mr. Ballmer is removed from CEO, Microsoft will never know how to compete in a profitable manner without having the benefit of a dominant, monopolistic marketshare to leverage.
Short run versus long run (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft owns both gaming and workplace PC's. Nothing is going to take that from them.
In the short run you are quite correct. In the long run though the picture is far less clear. Microsoft has viable competitors in gaming both in hardware and software which they have been unable to drive from the market. While not likely, it's hardly inconceivable they could lose their grip on the gaming market in time. The biggest source of Microsoft's dominance in the work place isn't Windows, it is Office. Specifically the Office file formats (.xls and .doc especially) are the main source of their dominance. That isn't going to change in the near future but history shows that office product dominance doesn't always last. Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3, etc used to rule the office and eventually they were pushed out of the way. There are some very real threats to the Office monopoly (Openoffice, Google docs, etc) out there. Whether any of them will eventually push Office out of the way I honestly cannot predict but it isn't impossible in the long run.
Tablets aren't meant to replace PC's, they're just too different kind of devices,
You forgot the key word "yet". No, tablets don't compete directly with PCs now but in time they unquestionably will. Remember that PCs didn't compete directly with mainframes back in the day either but eventually they did. There is no fundamental reason a tablet couldn't be put in a dock and used as an office computer and in time the probably will be. A tablet is just a general purpose computer which focuses on a touch interface rather than a keyboard/mouse interface. I think it is only a matter of time before someone figures out how to adapt them for office work.
I would love the ability to plug my phone into a dock at my office (possibly with some extra processing horsepower/storage and connection to the office phone system) and have it be my work PC as well. Think something along the lines of a Mac version of OSX when docked and IOS when undocked. Done well that would be hugely useful.
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Tablets are good at replacing, the average Consumer PC. And they should, PC's for well over a decade now have been more powerful than what average web user needs. However the PC will still be around, when people say the Death of the PC, it will be the Death of the Idea that you will need a PC to function in society, that is becoming less true. However you will still Need PC's for Software Development, CAD, Research, etc... For real work. Just because you need the extra horsepower to get the work done. A
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Microsoft owns both gaming and workplace PC's. Nothing is going to take that from them. Tablets aren't meant to replace PC's, they're just too different kind of devices. Microsoft has nothing to worry about.
Number of Macs in 'workplace' has increased dramatically. Windows based PCs are not the only 'choice' for small/medium sized companies anymore. Enterprises still, of course, have to run Windows. For how long, we'll see.
And when it comes to gaming PCs - you are just being funny.
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Re:Yes a smaller Microsoft can survive (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's rewind to a previous millennium long ago swept away in the sands of time. Let's go way back to . . . 1990.
Then the sudden realization hit. IBM's PCs were priced at monopoly prices and people were not buying them. The company was in crisis and had to reinvent itself. It got new management. Times got leaner. And they weren't committed to past management decisions.
By 2000 we had a much nicer IBM that was focused on its profitable mainframes and was friendly to both Linux and Java.
After Microsoft reinvents itself, it will have retreated to and focus on its profitable business. Microsoft has a very profitable and serviceable business with its Enterprise software Windows, Outlook, Exchange, Office, SQL Server, etc. Like IBM before it, Microsoft has already begun embracing open source (Apache, PHP, etc etc) that enabled its enterprise customers to do what they do.
Like IBM, Microsoft won't go away. Probably ever. But it will become a smaller and gentler Microsoft without the nastiness and bullying once it has been de-fanged of its monopoly power.
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Well, the premise of the headline was *if* windows doesn't dominate. You are technically rejecting the feasibilty of that precondition.
In terms of MS owning both gaming and workplace PCs, that's not something I'd want to bet on. For one, you have Valve throwing some weight behind Linux. For another, you have consoles that include, among other things, Android platforms that are fungible. Think about how the Wii, despite exceptionally mediocre capabilities dominated share in the wider game industry. The
Re: Yes they can (Score:3)
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os x just needs to remove the hardware locks and o (Score:2)
os x just needs to remove the hardware locks and or have a $800-$1500 desktop system. With at least 1 X16 dual wide slot + X4 (X16 size), maybe X8 X8 in a X16 slot. as well. at least 2 HDD bays + 1 least one ODD bay, 4 or more ram slots, gig-e or faster. USB 3.0 as well. Maybe firewire or have a X1 firewire add in card.
Thunderbolt can be down with a on board video chip + add in video card in a X16 slot.
Re:os x just needs to remove the hardware locks an (Score:5, Informative)
There's no way Microsoft can fully test their products against the infinite combinations of hardware, old and new and forthcoming, that are possible in the world outside of their labs. Users are going to pay for this in the form of crashes and problems, it's unavoidable.
Apple, OS-X, iOS, etc., is not perfect. It has problems, but in my experience much fewer than Windows. I've used MS operating systems professionally since Dos 1.0 through Win 7 and currently use it, but I'm infinitely happier with my Mac equipment like the Air that I'm typing this on. OS-X has its limitations and problems, and though Win 7 is a very good product, I'm still a lot more frustrated with it than I think I should be. We pay a higher price for hardware, and it's fairly high-end hardware and lasts a long time. I would really like less expensive and expandable hardware, I'm just not sure that fits Apple's culture.
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IMO the real problem with Apple's desktop hardware is they don't offer a mid-range tower, so you lose out on a lot of flexibility. They've only got the all-in-one iMac, the ultra-expensive Mac Pro, and the Mini which is basically just a laptop without a monitor.
Even if there was something like the Mac Pro that used consumer hardware (e.g. not Xeons!) but was a bit more expensive than what you'd pay from most other vendors or if you built it itself it would at least be worth a look. But at the moment for me,
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I don't think Apple cares about edge case midtowers or workstations. Witness the cold shoulder they've given to MacPros over the years. They're targeting a specific demographic, a lucrative demographic. Not the average Slashdot reader. They even seem happy to cede pro graphics to Windows - most big graphics companies run either Win7 or, for the really heavy lifting, Linux based proprietary solutions.
Apple wants to stay in it's groove which is high volume consumer appliances.
I'm going to bet that this ye
Re:Yes they can (Score:5, Insightful)
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Linux or Android or iOS or whatever will attract the titles
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Re:Yes they can (Score:5, Insightful)
This has been predicted since the 90s and has failed to materialize. It has failed to materialize further in the current generation of gaming consoles, which aren't even ahead in terms of hardware to PCs anymore: the chips and processors powering the new generation are approximately mid-level graphics which can be obtained today. Not in the near future - but now.
While what we consider "the PC" may change, it seems pretty apparent that the future is more platform diversity using off-the-shelf components, not less. So long as people still game with a keyboard and mouse, on a machine they might also use for other things, "the PC" as a gaming platform will exist. And with the current trends, it seems likely that PC market-share is only going to increase.
Re:Yes they can (Score:4, Interesting)
The Linux running on portable devices is kinda irrelevant though. Right now the only two tablet OS's worth developing for are iOS and Android. Nothing else really matters, and though TECHNICALLY Android runs on a Linux kernel, its not "Linux" as we know it on the desktop side of things. Developing for the Linux desktop basically puts you in no better position for an Android port than porting for anything else.
Re:Yes they can (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, iOS isn't "OSX" as Mac users know it on the desktop side of things either (you need the iOS emulator in Xcode to run an iOS app on a OSX environment).
Re:Yes they can (Score:5, Informative)
There is no iPhone "emulator" for development. The "simulator" doesn't emulate ARM. It links your code to an x86 build of the iOS libraries.
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Will the most Developments picking up Steam is Steam. There have been Linux Game companies before who failed, not that I am saying Steam will fail, but history doesn't look too good.
Linux still has a hardware compatibility problem, Sure it works fine for most Hardware but there is enough out there to cause greef. Just look back at Windows ME, and Vista. Their biggest problem was Hardware Compatibility causing the OS to become insecure. Linux on a large scale will create a lot of headaches, and people w
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> There have been Linux Game companies before who failed,
10 years ago. A lot can change in 10 years. This article is proof of that.
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The obvious one would be printing. This is an area where both platforms are unnecessarily crippled by their OS vendor for no apparent good reason. This highlights why tablets are not really general purpose PCs. They kind of resemble them but really aren't much different than game consoles.
The moment you think outside the box, the PC is going to be a much better problem.
Although this isn't inherent to tablets. The tech is there. Policy just gets in the way.
Absent change, the absence of artificial barriers th
Re:Yes they can (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes they can (Score:5, Informative)
Explain how an iPad or Android tablet with a bluetooth keyboard is functionally different than a laptop running Windows?
less ram, less drive space, weaker prossesor, less powerful video card, less control of the system. thats how.
Re:Yes they can (Score:5, Funny)
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No:
- weaker processor: What's your CPU usage right now? http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=samsung_exynos5_dual&num=4
- less powerful video card: My phone's GPU is more powerful than the most common desktop one (Intel integrated).
- less control: I replaced my phone & tablet OS with a different userspace, kernel & all. Less savvy users get info on what an app will do before they install it.
Maybe:
- less Ram: My Phone has 2GB LPDDR3. Tablets have more. It resembles PCs 5 years
Re:Yes they can (Score:4, Interesting)
Office can go away. Microsoft needs to have it (or a stripped-down but file-compatible version) on iOS and Android, preferably by yesterday.
Right now, everybody* uses MS Office if it runs on their platform. This creates a network effect, and so everybody* uses MS Office. Once a large number of people start using other things, not everybody* uses MS Office, and the network effect goes down. Businesses will continue to use MS Windows and MS Office for the foreseeable future (however long that is), but a lot of executives will want something that runs on their iPad (or Android tablet, but the execs I've seen have iPads), and that's where the cracks will open up.
Microsoft seems to be betting that executives will use Windows 8/WIndows RT tablets because MS Office will run on them, but the iPad has had time to become entrenched, and it's a big change to MS (unlike Android, which is quite similar to iOS). They also face major sanctions if, say, the EU says they're abusing a monopoly to push into another field.
I'm of the opinion that you push what sells, and don't lose lots of sales to try to establish another product, but that's me, and apparently not Ballmer.
*For approximate values of everybody only.
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I love my MS mice and keyboards. They make some of the best keyboards I have ever owned - and I own a Model M. (I have to be honest here, I really don't prefer the noise. I use a "silent" keyboard by choice these days and what a blessing it is.) As for mice? I love the various models offered by Microsoft. I'm on a laptop and am too lazy to go look at the moment but one of my favorites has four buttons (five if you count the scroll wheel button) and horizontal and lateral scrolling. It's a perfect fit for my
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PC gaming is a niche, there are far more casual gamers out there using consoles or mobile devices.
Steam alone peaks at about 5 million users online concurrently every day, Dota2 peaked at over 300,000 players on Steam today. WoW has 8.3 million subscribers. Diablo III sold 12 million units, more than any game ever on the PS3, and as many as any non-bundled game ever on the Xbox360 (CoD black ops sold the same). The Sims 2 sold 20 million units.
These kind of numbers show the PC is not a niche market.
If Windows doesn't survive... (Score:2)
What is stopping MS from creating an Android and/or Linux distro? Their own phone (running Android)? XBox seems to be doing well - we'll see how XBox One does.
Mice. Keyboards. Legacy support for Windows.
MS has lot's of life in them yet.
Microsoft would lose a lot of patent royalties (Score:2)
Re:If Windows doesn't survive... (Score:5, Insightful)
Their own pride, and probably corporate policy which says "all things must be Windows".
If Microsoft announced next week they were doing an Android or a Linux distro, their stock would probably tank because that would be interpreted as basically saying "we're losing the fight, so we're looking into other things".
I agree that Microsoft is far from dead, and are likely sitting on huge cash reserves. But I don't see Linux and Android as a way forward for them.
They'd do a better job of actually listening to what people want out of their products, instead of just releasing a much hated Win 8 only to have to reverse course with the changes in Win 8.1.
Me, I'll be curious to see how they fare with the next XBox -- because I suspect lots of people are reading these press releases and thinking "gee, that doesn't sound like what I want".
Margins (Score:2)
What is stopping MS from creating an Android and/or Linux distro?
Margins. It would be quite impossible for MS to create a differentiated product from Android and/or linux. Basically they would be at Google's mercy at that point. If MS were to ever do what you suggest it would be as a MUCH smaller company, probably post bankruptcy or buyout. There would be little value in yet another Android/linux distro from MS.
MS has lot's of life in them yet
No question. I can't conceive of any scenario whereby MS isn't a huge player for at least the next 10 years. There are some serious threats to them out ther
Losing share may save Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
A real challenge to the Microsoft hegemony would squeeze out the idiocy and arrogance that currently dominates the company. Forced to pay attention to users and developers, Microsoft would never have created a disaster like windows 8, or the developer-hostile policy of allowing languages and platforms to "dead end."
Heck, someone at Microsoft might actually wake up and figure out that the policies and strategies that benefit Microsoft in the long run are those that benefit users and developers, not the marketing department, or upper management bonuses.
I joke. I joke. Of course this will never happen.
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On top of what you said, not having a "monopoly" status and eventually being able to properly integrate/bundle stuff without the euro fining them over and over will help them be more competitive. Having to compete with companies that can make 1 stop shop solutions, while doing the same gets you fined for countless millions every time, is.... "tricky". Sure, they deserved it, but once they're done paying for past mistakes, they can finally go back to being on par.
I think... (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft makes more money on Xbox & business licensing than in the consumer market.
Consumer MS has been declining for a while now.
Doesn't stop some dumbass author from writing an article, or an editor who can't distinguishing between Windows desktop OS and Windows Server, from "predicting"/praying for the death of Microsoft via their lynx browsers.
But can MS *dominate* the market? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course msft can survive.
But, can msft continue to dominate the industry the way they do today? Can msft continue to vendor lock everybody? Can msft continue to force so-called "upgrades?" Can msft enforce their proprietary documents format?
Sure msft can survive, but will they be anything like the msft of today?
Can they use the linux kernel ? (Score:2)
Sometimes i wonder whether we might come to a point, like 10-15 years from now, where it might make more economical sense for MS to just rely on the Linux kernel (perhaps contributing just some resources to it, the way that other companies do) instead of having to develop and maintain their own. That could free up resources to do other things, and potentially help to gain some share in the mobile device market, where it looks like NT-based kernels might never be as efficient as Android or Macs.
Re:Can they use the linux kernel ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Android is most certainly Linux.
What it is not is GNU.
Stallman's rants about "GNU/Linux" were actually onto something.
Trending away from Microsoft (Score:2)
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Samba 4 has a ways to go before it can replace AD. Believe me, I'd love nothing better than a drop in replacement for Windows Server, but I think Samba has at least another three or four years before it reaches that point.
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Samba 4 has a ways to go before it can replace AD. Believe me, I'd love nothing better than a drop in replacement for Windows Server, but I think Samba has at least another three or four years before it reaches that point.
Web based mail is great until you don't have access to it due to an outage, etc. At least with Exchange and outlook you have an off-line copy to work from.
Also, if you think that Email is THE killer app for Exchange, think again. THE killer app for Exchange is Scheduling (both people and resources) and I have yet to see any other product do it as well.
MS Lync is also a nice little add-on as you can see if the email recipient, assuming it is someone internal, is online and can IM them instead. It makes co
Tip for MS: Don't alienate your core markets! (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion, the whole "PCs are dying, everyone will be on tablets and in the cloud by 2017" meme is a little overhyped. It's true that PCs are no longer the only computing devices available, and tablets are definitely getting good enough to replace PCs for most "read only" tasks. However, even with suitable Bluetooth keyboards and other accessories, creating documents and content on a tablet is still very difficult. I'm sure it will continue to be this way until some new UI paradigm pops up like 100% fluent voice recognition, wildly gesturing to type, etc. For writing software, messing with spreadsheets and even playing high end games, PCs still have a place. It's just not 99% of the market anymore. A good example of this is the Surface. It's amazing to have almost a full fledged PC in a tablet form factor and lets you build some really cool applications that the previous Tablet PC form factor didn't address well. But I wouldn't use it to write anything longer than an SMS, tweet or quick email...it's just not built for huge gorilla hands. :-) On the other hand, it's great for watching movies, surfing the web, and other Millenial-approved social media tasks.
Microsoft seems to have missed this fact with Windows 8, probably because they were panicked about Apple and Android dominating the tablet market. Or their marketing department came in and said "zomg Millenials and hipsters are chooing a tablet-first approach to computing, we must capture this market." And that makes sense -- people of a certain age have been raised with Facebook and smartphones, so they're used to it. However, they also have jobs, and probably use PCs and laptops at these jobs to create content. Windows 8.1 appears to be backtracking on their tablet bet a little bit, but not totally -- the Metro "app" ecosystem is here to stay. (As a side note, my primary complaint with Windows 8 was not the Start screen, though it's nice they're bringing the button back -- it was the awful 2-D Windows 2.0 user interface, and it looks like they're not bringing back Aero in Win8.1, so that sucks.)
Microsoft will continue to have decent market share in workplaces. Desktop PCs will most likely fade out as laptops get more powerful, but the idea that the tablet form factor works for every situation is crazy. Even when hardware begins shipping with touch screens by default, some people will prefer not to use them. Windows Server 2012 (and Windows 8 under the hood) are actually very good products. But they do need to listen to corporate customers. How hard would it have been to bring back the classic Start menu for companies who are deploying on desktops and laptops? Why wouldn't you allow your customers who were happy with Windows 7 to keep most of what they liked while having the option to use the new stuff? In my mind, not listening to corporations who buy millions of licenses will make them less relevant, not the rise of the tablet.
Re:Tip for MS: Don't alienate your core markets! (Score:4, Interesting)
I've seen a lot of Windows "sysadmins" who were beyond lost when the command line came into play, and have worked at a few "Windows only shops" like you describe, but I believe that for the most part, the BYOD thing is denied simply because IT departments can't support it at their current resource levels.
When you open up BYOD beyond a subset that can handle it, it's not just "let Tristan and Kayla in Marketing use their iPads for updating the corporate Twitter feed." Even with official support policies in place, you will run into support problems and get dragged into fixing people's problems. Truly secure BYOD also requires that you re-architect the network and servers such that even internal user LAN/WLAN segments aren't trusted, and that is a big engineering investment, mindset change and equipment purchase for large companies. In a perfect world, BYOD works 100%, it's limited to 40 or 50 tech-savvy users who never need any support, and all devices work with everything you have in the office. In reality, it's 6000 people trying to use Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Mac OS on 100 different devices, and everyone eventually has problems. What works for a Silicon Valley startup doesn't work for a huge established company, unless you do your homework. And corporate IT departments usually aren't known for cutting edge innovation...
As for the command line thing, Windows administrators were put on notice back in Server 2008 R2 that the GUI was going to take a back seat to PowerShell and that companies were likely going to be deploying Server Core in places where they had a full server OS before. In my mind, Server 2008 R2 was the first release that really got PowerShell to the point where it can completely replace the GUI.) If they don't want to learn, I'm sure there's people who will do the work. :-) I'm not a huge PowerShell fan, but I do see the value compared with using VBScript, or worse, batch files as long as you put in the effort to properly design your scripts. Seriously, I've worked in places where I've become "the Linux guy" or "the Mac OS guy" just because I take the minimal effort to be somewhat cross-platform. It's not hard.
The way of IBM or the way of DEC . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
In the early '90s, everyone said that IBM couldn't survive. Look where they are now.
In the late 80's, everyone said that DEC would crush IBM. Look what happened to them.
So I guess it could go either way:
Megasoft Business Services . . . ?
. . . or iSoft . . . a division of Apple Galactic Life Systems . . . ?
It's always fun to speculate ..... (Score:2)
The way I see it, there are no really good answers to the questions in the original article. Will MS market-share keep plunging? A *lot* of that hinges on the long-term popularity of the trend of people using tablet devices in place of computers.
If you're the type who likes to bet on future results based on current trends? Then yes, you have a lot of statistical data in your corner. "John Q. Public" and "Jane Doe" who were never really very good with computers to begin with absolutely LOVE devices like the
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Marketshare (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a PC running Windows. My household has a 100% Windows marketshare.
I buy a tablet and a phone. Suddenly my Windows only has 33% marketshare, while Android went from 0 to 67%!
But I still have a PC running Windows. So does a billion other people.
Gotta love 'em analysts.
End of Microsoft format control (Score:3)
When Bill Gates first discovered the Internet in the mid-1990s, he spent three hours on line, and wrote in a memo "I didn't see a single Microsoft file format". Microsoft's dominance has relied heavily on proprietary file formats. But now, if it won't work on a tablet or phone, it's useless. This reduces Microsoft's control.
The magic answer (Score:4, Insightful)
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And how well does office run on tablets/touch devices like microsoft is pushing? And what if native windows/.NET isn't a commercially viable target for consumer applications? How well will Visual Studio sell then?
Surface: The tablet that runs Office (Score:2)
And how well does office run on tablets/touch devices like microsoft is pushing?
That depends on how the public reacts to Microsoft's new "Surface: The tablet that runs Office" ad campaign.
Re:Surface: The tablet that runs Office (Score:4, Funny)
The public seem to be reacting by buying lots of Nexus 7s.
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Really, where are the numbers? Why is Google hiding the real numbers just like they do for the badly selling Chromebooks? They do release numbers(see Android activations) if they are good, so they must be bad. Even Microsoft has come
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Re:Not to worry (Score:4, Insightful)
Wine (Score:2)
What else would businesses run?
Wine.
Should Microsoft's market share decline, developers of applications for businesses that want to sell to businesses running GNU/Linux or Mac OS X will port the applications to GNU/Linux or Mac OS X. This could involve making Wine a supported variant of the Windows platform alongside Windows, just as they supported Windows 98 and Windows NT/2000/XP in parallel.
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What else would businesses run?
Uh, Android, Apple, or anything with a web browser. SaaS, Cloud, etc. Not to say that works for every use case, but every use case used to be a windows pc. Plenty of work environments are using tablets (ipads) now as either replacements for pc's or supplements to them, making the pc less important. And the whole point of the article is that the demotion of the ms based pc is a pretty significant trend. Does MS go away completely? Of course not. Are they earning significant less than they would have if thin
iPad also has a barrier to entry (Score:2)
Windows will not succeed in the tablet space because of its barrier to entry. Users will look at it and see that not only will they incur an additional cost
Windows RT has "an additional cost". The iPad also has "an additional cost", yet it succeeded. Could you explain the difference?
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Are you serious? Please tell me it at east supports IMAP.
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Nope, but at west it supports SMTP.
Steam box (Score:2)
Subject: Windows will always have a place...
in the hearts of people that like to play video games on the PC.
That depends on to what extent Valve is able to bring Steam to GNU/Linux through various Steam boxes. With Steam Box and Sony's opening of PlayStation platforms to more indie developers [ign.com], it could very well end up that every Windows game that isn't ported to PlayStation 4 is ported to GNU/Linux.
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Take a non-creative office drone. These days a huge percentage of their job will just be putting some information in some web-based application. The rest of the time will be doing something involving Microsoft office.
Now, assuming that it's not a shitty web ap that need IE 5 to run (big assumption, mind you) all you need is Microsoft Office and then the Android desktop becomes viable for your employees that aren't actually doing heavy work.
If Microsoft ports Office to Android they slit their own throats.
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I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Netscap
To be fair . . . (Score:3)
You are comparing very old Apple technology, to very old Microsoft technology.
I am not sure if that proves anything about the current state of either technologies.
Microsoft and gaming (Score:3)
Ya know, I have to give Microsoft some credit on one thing: they were not always big in gaming, nor did they leverage their way into it, from what I've seen. That's a pretty recent phenomenon. Back when people were complaining about their PC coming with a "free" copy of Windows 3.1 that they didn't want, and which just provided a counter-incentive for upgrading to OS/2 or whatever, Microsoft wasn't in the console business. They had a few
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They're not doing so well on the other fronts either. I think Ballmer needs to go - if Microsoft is to survive. ;)
So now we're supposed to cheer for Ballmer to stay?
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Microsoft have always been ridiculously arrogant and out of touch with what their customers actually want, (most recent examples are their windows 8 GUI decisions and crappy Xbox case design), however I cant believe they really want the Xbox One to fail as a product.
To me, the decision to include always-on DRM in the Xbox One strongly implies that Microsoft already know for a fact that the PS4 will have the same thing too, otherwise Microsoft wouldn't have taken such a big risk. Apparently Microsoft are alr
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