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."
Re:Yes they can (Score:2, Interesting)
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?
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.
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 . . . ?
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.
Re:Server & Tools too... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 of those users only use the basic functionality, which other office suites have little trouble with.
The rest has even less traction, approaching the irrelevant.
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.
Re:Parent has got it. (Score:2, Interesting)
Presumably before Windows hit a low enough share to kill the apps, the apps divisions would start clamoring to begin porting their software. If the Microsoft executive team at that time is not completely delusional, they will approve that.
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.
There is no reason they couldn't port to other apps and revive the fortunes of a humbled Windows by making really good apps and then bundling a (hopefully much improved) Future Version of Windows with their apps for maximum compatibility. While it is unlikely that Microsoft could pull the same trick twice and rise to unrivaled dominance again, they could still become quite profitable again on a second try.
Of course, that assumes the end of executives with thought processes like what produced Windows 8. If they remain that out-of-touch, their fall could come faster than anyone might expect.
Re:os x just needs to remove the hardware locks an (Score:3, Interesting)
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, an Apple desktop is just out of the question.
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: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.
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.
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.