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MS Sales Growth Limited by Delays in Windows
Alien54 writes "As reported by Bloomberg, Microsoft Corp.'s sales growth will probably drop below 10 percent next fiscal year for the first time because delays in the next version of Windows have created the longest-ever lag between releases of the software. They go into some detail on how the lack of new products also hurts multiyear subscriptions, because clients that buy the contracts expecting to get product upgrades may not renew if new items won't be available for a while. Didn't someone say once that they have enough reserves to last 5 years without any sales at all?"
Do you think that sales have also come down due to lack of compelling reasons to switch.
Office 97 as good as 2000/XP/2003 Win 2000 as good as XP 98 fine for home use..
What's the point in switching unless to Linux? Unless you like to donate to Charity through the Bill Gates foundation.
Delays in Windows are only one problem.
Some of the other serious issues Redmond is facing:
1. Worms/spyware/viruses destroying the home market
2. Lack of reasons for further upgrades to Office
3. Enterprise shift to Linux
4. Consolidating competition from IBM & Novell
In general terms, their problems stem from having cornered the market for a product that is almost out of fashion: high-cost, complex (and thus insecure) software. People need low-cost, secure software.
Their best hope is to produce an interim release of Windows 2000 that has been seriously upgraded in terms of security. But even then I don't see how they can survive the commoditization of their core market.
5 years' budget goes awfully quickly when you are used to double-figure growth.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
It won't be free, the cost will just be included in the bottom line of the new PC.
I wonder if the price of PC's will go up, or if the OEM licences will be proportionatly cheaper.
Silly rabbit
I keep watching them say it's all going to be done right, and from the very beginning I knew they'd do what they'd always do. It's like an addictive disease.
I'd be careful in discounting MS. A wait time of nearly 5 years is the longest, considering they're not exactly rewriting everything and the kernel like NT. Even NT, from scratch, took about 4 years to get done.
This is the time for Linux
I agree it is. But don't short-sight yourself. If your whole selling point relies on that the next version of Windows is absolutely going to contain critical kernel flaws, then something is wrong with your argument.
Everyone is getting sick of Microsoft's incompatibility with standards.
Everyone at Slashdot is. Slashdot is not exactly the online journal of choice for Joe Sixpack. Stop kidding yourself, and understand your competition seriously.
I post this from a Fedora machine, and I love GNOME. But it's sickening to see how dismissive most geeks at slashdot are when it comes to anything about Microsoft. The first rule of war is "Know thy enemy well".
Yea. I know.
I am terrified to think what will happen if MS actuall gets it right with Longhorn.
We have all, to various extents, been accomplices in MS monopoly 9who has NEVER purchased any MS product?)
We clammor for more scurity and fewer bugs and so forth. What if MS ACTUALLY provided a secure and stable OS? And then people upgraded to it. What then of Linux, OS X, and the like?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I find your comments about the cost of XP rather interesting. The XP Home upgrade can be purchased for 99.00 at any retail store. THe pro version is 199.00.
If you fancy yourself a new computer you can get an oem copy of XP PRO fro around 149.00. I am assumming that you are building your computers.
When you look at the cost of software the OS is very very cheap compared to other sofware packages. Symantec wants between 45 and 60 bucks for a virus scanner! So lets be reasonable and say that a hundred or so bucks for an Operating system is a good deal.
Everyone is getting sick of Microsoft
So sick in fact they don't care. Thats right, they don't care. Its just a tool, and Windows is the tool that runs everything.
Users don't turn around and say, "To hell with MS and they're security holes, I'm not gonna put up with DRM." They just don't care, they use the OS that runs software. They need QuickBooks, they want their games, so they use Windows, not because its the best techinical solution, but its the only one.
Before you type again about how every little stumble MS makes is "Linux's time," forget EVERYTHING you know about computers, DRM, DMCA, and just about everything else thats discussed here. Now your not a programmer or an admin, your just an average user. You need QuickBooks, you want to play the latest game, you need Office. You will run only one OS, Windows. Linux and the MacOS will never cross your mind, and if it did the sales person will tell you, I'm sorry no that game or that software only runs on Windows, and you'll put it out of your mind.
So no this little thing is not Linux's time. MS could turn around and call their users all sorts of names and use endless strings of profanity and people will still use Windows. And lastly, even if this did cause MS users to jump ship, it wouldn't be to Linux distros. 'User' distros have tried to make a user-friendly Unix like OS and have been for ages, but Apple beat them too the punch. If people are going to leave Windows, its going to be to the next best supported desktop OS, and thats OS X, not Linux.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Selling software is all about markups. Even with a good sized and well paid development team, you only need to make a few million before you cover the cost of R&D. Through in marketing, support, training, etc and you've maybe at most doubled (5mil to 10mil lets say). For all software giants, this is probably a drop in the bucket. They probably have their bread and butter products that gross in the hundreds of millions. That's all US owned development. Imagine if 90% of your development was outsourced, you just grow your profit margin even more. But hey, that's just business as usual...
The real rip, as you point out, is the surround support that Windows brings. It takes SO much to get a productive system, and even then you can experience disaster..... here's one scenario I'm sure you or someone you know has been through:
You call up Dell and have a spanky new PC delivered. But, you don't dare plug it into the network because you didn't get the latest virus scanner with it. So you go out, buy the virus scanner, hook everything up and start to surf the web. Assuming that you don't pickup a new virus between when you connect and when your virus scanner updates itself, you are probably 'OK' for a while.
Now of course there are almost no applicatons on your new computer. Minesweep, Word Pad, Paint... bleh. So you go get Office, buy a handful of fun computer games, PhotoShop, Quicken, Turbo Tax and you're finally starting to get use out of your computer.
As time goes on you use your computer as normal. Sometimes it hangs, sometimes a program crashes, but hey that's ok as long as there isn't a blue screen of death. At some point, you start to notice pop-ups. First a couple, then like 4 or 5 whenever you open up IE. Maybe your virus scanner didn't find them! One of your techie friends say that you got 'adware' or 'spyware' or something that's like a virus, but not harmful -- just annoying.
You find something like PestPatrol and download the free version. To your suprise you have 50-100 adware/spyware programs on your computer. Oh wait, you can't clean them unless you pay another 60 for the registered version. You buy it, you clean it, but for some reason things just keep coming back.
As time goes on you probably end up doing 1 of 2 things. First, someone might tell you it's good to reinstall Windows every year or so to "clean things out." Another option is that you just oculdn't get rid of that last virus/adware/spyware. Not being a techie, you find some directions, execute them wrong, and the system won't boot anymore. Tech support (you did get the 3 year warranty right?) says they will have to reload your systme.
Depending on if your re-install was planned or un-planned you might have saved data or not. The worst case scenario is of course that you do your re-install but you are missing all your applications! You downloaded the software instead of getting the CD... You didn't buy the upgrade service, you don't have your old license key, they don't offer the old version, and no discount on the new version....
Moral of the story, Windows seems to be a good way to pay a lot of money for things just to get a system that is actually useful to you. Also, with a system prone to re-installations you open yourself up to upgrade package fees or buying the same software multiple times. This whole scenario could have easiy been a Linux user, but the difference is the availability of free software and initial costs.
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Free your mind.