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Where Microsoft's Profits Come From
derrida writes "Microsoft is the largest, most profitable software company in the world. In case you had any doubts about where Microsoft's profit comes from, there's nothing better than a graph to make all those numbers clear. As you may have guessed, the desktop division is quite profitable, while the online division is a money pit."
What I find most interesting is the way all changes are perfectly synchronized with the exception of entertainment related stuff. This is clear indication of the power of vendor lock-in and tying unrelated products together.
What I would find interesting is to know what events occurred during the valleys and rapid climb moments indicated in the graph. Specifically, what happened in Dec '06 and Sep '09?
We look at the graph: MS is losing like 500Million per year on the Online Division
Then we look at the other graph and sees that Windows and Office has a 2Billion a year profit, EACH
And then we have to read crap like this: "We wonder when Microsoft will finally decide to do what it should have done years ago: Save its money and flush its entire online division down the drain."
No hon, SteveB is stupid, but not as stupid as you. It's called 'strategy', look it up. If it's working or not it's a whole different matter.
how long until
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And Google's cash cow is search advertising and loses money hand over fist on YouTube ($753m last year).
Isn't 2007 the one with the ribbon that no one can use? Doesn't that make it a new product, the fact that no one knows how to use it anymore?
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
But where they do the worst, is where they have real competition, and where they do the best is where they have a sanctioned monoply.
Microsoft is the same company they were 20 years ago. Windows, Office, and Server software are how they make money.
Everything else under Balmer's tenure has been a (financial) failure.
Now, Balmer wants to spend the war chest to win the "search" war. I've just got one question for Steve:
Hey Steve, how much money did you make on the browser war?
This idiot wants to kill Google by spending tons of money on search, yet he has not explained how this will make Microsoft a single dime.
For Microsoft to grow and prosper in other areas, Steve Balmer needs to go.
-ted
After all these years... it's still Windows and Office. After all these years and new products. It's time to fire some executives. Microsoft apparently can't make money at anything new it does. Unlike Apple.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
IANAL and IANAAC (american citizen), so i'm asking this to whoever is any...
can't shareholder sue microsoft's chief officers/board of directors for lost profits ?
I mean, 2 bil a year is money they could be paying as dividends, right ?
can someone clarify this to me ? thanks;
What ? Me, worry ?
They make their profit on their monopoly products and lose money on almost everything else. That is why the methods they use to maintain these monopolies continue to be the subject of antitrust investigations.
This also demonstrates that they are very good at maintaining their monopoly, but not so good at successful new product development. With a stagnant pipeline, they are especially at risk as FOSS alternatives like Linux, Firefox and OpenOffice become less "alternative" and more "maintstream".
in that they have a single-source of revenue. Discounting the pocket-change that they make elsewhere, take away google's ad revenue and they would cease to exist. Would the same be said of Windows and MS? Maybe Office or 360?
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Office and Windows have been their big profit centers for a long time. The big surprise there is that Office looks like it accounts for slightly more of their overall profit. And it was a surprise to see the margin on the server group. Back in the day I worked in a MSFT shop, it seemed like every day we were shelling out money for some license, another CAL or connector because the one we got didn't cover internet connections during a full moon, the support subscriptions that would regularly see large price increases, a piece of support software that was expiring. It was an every day thing that someone would come in and need money for something. Getting on without Windows servers is a blissful breeze in comparison.
You can argue the merits, but I find OpenOffice and GoogleDocs work for me. At home and the office. When we replaced Office with OpenOffice at the shop there weren't any complaints about the change. We did field a lot of calls about how to do stuff (mail merge), but there wasn't anyone crying for Microsoft leeks and onions. Although we didn't have anyone doing a lot of footnotes, either. If memory serves that's one feature of Word that pays for itself in a research setting.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
How am I wasting money by paying for products like Win7 and Office?
This graph impressed me.
It shows that Microsoft hasn't been significantly successful in diversifying the sources of its profits. MS Windows/Server tools aren't going anywhere soon. However, there are a number of alternative office suites out there, some low cost, that are user friendly. If a company with marketing intelligence and financial resources got behind one of them Microsoft could be in serious trouble.
How is OO.O not taking a bite out of their profits?
They're using their grammar skills there.
I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000? What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them? How did they lower your other costs (e.g. hardware)?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Microsoft has about $40 billion in cash. Surely interest income should be there somewhere, probably higher than Entertainment and Devices is on the graph.
Are you kidding? Office 2007 was such a radical change in UI that it took me about 3X longer to put together a simple document over the prior version. And just to keep everyone who's ever used the product on an even level with the intern who's been there 6 months, there's no "classic mode" button!
I understand product managers get tired of just fixing bugs, but there's a reason we don't change keyboards and paper sizes every 20 years. Imagine buying a pen or pencil that now required you to hold it parallel to the paper instead of perpendicular. That's basically what MS did in Office 2007.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
What would you accuse them of?
Google Buzz, an add-on to Gmail that some have compared most closely to Sharepoint, one of Microsoft's enterprise tools.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?
Sharepoint is like a corporate wiki. It's got more in common with Google Wave... in fact Wave is like a cross between Sharepoint and OneNote.
I noticed one difference between Access XP and Access 2003. They apparently added data dictionary triggers, so if you changed a field name or table name in a database, it automatically updated views and forms and reports based on that table. I thought that was pretty cool.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Isn't 2007 the one with the ribbon that no one can use?
That was my idea.
And yet, a decade without innovation seems to have cost Microsoft nothing in terms of their core markets, and their experimental markets seem to be flat. Almost as if they are trying to push the market in a direction the market knows better than to follow.
What a surprise. If you want to sell an Office or Operation System the first thing your customers will ask you, how good does it support Microsoft Office file format or how good will my Windows only applications running.
It's good to have an almost monopoly, you just need to polish your old applications, make the binary formats slightly incompatible, so if some important person buys the new one, everyone else must upgrade, too.
I mean, what choice do customers have? It's either Windows 7 Starter or Windows 7 Home Basic or an Mac in the Apple Store.
Every school in the western world is teaching only Windows and Office. Microsoft is not a company, it's an institution. Every Computer vendor in this world have to support Windows and all the big ones are promoting Windows with everything they have. Just try to get a new Computer, everyone will have a "Xxx recommends Windows 7" and if Microsoft will have a new Windows 8, every big vendor will put a "Xxx recommends Windows 8", regardless of any quality.
For MS and the vendors it's a win/win situation. Microsoft have ads and it sells Windows, as well as other products that are build on top of Windows. The vendors get the Windows copy for free (or almost for free).
Just try and implement and sell a new system or office suite. The entry line to this market is like enter in the tourist space market or to colonize a new planet. But a system or an office suite are very simple applications. You need some know-how, but it's not rocket science.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
What would really be interesting is see a comparison of profits from their OS division to their gaming division. Gaming is a huge industry and the Xbox is fairly popular. I would not be surprised if the gaming division kept up with the OS division but I can imagine the profit margin is lower for each game/console sold.
Recently I came across Guy Kawasaki's lectures. In one of them he mentioned, back in the 80s when he was a Mac-Evangelist, Macintosh department employees were given world class treatment like professional massage treatments during working days, First Class air tickets if the flight is 2+ hours etc.
But in reality, Macintosh wasn't earning a dime and continuing the spending spree of all what Apple II department was earning. In return, not a single Apple II employee was permitted to enter the Macintosh building.
I observe some similarity here in Microsoft too (i.e. one department earns, other spends). But seems it is not that bad.
In my humble opinion, I predict the demise of Office and Windows OS in next 10 years (maybe there will be cloud versions). I believe Microsoft will move into more enterprise/back-end technology space rather than remaining in desktop/consumer space (just like IBM). But nothing can be predicted to a higher accuracy, as the internet backbone is yet to achieve higher bandwidths and reliability, which is somewhat mandatory before a full migration in to a cloud based software eco-system.
One year they have vast amounts of money, think they own the world. 10 years later, their cash is being spent on a dozen failures which they can't own up to and then, suddenly someone makes their core monopoly irrelevant.
It takes years, possibly decades for them to stop moving but it happens.
Deleted
I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000?
Buy a new PC with it preinstalled.
What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them?
The same productivity that comes from the rest of the new computer with which the Windows operating system is bundled: a faster CPU, more RAM, a larger hard disk, etc.
I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000? What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them? How did they lower your other costs (e.g. hardware)?
Well, new versions of Office simply exist to force you into their new file formats. Office 97, simply put, does everything anyone could want, and does it well. The only real selling point for the latest iteration is the collaboration technology in it, and even then, that's only good for you if you're using it in a business or groups. There's really no practical justification for a home user to upgrade Office.
Windows 7 though, that's a bit different. It appears that MS has really given us a reason to move on from XP, with better graphics support and better security, without the bugs of nags of Vista. Windows 7 is really what Vista should have been. And it would be more compelling if all versions of 7 were 64 bit native, as CPU's have been 64 bit for quite some time now. The 64 bit part would be the real selling point here, as it would allow all versions to move past that 4 GB memory limit, hardware permitting. For a lot of people, the only reason they really had to move to XP from 98SE was the file system limits on FAT32. While 98 was more stable than 95, the reason I upgraded was the 2 GB FAT limit that was smashed with FAT32. Microsoft too often forgets that we need practical reasons to upgrade, not just shiny eye-candy. And real practical reasons, not artificially forced situations like their new Office file formats. The only reason they did that was to force businesses away from 97 and 2K.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Can you still get winXP and office 2k? Maybe he had to buy a new computer and didn't want a legacy OS on it. Computers don't last forever you know.
You can still get brand new Windows 95 discs on Ebay. XP and 2K are no problem to acquire. And I'm of the school that says unless there's a real reason why you should upgrade, you shouldn't be forced to. Lots of people use older operating systems because it suits their needs. I'd say for 90 percent of businesses, Windows 2000 would quite ably suit their needs. The only reason many businesses upgrade is because "Microsoft tells us it's time to upgrade".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
When Alaren said it hadn't "changed meaningfully", I don't think he meant that it hadn't changed at all. It's been standard operating procedure with Microsoft to reskin Windows and Office with each release, shuffle around all of the buttons and controls, etc. It's always the case that some people like the changes and some people don't. Some people really like the Office 2007 UI.
I think the idea was that they haven't significantly added much to Office's functionality or drastically changed the way we work on Office files. To be fair, that's a tall order. It's hard to make drastic changes to something that works well and that people are relying on. On the other hand, they had billions of dollars and 12 years to work on it.
It does seem like maybe they're starting to make some real efforts now, which seems like a good change. The fact that Exchange 2010 has webmail support for browsers other than IE; it seems like a good sign.
If you are buying a brand new copy of the OS... then why would you buy an old version that is out of support, or about to be out of support?
The main reason that people are forced to buy new versions at all is because they are under an OEM license and can not (or at least should not) use their old copy.
For the record I think the OEM license is the way to go for most people, even if they build their systems themselves. You save about 50% of the cost with the OEM license and normally the system lasts long enough to justify having to purchase a new license with a new system. When saving 50%, you can get two OEM licenses for the same price as one that migrates.
"His name was James Damore."
Over the total lifetime of the division, what is the net profit of the "Entertainment and Devices" department? How much has Online cost, total? And what has it positioned them to do in the long run?
Well sometimes there is a sort of "halo effect". The XBox may be helping keep both developers and gamers on Windows, which would justify even substantial losses. Online service might not be making money in itself, but it might be worth it to them just to keep people away from Google.
On the other hand, I've also had a lot of times where I wonder what the hell Microsoft is doing. They often seem content to dump money into R&D while refusing to turn any of it into decent products. Meanwhile they seem intent on maintaining their userbase through lock-in rather than customer satisfaction. Honestly, there are times when I think Microsoft executives are sitting in a room somewhere saying, "Who gives a crap if anyone likes this product?! We'll just make sure they have to buy it whether they like it or not."
Office 97, simply put, does everything anyone could want, and does it well
That's just not true. Try publishing a book with Office 97. Suppose you want to change the style of your section headings. LaTeX can do it with a simple change in your header. Just edit a couple of lines and you're done. Or, suppose you want to change the style of references in your bibliography. Again, just a few quick edits in LaTeX. I have no idea how you'd do that in Office 97.
While I can't say that Office 2010 offers anything over Office 97(due to lack of experience), it is definitely not the case that Office 97 does everything one could want. I have heard that the equation editor in 2010 is much better, FWIW.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The "article" does not contain a single info on where the data actually comes from.
It's public information, from Microsoft's 10Q filings with the SEC. See Note 17, "Segment revenue and operating income".
I'd known that the whole XBox operation was struggling to break even, but I hadn't looked at the numbers for the online sector in a few years. They're losing big in that area.
Note that the Windows Division includes "Windows Live", which includes Hotmail and Messenger. "Online services" is the ad-supported part of the operation, including Bing and MSN portals, plus Microsoft's dying dial-up service, Microsoft Access. Ad revenue is way down for Q4 2009: "Online advertising revenue decreased $32 million or 3%, to $934 million, primarily reflecting a decrease in display advertising and advertiser and publisher tools revenue."
If their online "profits" are any indicator, we'll see where the rest of their profits go as we all slip further and further into cloud computing. The rise in popularity of Mac OS and other alternate platforms make the "switch" pretty easy these days.
Here's your classic mode:
http://www.kingsoftresearch.com/KSOScreenIms.aspx :)
Open Office has a long way to go before it's really a big threat.
-1 overrated is not a substitute for "I disagree". I know the main groupthink here is "Microsoft is always wrong/evil/bad/etc." However true that may be, let's not begin the argument with bullshitting ourselves.
OP posted a conclusion that I thought was recklessly summed up. It's easy to come up with other notions on how this graph could look the way it does - I posted one.
If you disagree, fine. Post something that refutes my argument. A good starting point would be to look up Apple's revenue and see if it tracks with MS. If they track together, that's evidence of a common cause which would back up my argument. If they stray, then that would argue that the economy may not be the common cause.
It's lazy to use your mod points as a way to bury your head in the sand though. So stop it, please. Let's seek the truth no matter what it may be. Then we'll be able to proceed on solid ground, rather than simply jerking off to groupthink.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Windows 7 though, that's a bit different. It appears that MS has really given us a reason to move on from XP, with better graphics support and better security, without the bugs of nags of Vista.
Meh. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with Windows 7, but I don't think it's that compelling. Security? We've all had Windows security more or less figured out for years. Put it behind a firewall, install some anti-malware software, and don't allow normal users admin rights. Throw in some user education, and you're there.
Graphics support? Windows XP does a fine job displaying email and and spreadsheets. That's all most business users need.
I like Windows 7 well enough. It's prettier than XP. If it were free, I'd probably be using it. I might even consider buying it if it didn't require activation. I'm just not going to spend lots of money to get a kill switch installed on my computer without significant benefits.
"If you are buying a brand new copy of the OS... then why would you buy an old version that is out of support, or about to be out of support?"
And if you buy an OEM copy, you don't get any support. Not that you get any meaningful support with a retail copy. Sure you get patches but then the newer OS often needs them....
There are many reasons for a person to buy a new OS. Support really isn't a good reason.
Apparently, you are not a Excel user.
Try copy/pasting your post above into an Office '97 Excel cell and see what happens.
Option to do something like that correctly wasn't added until the 2007 edition.
Why?
Was it because Microsoft is an evil heartless corporation that intentionally chokes and cripples their own applications just so they can keep selling you another version WITH those options a few years down the road?
Or could it have something to do with available processing power and memory on an average PC in '97, 2000, 2003 and 2007?
Also, if you find Office '97 a paragon of text and statistical data editing, publishing and presenting... You need to get out more.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The graph provides no insight into how costs are allocated and determined across MS. Without an understanding of costing it's hard to say anything about product profitability; except that MS made a lot of money overall.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I like their mice.
That's about it however.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
What is this "Windows" label on the region of the graph where "white collar crime" is supposed to go?
Patches are necessary no matter what road you take. This is of course the support I was referring to. Good luck getting new patches for Windows 98.
"His name was James Damore."
Will modern web browsers run on Win2k? I doubt they will, and I doubt that 90% of businesses could function "ably" using a browser from a decade ago.
I'll go on the record as preferring the ribbon to the menu.
the first thing your customers will ask you, how good does it support Microsoft Office file format or how good will my Windows only applications running
"How good?" Where the heck are your customers, in West Virginia?
As always, you forget Business is War.
Just think how much would the alternative cost Microsoft in the long run.
You don't just do stuff to gain profit, you do everything to keep the competition from catching up. If you can keep (incompetent) domination of a sector at a 5% loss, you're better off if you allow a competent competitor to gain this domination (and earn lots), and then let them use their profits to dominate you in domains where you profit.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Easily maintaining consistent formatting throughout a long document is not a niche issue.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Do you even use these applications you're commenting on?
Microsoft Excel is bar none the best spreadsheet program in existence, and the 2007 version beats the crap out of the 2000 version. Right-click on a cell and check out the formatting context menu. That alone saves miles of mouse travel.
One point that has been missed so far in this discussion, IMHO, is that Microsoft's substantial Windows and Office revenues are not entirely disconnected from the addon effects of satellite products and services which help to preserve and enhance the profitability of the core franchises; even though individually those satellite products in services might only break even or even lose money. For example, do you believe that Microsoft Office would be nearly as valuable as it is today without the integration with SharePoint and other Microsoft products and business servers? A substantial part of the value proposition of Microsoft is in this "ecosystem" of products and servers which work well together in an enterprise setting ala Voltron or, if you like, the Borg.
I got my hands on an early Office 2007 beta, so I wasn't quite as shocked by the ribbon. In my opinion, Office 2007 is the first version worth buying since version 6.0 for Windows 3.11
I sat down with Word and said, "Woooow! Look at all the new stuff you can do!" It had citations management! Bibliography generators! A few other things that I can't remember at all, but was wowed by!
There's also a few nice-to-haves like built-in PDF generation. It's also much nicer on my netbook display because the ribbon can minimize to just the tab headings - word 2003 requires you to have ALL of the toolbars up to be useful, and they take up extra vertical rows on the narrower screen.
Then I noticed that pretty much all the things I was wowed by were also present in 2003, and probably earlier. However, most of it was buried in menus; I just never saw it until a feature was given its own prominent position on a ribbon tab.
So, that makes me probably the only person that likes the new ribbon. Anybody who dislikes the ribbon on Word, however, is clinically retarded. The "home" tab looks EXACTLY the same as the default toolbars on Word 2003. You'll rarely go to the other tabs unless you're a "power user," in which case you should be capable of appreciating the removal of a few layers of disappearing menus.
I work for a campus help desk, and very few people called when we rolled out 2007. The only program that was substantially different was Excel, and the heavy Excel users are generally smart enough to figure out their own problems. We did save a lot of phone calls after they got rid of the disappearing menus - Office 2003's habit of hiding infrequently used items proved befuddling to our users.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Maybe you heard of it - it's when a lot of people buy new PCs ... and new PCs all have copies of Windows preinstalled.
No sig today...
Just because you don't know how to do it in Office, doesn't mean the functionality is not there. I don't know what support Office 97 has for styles, but in 2007, all your basic styles are on the "Home" tab of the ribbon. I can edit styles however I want to, open/edit/save style sets, etc.. The whole point of the ribbon is that Word 2003 (well, actually Access was the original motivation) had all this functionality that nobody knew how to use, or even knew existed. Styles have been around since at least Office 2000, and they're essential to getting document maps to function properly, but I've hardly ever seen anyone else use them until Office 2007 came out and they became the most prominent feature on the Home tab.
Windows 7 have a much better scheduler than XP as well as many security improvements. The additions to the graphics subsystem are also rather nice as are the changes to the UI are too bad either. The improvements to the IO subsystem make it much easier to use the system while IO activity is going on. Why should you stay on XP, a code base that is rather insecure and doesn't have modern security features?
[Windows 7] would be more compelling if all versions of 7 were 64 bit native, as CPU's have been 64 bit for quite some time now. The 64 bit part would be the real selling point here, as it would allow all versions to move past that 4 GB memory limit, hardware permitting. For a lot of people, the only reason they really had to move to XP from 98SE was the file system limits on FAT32. While 98 was more stable than 95, the reason I upgraded was the 2 GB FAT limit that was smashed with FAT32. Microsoft too often forgets that we need practical reasons to upgrade, not just shiny eye-candy.
I try to follow your logic there, but it doesn't really work. In practice, most people do not actually need more than 4 GB of memory right now, nor will they in the near future. (Well, to be more precise, nor should they, but goodness knows what could happen.) In other words, support for the fifth gigabyte of memory could not be a major selling point.
I'm willing to bet that the majority of people have "isolated instances of personally-valued issues".
I bet most of the remaining would be well-served by wordpad, which comes free with Windows.
How can you make such pronouncements without asking my requirements?
If you buy retail, you won't get any "support" either. Other than the aforementioned patches that everyone gets. There's really no reason not to get the "system builder" edition unless you plan to swap out motherboards frequently.
*unless you're a student. Then you can get windows 7 for $30, which is about 60% less than the price of Windows XP eBay edition. ($75-90).
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000? What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them? How did they lower your other costs (e.g. hardware)?
There has been a dramatic shift to the 64 bit OS in Win 7:
Windows 7 eclipses Vista on Steam, 64-bit dominating 32-bit
If you shop Walmart.com - every desktop $300 and over is 64 bit Windows Home Premium, every laptop over $350. That's about 150 systems, only ten of which are priced over $1000.
The geek's ten year old office suite probably isn't going to integrate well with SharePoint.
It won't be off-loading tasks to the GPU.
Incremental improvements in productivity do matter when you have 1500 full and part time clerical workers on staff.
That is why it is worthwhile for Microsoft to invest time and money in improving something as basic as cut & paste: How does usage data improve the Office User Experience?
yeah, the Xbox may be more about keeping Sony off-balance and preventing Sony from attacking Microsofts core business. There's nothing stopping Sony from selling PS3's with Linux pre-installed and throwing a copy of "Linux for Windows users" in the box. All they'd have to do is put OtherOS support back in the Slim or bring back the Phats. And that would be a threat to Microsofts dominance in the OS for "home computer" markets. Microsoft helped kill Commodore by saying, "you might need to bring work home from the office and you can't do that on a commodore, you need a DOS machine."
Microsoft knows that most home users, don't, need to bring work home from the office. They don't need Microsoft Office compatibility. In fact, they don't need Office at all. And if they don't need Office, they don't need Windows and could use alternative operating systems. Maybe they don't even need a computer at all but some kind of souped up set top box/game console with a web browser good enough for Gmail and google docs.
That may be why the Xbox doesn't have a web browser, they don't want people to realize that they can do a heck of a lot of stuff on the net, without a computer running windows.
I'm going to make the horrible patriotic arguments that people around here hate, but... well here goes.
I'm actually really glad that one of the major game consoles is made by an American company again, and puts out almost entirely games aimed for an American audience. Before the Xbox came out, every console RPG involved metrosexuals with 12-foot-long swords, the Xbox instantly changed that from day 1 with Morrowind. Before the Xbox, virtually all shooters were third-person, I can't stand those games.
It doesn't hurt that both the original Xbox and Xbox 360 are *excellent* systems that both Sony and Nintendo are scrambling to catch up to. (Software-wise.)
Seriously, an American company hasn't had much of a say in console gaming since the freakin' Atari in 1983. What's happening now in the market is good and healthy, and even if Microsoft is losing money, I love them for it.
Now please mod me down for being too American and supporting Microsoft.
Comment of the year
I've had two books published that I typeset with LaTeX, so I'm biased to agree with you, but what you say is nonsense. Even MS Word For Windows 2.0 could properly support styles. I could - and did - write documents and then change the heading styles later. Unlike LaTeX, it provided inheritance between styles too, so you could define a heading style, then a heading1, heading2, and so on style for the different heading depths, and update all of the subheading types just by changing the heading style that they inherited from.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Particularly telling is the lack of profit from Bing. Propagandists like to swagger about how 'successful' Bing is. But DARN! No profit!
It works like this: Blow advertising dollars for months on end promoting a product, and it will gain market share. But will it gain actual profit? Let's watch what happens when MS stop the advertising bucks.
Darn again! More swagger about how successful the XBox is. But where oh where are the profits?
Here's how it works: You buy your way into a market and knock out all the competition with loads of spend, spend, spend to promote your product and buy game developers and sell your hardware for less than cost, and eat all the costs from over 50% hardware failure (yes, entirely true!) and in the end, after all the carnage to your competitors, WHERE ARE THE PROFITS? Oh. That sucks.
But Office hasn't changed meaningfully in 6-12 years--sure there are new features that some folks like, but when I switched from WordPerfect 5.1 to Office 97 (?) that was the last time I noticed a significant change in feature set and usability. And the Windows OS has had a lot of changes under the hood, but XP to Windows 7 is much the same progression as Office 97 to Office 2007--security and cosmetics but no real innovation.
Can you define what you mean by "innovation" ? Examples would be best.
Then we look at the other graph and sees that Windows and Office has a 2Billion a year profit, EACH
That other chart shows profit for each quarter.
How can you make such pronouncements without asking my requirements?
Because I'm blindly assuming you want something that just works, is fairly secure, and fairly stable.
That's what most people want.
I can do a lot of things with Office 2010 than I couldn't do with Office 2000. Search folders, RSS, Galleries, better task management, better calendar sharing, better utilization of 64-bit machines....
Windows 7 has some nice advantages as well - it's faster, has better 64-bit support, some nice improvements to the UI (such as pinning items to the taskbar), is more secure...
Are either of them "must upgrades for everybody"? No. Some people will do just fine staying on Windows XP and Office 2000. But a lot of people, especially folks who are power users, will find a lot to like in the new versions.
-B-
Gosh, I would have thought that the Baby Roasting and Bayonetting business would have shown up more clearly.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
W7 allows me to use all 4GB of my ram. The jump to 64-bit is probably the best benefit, but the improved graphics handling is very nice as well.
Funny I find that Vista, Windows 7, or Server 2K8/2K8R2 do work, are stable and secure. Can you explain how they aren't?
I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000? What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them? How did they lower your other costs (e.g. hardware)?
Workable desktop search. Unlike Google Desktop Search, it handles partial words and characters with accents well, and is more seamlessly and pervasively integrated, and results are better presented. While a little slower, it's just better period. This alone is worth the upgrade for those using desktop search. I never fathom how folks can consider Google Docs a competitor to Office. It's like toy prototype software or at best, abandonware. It also amazes me how they can't make better software. With HTML5, the new JS engines etc. and Google Gears caching it would be possible to make an online Office competitor such that it would have desktop software quality, features and responsiveness. For the record: if I had the choice, MS would not be in business for their anti-competitive behavior, I support Google, and never use Bing or even Yahoo.
Citizen Kane anyone? They can afford to lose money there as long as they please, and they've got good reasons to. Some things are more important than maximising next quarter's profits.
You just got troll'd!
The refund i got from Acer for the windows 7 license i rejected last week will show on that chart next quarter i'm sure. if given with better resolution.
What simple features took you that long to relearn?
Windows, Office, and Server will eventually be replaced with Linux someday...
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -Linus
The sad part is that the kernel alone wont replace Windows. We still need to fix GNOME into something
non-bloated and good enough that most will agree on it beeing 'the GUI for Linux' . KDE and most
WindowManagers are very nice but they dont fill that gap.
A fully working replacement for ActiveDirectory is also required. Or am i missing something obvious?
And a little more work on Wine.
With these three in place i dont see any reason for n00bs nor organizations nor me to loose any more
money to Microsoft.
Will modern web browsers run on Win2k?
Yes.
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I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000? What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them? How did they lower your other costs (e.g. hardware)?
Well, new versions of Office simply exist to force you into their new file formats. Office 97, simply put, does everything anyone could want, and does it well. The only real selling point for the latest iteration is the collaboration technology in it, and even then, that's only good for you if you're using it in a business or groups. There's really no practical justification for a home user to upgrade Office.
Windows 7 though, that's a bit different. It appears that MS has really given us a reason to move on from XP, with better graphics support and better security, without the bugs of nags of Vista. Windows 7 is really what Vista should have been. And it would be more compelling if all versions of 7 were 64 bit native, as CPU's have been 64 bit for quite some time now. The 64 bit part would be the real selling point here, as it would allow all versions to move past that 4 GB memory limit, hardware permitting. For a lot of people, the only reason they really had to move to XP from 98SE was the file system limits on FAT32. While 98 was more stable than 95, the reason I upgraded was the 2 GB FAT limit that was smashed with FAT32. Microsoft too often forgets that we need practical reasons to upgrade, not just shiny eye-candy. And real practical reasons, not artificially forced situations like their new Office file formats. The only reason they did that was to force businesses away from 97 and 2K.
//Microsoft Employee Here//
You're right, consumers need compelling reasons to upgrade to a new version, but the point critics must accept when talking about a huge feature pool in a product like Office is "what is important to me?" The 10% that you use, will be different from the 10% I use. A financial analyst will extract different value from Excel than a presenter will from PowerPoint.
If you work in IT, the fact of the matter is that you are uniquely UNqualified in most circumstances to know what features in a product like PowerPoint, Access, Excel, Publisher, and Word, will make employees more productive. You have to ask yourself, do you track operational clicks? Do you time how long it takes for a marketer to create collatoral? What is the output quality of a document from Office 2k vs Office2010? Will more row support improve a financial analyst's ability to have a single doc vs. spreading them across multiple linked files?
Most of the time, people in IT only consider the most basic of information worker productivity. They don't see the value of the enhancements in Office because they themselves do not live in the product. If you don't believe me, try Outlook 2010 and compare it to previous versions of Outlook, its a much better experience and makes your more productive. Only if you live in the application, would you be able to determine the value of an upgrade.
To close, the whole point of MS Works was to be a consumer suite. For one reason or another, Office has moved from the workplace to the home. Microsoft realizes this and will be offer a free version of MS Office called "Starter" which will include Word, Excel, Powerpoint.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139162/Microsoft_to_put_free_Office_Starter_2010_on_new_PCs
Final point, for a business, if you were to save 4 minutes a days doing simple MS Office tasks on the computer, over the span of a year, most, if not all organizations would pay for the license of Office. Calculate it. Given, this is only one view in that equation, but things that are trivial in Office 2010 are pretty tough/complex/annoying to do in older versions. Print Preview, resizing, social networking, ECM integration, sharing content, etc...the list is huge.
What simple features took you that long to relearn?
Auto-rant.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
An all 64-bit Windows 7 would lock out A LOT of hardware. Not good.
Good-bye
> What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them
You can work more efficiently, safely and at larger scales. You don't need to be a wild MS supporter to acknowledge that there are significant improvements in Vista & 7 from the fundamental design of the system (utilizing the graphics card natively to buffer windows, UAC providing a "sudo" like mechanism) right through to the UI (true native integrated search, libraries, aero peek etc.). In general the OS *scales* better - it is designed to handle a larger number of installed and running programs.
Windows 7 though, that's a bit different. It appears that MS has really given us a reason to move on from XP,
Yes, it's called 'pulling the plug on security fixes'.
Can't argue with that virus gun pointed at your head! That's what I call a significant value proposition.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
"Microsoft tells us it's time to upgrade".
That might be true except for the giant period you ignored where almost everyone didn't upgrade to VIsta, funny XP gets all this praise after years of being torn apart as the most insecure OS during the Vista release and even after the excuse that Vista was bloat which Win7 came along to fix people still complain.
Win7 replaced an old copy of WinXP on an old Dell 1150 laptop and it actually runs better even though I only invested $30 for 2GB of ram at FRY's, even though I had to do a quick google search for video drivers everything else(wifi,burner,etc) worked perfectly fine.
MS used to always be great at the compatibility part and terrible at security/stability, but they have really fixed those two other voids with Vista/Win7 and the ball is in their court. Linux missed the biggest opportunity to capatilize on MS's blunder with Vista and there might never be a chance again for 15+ years considering how stable Win7 is.
So I should spend 700 to 1000 dollars on a new computer that can run windows 7 and office 2007 because they're as good as XP and 2000?
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Gaming is a huge industry and the Xbox is fairly popular.
The console and PC game industry as a whole was worth $20 billion in 2007. Electronic Arts: Lost in an Alien Landscape Microsoft raked in $19 billion in revenues in its last quarter.
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Except that you can't customize the ribbon. I have to do the same pattern of a dozen clicks in Outlook frequently. If I could decide what goes where on the ribbon I could reduce it to 3 or 4. Why in gods name don't they give me the option?
There are many things to get this worked up about. That is not one of them. It helps put things in perspective if you imagine walking up to someone in the street and saying this to their face.
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Isn't 2007 the one with the ribbon that no one can use? Doesn't that make it a new product, the fact that no one knows how to use it anymore?
Someone seems to know how to use it: Bestsellers in Software
#5 Office Home & Student 2007. 1147 days in the top 100.
I suspect I know what you're driving at, but would you care to frame it less rhetorically? I'm disinclined to launch skeet for you, but I'm happy to discuss your objections should you desire to actually voice them.
You appear to be criticising a lack of innovation. I want to understand what qualifies as "innovation" to you, so I know whether your criticism is reasonable, or standard Slashdot anti-Microsoft rhetoric.
700 to 1000 USD buys one hell of a system. To buy one that runs 7 very nice will cost you less than 450 if you wait for a sale.
But a system or an office suite are very simple applications. You need some know-how, but it's not rocket science.
There is nothing simple about an OS or an office suite.
In 2003-2004 OpenOffice.org had reached 9 to 12 million lines of code. Build FAQ for OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org statcvs (Lines of code)
Microsoft spends an enormous amount of time and money on studies of office work and the office worker. That is why it can take a chance on something like the ribbon and win - and why competitors like OpenOffice.org are left playing catch-up.
What's wrong with "How good"? Is it "How well"? My first language is German not English.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Wow 9 to 12 Million SLOC. Do anyone have a statistic of with module of OO.org have how many SLOC and how complex it is?
The Linux Kernel with all the drivers have 12.6 Million SLOC. How is it possible that an Office Suite have more that the whole kernel+drivers?
For the spend money and time I'm not very impressed with Office. My impression is, it's the same as the first Office Suite, a pretty dump text editor with some extra tags to get some format and buttons for the tags. I really don't know why they need to have so much SLOC. The same goes for Excel, Presentation and Database. Very simple applications.
Now with Latex I'm really impressed. A very intelligent piece of software, that really do the work for you, instead that you always fight for the right format.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
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I can tell you one very enormous thing that you can do with Office 2010 that you can't do with Office 2000. Get mail using RPC over HTTPS. I have found this to be a HUGE hit for companies that I have worked for. Instead of popping mail, using Outlook Web Access, a Firewall/VPN solution, or jumping on Remote Desktop, users simply open Outlook when they are at home just as they would at work. The speed is consistently good and along with the fact that it is so convienient makes this a huge upgrade.
Regarding Windows 7 vs. Windows XP, I'd have to say the answer is "Use 16 GB of RAM". Windows XP 64-Bit was pretty much terrible. Windows 7 64-Bit? Not terrible. With Engineering (Cad, 3d modeling) tools and software development tools increasing in complexity, having enough RAM to avoid constant paging is very nice.
There. Two decent examples without thinking much about your question.
Save As, Office 97-2003 Document (.doc) You can even set this option as your default, I am pretty sure.
You aren't FORCED to use the new file formats. You can use Word, Excel, and Powerpoint 2007/2010 without ever creating a DOCX, XLSX, or PPTX file. The only way you are "Forced" into the new file format is if people you share documents with refuse to save the document in the old format. Even then, Office 2003 at the very least (And I believe Office 2000 and Office XP) have a converter tool free from Microsoft that you can install to allow you to open the docx files.
Maybe he's not upgrading and these are his first purchases of MS products.
This isn't correct.
They are muxing their online services and their xbox 360 hardware.
They are making a profit on Xbox Live, unlike the chart is showing them losing money on it.
Be seeing you...
As much as I detest MS, but in fairness to their R&D...well....R&D in general...it does not need to translate into new products. It needs to get translated into products even if those products are currently existing and the R&D is simply streamlining them or making them better in some way. Those kinds of improvements will be off the radar to most end users. It isn't clear that MS is doing this but I expect some of it must be happening.
That said, MS probably has the problems many big companies have with R&D, any genuinely new idea for a new product will be seen as a threat by Business School Product running the company. They will marshal their forces to defend any current products by claiming the new product will cannibalize their old products. And that may very well be the case but the result is the tired lineup of products that MS is currently pimping.
I'm shocked by that. I'd be interested in seeing what the runtime experience would be on hardware typical of Win 2000.
But touche, good sir, touche.
an interesting experiment would be too see how much hardware is needed to make Firefox reasonably fast on Win 2k, vs. how much to make it run as fast on Win 7.
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Office 97 had a few bugs to do with table layout, amongst other things (I forget exactly what, but it annoyed me at the time). This was especially noticeable when loading files created with newer versions of office (ie. your document now looks like something out of geocities rendered in IE 5).
Nested tables behaved especially badly, some of the defaults were a bit silly and when things went wrong they tended to do so rather gracelessly.
Also there were a fair few text layout mechanisms it didn't or only half-heartedly supported, which subsequent versions dealt with nicely (once again, they annoyed me back in the day, but damned if I can remember exactly which they were...)
If you changed that to say Office 2000, I'd be more inclined to agree.
(Personally I use Office 2003, and see no reason whatsoever to upgrade to 2010...)
There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face - Ben Williams
Microsoft reorganized their business multiples times in the past. I wonder if these reorganisations disturb the numbers from the graph. IIRC Hotmail was in the online division some years ago, now it seems to be reported in the Office division. I remember similiar things for their server OSs (were Office, now seem to be Windows), their embedded OS (where is it now? Entertainment or Windows?), the xbox etc.
Microsoft has a bunch of products that don't make money or at worse loose a lot of money. On the other side they have some products (Windows 7 (incl. Server) and Office) that are cash cows like nothing else on this planet. Microsoft seems to be quite eager at mixing these parts. So that Microssofts customers can't see their extreme margins on Office and Windows (which are 95% plus) and their shareholders won't complain about Microsofts many lossmaking products (everything online, embedded Windows (whatever it's called today), xbox, ...)
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel