Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Is a Dying Consumer Brand
Taxman415a noted a CNN story on the dying Microsoft brand where they talk about "The less than stellar performance of, and problems in, nearly every consumer division. It cites StatCounter's data showing IE's market share falling below 50%, and is even smart enough to note that's just one statistic with various problems, though the trend is clear. It also seems that MS doesn't want to compete with Android, so it plans to charge royalty fees to handset makers to discourage them from using it in their products. The conclusion is that MS will just be a commercial, not consumer company."
It is? Doesn't Microsoft dominate the OS marketshare, wasn't Windows 7 a huge hit, isn't xbox 360 kicking ass right now, or are we just judging Windows Phone 7? Cause if we are then i gotta say it's a bit early for that. Come on CNN atleast don't make link baiting so obvious and Slashdot stop putting inaccurate shit on the front page.
That's what you get for resting on your laurels.
When I think hip, happening, cutting edge, pushing the envelope, fun.... I don't think Microsoft.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
It's not a royalty fee in the traditional sense. They are essentially patent trolling.
AND, the summary leaves out that Microsoft is trying to leverage this to prevent companies like Acer from choosing Android for their netbooks or tablet PCs, not phones.
Think about it. Microsoft has no tablet because they don't make the hardware. They make the software which allows other smaller companies like Asus, HP, Acer etc to use in their hardware. IE never made them any money instead it brought on tons of headaches and a bad reputation, we should be happy that it is dying.. not sad. Their money makers are windows, xbox, office etc.. none of which are mentioned in the article.
It's like saying Intel is dying.. oh wait I saw that the other day too!
did you forget to take your meds?
Windows is dying!
I am officially gone from
The company I work for is currently positioning itself for the post-PC era, when mobile devices take over the jobs that used to require a big-box PC, or at least a laptop. Very soon these devices will wirelessly talk to keyboard, monitors, each other, the public internet... but they'll fit in your shirt pocket. And they *won't* be running Windows. That's what scares the shit out of Microsoft. The world is changing out from under them, and they are not positioned to be a player in the upcoming mobile and cloud computing world.
Remember the past. This isn't the first time such market forces have killed dominant players in the industry. Remember minicomputer, back in the 60's and 70's? Gone. Remember technical workstations? Killed by the PC. Well, mobile computing is about to do this to the PC, and by extension, to Microsoft.
when your products (winsdows, office) are well entrenched in most companies and schools.
Lenovo's technology director recently told PC Mag that his company won't be building around the platform: "The challenge with Windows 7 is that it's based on the same paradigm as 1985 -- it's really an interface that's optimized for a mouse and keyboard."
MS wants to build everything off of Windows. That's where Apple was smart, they created different OS for the hand held devices.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The article clearly has errors in it. First of all, it makes it seem that the $10-15 royalty fee goes all to Microsoft. That is simply not the case... Google charges the largest Royalty Fee for their applications. Microsoft also charges for their stuff, but it's not the entire $10-15... it's more like $1.
Also, it states that Microsoft wants the vendors to use Windows Mobile on their Netbooks and Tablets, which is also not true. Currently, Microsoft is using Windows 7 for those devices, not Windows Mobile, which is for their older handsets. There is no Windows Phone OS 7 based software for Tablets or Netbooks either.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
Microsoft has been late to the game in crucial modern technologies like mobile, search, media, gaming and tablets.
Microsoft was doing tablets (since 2002!) and mobile long before Apple kicked out the iPhone and the iPad (yes, I'm aware of the Newton, but it wasn't directly involved in the successes of the recent mobile efforts).
Just because they haven't been doing it right doesn't mean they haven't been doing it.
I wonder whether the author of this piece knows what he's talking about. I will agree with such a statement if I see just 10% of alternative desktops on my University Campus.
Over here, Microsoft and its products represent almost 100% of IT desktop infrastructure. It would not be far fetched to say "Microsoft all the way." This is despite the fact that general student computers we use take at least 8 minutes to boot! This is a major pain every morning. Ee just have MS Office on them and they still run Windows XP.
slashdot should prepare for an unintended non-coordinated distributed DOS attack now. there will be cheers from almost every nook and corner of the earth on this post.
It seems now they don't do that.
I just watched a commercial for the 2011 Ford Fiesta... and lo and behold it talked about Sync, Powered By Microsoft.
I guess that kind of debunks that myth.
By the way, you can also see it on their website here.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
No, the xbox 360 is getting its ass kicked right now
According to the cumulative sales numbers at VGChartz, Xbox 360 has found its niche. It is still the leader among high-definition-capable video game consoles in alphabetic locales. Xbox 360 is neck-and-neck with PS3 in Europe and significantly in front (60-40) in Americas. I don't call that "getting its ass kicked" unless you're talking about Japan.
No, it is still Microsoft. My 2011 Ford has sync and there is a small little thing in the car next to the USB port that says "SYNC Powered By Microsoft.". And sync works pretty damn well so far for me, I only wish you could customize the voice.
If their consumer brand continues to erode like this, they might end up with the likes of IBM, which as we all know is not a very successful company.
I'm sure many phone makers are very happy with the fact that MS charges royalties for Windows Phone 7. This is because MS will be the one defending any IP/patent lawsuits, etc. Why do you think people are suing HTC and other Android phone makers instead of Google? Google probably isn't legally responsible. MS will be, so they are charging a small amount for it.
They aren't saying that they're dying as in going under, they specifically say its no longer a "consumer brand" - meaning that only your University Campuses, Corporations, and other services are going to be using Microsoft products, not your "at home consumers" so to speak.
They could have assimilated them that around 1998 without much of a problem, but they let them slip, now that might have been a fatal undoing for the Borg.
Microsoft has no tablet because they don't make the hardware.
Microsoft makes Zune HD. I see no reason why it couldn't extend the brand to a Zune tablet.
That doesn't say something of the BRAND Microsoft. People are using Microsoft because the market dictates the use of Microsoft products, not because they have warm fuzzy feelings about Microsoft. As a brand Microsoft has a piss poor image by a lot of consumers imho.
The CNN article is just trolling, designed to create churn for their website and show advertisers that CNN is still relevant.
Sure, a move to tablet IT and personal/handheld IT presents a risk to Microsoft - and Dell, HP and Lenovo - and even Apple to some extent. It also presents a risk to software developers due to the always-on nature of the devices. Windows users have gotten used to frequent (daily or more) reboots, and this has more to do with the erratic quality of various third party software. Because MS doesn't control the hardware as tightly as Apple does, it isn't able to integrate device drivers as well. Third party software will need to cope better with applications that run for weeks or months, rather than just hours.
Get off my la.. bah. Nap time.
Microsoft just doesn't make my blood boil the way they used to. Sure, I still hate them out of habit, but I'm old and tired now. I feel like a bed-ridden, old and gray, Elmer Fudd who still mumbles that he "could have had that wascilly wabbit', but in reality doesn't really care and just wants you to leave him alone so he can watch Diagnosis Murder.
That fact alone is a bad sign for Microsoft. They just don't matter in the same way they used to and they certainly don't drive Technology the way they did in the past few decades. Their tactics are less of a threat than they used to be. Sure, they'd do evil if they could, but they are just fruit flies at my picnic, and I've got my eyes peeled for bears.
No no no. I plan on stepping aside and enjoying my Golden Years while the next generation shakes their fists at their Apples and Googles and Facebooks.
As time goes on here the situation will grow more dire for them. Think about how many startups today are going to use their platform? I am sure there are some but
the vast majority choose not to have to pay for the software stacks they are running because they don't need to. You have this whole ecosystem that is springing up
cutting them off at the legs. Even in corporate america there is a big push to sandbox the windows os by placing it in virtual machines, sure you might be running
windows but it is being moved to a secondary position.
Got Code?
Until the day I dont see the windows logo every time I boot my PC, then I will consider Microsoft dead I dont see that happening in many years
GPs point wasn't that SYNC is not Microsoft software. It's that Ford doesn't make an emphasis on that in their advertising the way they used to do.
The reason IE market dominance was important was because is fostered the market fragmentation that encouraged computer manufacturers to use MS products. IE, for all intents and purposes, was really only fully useful on MS Windows, so if the web was built for IE, then it was built for MS Windows computers. As IE became less used, firms were not willing to dismiss 10% of their customers, often the higher income customers, just because these customers did not wan to use IE. Advances in technology meant that there were other was to implement the IE functionality, so people started creating web sites that were not IE specific. In particular, Google was not likely to make money throwing huge amounts of money to MS, so they had to come up with techniques implemented with open standards.
The question, IMHO, that the article is addressing is if the success in the desktop market can be reproduced in the mobile market in which a larger number of buying decisions in made at the consumer level and where compatibility with office equipment is not such an overriding issue. In this case, the consumer is more likley to buy something with a perceived brand value as opposed to vendor lock in. An iPhone, an Android phone, a Blackberry, can probably interface with the Outlook server and office documents as well or better as a MS Mobile phone. Such phones can also interface with social services better than a MS phone, which is limited in this respect.
The hope is that MS can subsidize the phone as they did with Xbox. If MS can get a buch of phones placed that cost $0 with a two year contract, then MS Mobile is probably a good enough product to start building brand loyalty. MS is certainly spending enough on ads and it look like they are giving ATT huge bags of money to push the phone, but if the consumer has to shell out cash to get one, there has to be some brand incentive.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Are the software patents Microsoft is asserting listed or named anywhere? I think it's time we look into busting those patents. If someone is already doing that, I'd like to know where.
The story goes that reporters were flying with Mr. Wrigley on a business trip, and he gave an interview. One of them asked 'Since you are by far the most popular gum around, why do you keep advertising so much, those "Doublemint" commercials are everywhere." He replied - "This plane is flying along pretty nicely, don't you think? Why does the pilot keep the engines on?"
What NEW stuff has MS done lately?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I won't believe it until Netcraft confirms it.
Without you I'm one step closer to happiness without violence.
Microsoft has always been a commercial brand and not a consumer one. I've never purchased (or used freely) a Microsoft product because I wanted to. (Xbox being an outlier, even though I have a PS3 now).
I think most people feel this way. It's weird to find somebody who actually chooses an MS product willingly.
With that, Windows 7 is really nice. Too bad it's about 15 years too late.
Google charges, too.
People seem to keep forgetting that.
Android's core OS is free, but the Google apps on it all cost money and everyone pays for them.
but I understand the sentiment and I think it can equally apply to Microsoft business customers. Remember the old adage "Nobody got fired for buying IBM"?
For years, nervous CTOs ensured that something similar could be said about Microsoft. But articles like this start to chip away at the belief that you can buy Microsoft's product and you won't go too far wrong.
No single event will demolish that belief entirely, you understand. Instead, little articles here and there, the discovery that some well-known organisations aren't using very much in the way of Windows on the server (such as Google), the announcement from an organisation that they're looking to migrate off Windows. Small things, but they all have a similar effect. Sooner or later, "runs Windows" is taken off the list of absolute, non-negotiable requirements for new infrastructure. It may take a while to have any serious impact - after all, lots of commercial software vendors have been producing their products more-or-less exclusively for Windows for some years, partly because of the nervous CTOs.
I don't for one minute believe that Microsoft will die. They're far too entrenched. Hell, if it boils down to it, Ballmer will be ousted by angry shareholders and someone who understands technology will take his place. But I do believe that their days of being at the top of the tree are over in some areas, and numbered in many others.
It made $145 million last quarter.
They first made a profit in 2008, of $524 Million. While it hasn't made money every quarter, to say it's "lost billions since its inception" is misleading at best. Unless you're claiming that zune sales and PC games are making up for "billions" lost (LOL!), your claim is bogus.
No, I don't remember the 1984 incident. Please remind us.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
"recent failures suggest otherwise"
Microsoft is misunderstood. Microsoft is not a software company that sometimes does evil. Microsoft is an evil company that sometimes delivers products.
That's my opinion, but I'm not the only one.
Or more likely, Microsoft stopped paying them mention them in their ads.
You're right that they no longer emphasize that point, but I think that's mostly because they don't need to. They did a great job associating Sync with Microsoft when it first came out. That association did a great job building the branding of Sync. Now Sync has its own brand recognition and they don't need to push it as Microsoft product and they can let it be associated with Ford.
The area they're [Microsoft] failing nearly completely in is Japan... who are very Xenophobic.
Japan loves em some games and mobiles and tech. Guess what, the top selling phone in Sept was the iPhone 4 (and it has been previously numerous times).
Is that xenophobia, or does Microsoft just care to not understand Japan?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The fact that IE is falling below 50% means that competition is healthy and the antitrust ruling has had a positive effect. It should not be read as a failure on MS's part because no browser should have a 50% market share, especially with four or five healthy competitors (IE, FF, Chrome, Safari, Opera), not to mention that many devices other than Windows-based PCs are browsing the web, such as iPhones, Blackberries, netbooks, and more.
If things were done legally and above-board in the first place in regards to the practices that led to IE having the position it did, it never would have had it in the first place. MS may or may not be dying as a consumer brand, but the browser share should not be a metric used to determine that.
Anecdotally, among my peers most use Macbooks
Twinstiq, game news
it should be the "i-don't-want-to-go- _on_ -the cart" dept.
MS pretty much did very little consumer computing.
They did tons of ads, had spots on many channels, people confused IE for "the Internet" and assumed all computers ran Windows. Bill Gates was idolized by many.
Remember a brand is a promise and an identity, and according to the article, they're fading with consumers.
One can only pin this fade with their lack of movement in OS and Office and complete lack of traction in recently emerging markets (online, mobile). I'd say they've done well in gaming, but that seems to be their sole bright spot.
Though they're dominant in sales, a weak brand will wreak havoc on employee morale and margins in all markets where they aren't leaders (ie everything but desktop OS + office)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Do you understand the argument? Did you purchase those copies of Windows or did they come with the computers?
You are still running Windows XP so clearly you are just running the OEM bundled software that came with the computers. This is the point being made, that people like you are NOT going out and buying Microsoft, you are using Windows because it was bundled with the computer.
Just curious as what kind of Universities you people hang out at? I've graduated from three Universities (Penn State in 1998, Manchester in 2005, then Texas in 2009) and they all were overwhelmingly (9 of every 10 computers) Mac OS based (at least in the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Natural Sciences, and Education, respectively)
The community college system that I work in uses Windows for some administrative stuff, but the academic side is nearly 100% OSX as well. Ditto for Texas State University down the road.
And before you dismiss this as Hoidy-Toidy Mac-usin College Folk...this is Texas, after all.
No, there are people who's PERCEPTION is that the market dictates it. I made lots of money for 1995-2005 using zero Microsoft products in the tech industry (Macs and Macromedia + Adobe).
The market dictates you need a tool to access email, write a document, or produce a spreadsheet. Consumers dictate which product they THINK they have to have.
The CNN piece asks whether Microsoft is a dying consumer brand , which they clearly are, not a dying company , which they clearly are not, and it's important to note the distinction. Their brand is their corporate identity, how they are perceived by the public, and I happen to agree that consumers are thinking less and less of Microsoft. The simple fact that half of Macs purchased in Apple Stores are bought by users new to OS X speaks to this. All those new Mac owners damn sure aren't migrating from Linux, and those are all consumer machines, which means fewer average folks using Windows. Macintosh now has market share north of 10% in the U.S., up from about 3% when Jobs returned to Apple; Macintosh sales have continued to grow at a faster rate than PC sales year over year; Internet Explorer market share has fallen to approximately 50% from the high 90's in only a couple years; and with the Vista catastrophe and Kin embarassment, Microsoft is being increasingly viewed by the general public as the tech equivalent of The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight. Microsoft's grip on the consumer market is loosening, and if that's not a reflection of how their brand is being perceived by the public, I don't know what is.
As to the 240 million Windows 7 licenses that Mr.Softee's defenders like to point to as evidence that the company is doing well, there's no argument here. They are doing well. Very well indeed. Microsoft still makes jaw-dropping profits on astonishing revenues, mostly from their core businesses, Windows and Office. But the good news about Windows 7 uptake is largely tempered by the fact that it was due to pent-up demand from companies, not consumers, as the CNN piece points out. Companies avoided Vista like it was a child molester and chose to cling to XP until Microsoft could address the problems. They deferred their refresh cycles again when the recession took hold,and only when it became apparent that the new OS was what they'd been waiting for did they migrate to new desktops, resulting in a tsunami of sales for Windows 7. What's important to note is that it is the enterprise that's largely responsible for Windows 7's success, not consumers. So yes, while Microsoft remains extremely important to corporate customers, they are increasingly irrelevant to consumers.
Times change. Companies change. Apple dropped the "Computer" from their name a couple years ago in recognition of the fact that they are much more of a consumer electronics manufacturer now, even though Macs are still a significant part of their business. Microsoft is simply too rich and powerful to fade away overnight, and to my mind they'll eventually become much more of an enterprise services company, a la the transformation of IBM under Lou Gerstner. Apple has moved away from their roots and Microsoft has been slowly doing the same, and I haven't considered either company to be rivals for years now. Apple and Microsoft both have a common adversary in Internet services in Google, but in terms of Microsoft's core businesses, their major rival is much more Oracle than Apple.
Windows 7 wasn't a huge hit. It just wasn't the steaming pile of crap the Vista was. Water tastes as nectar to a thirsty man, but it remains plain water. Windows 7 sells, as part of new PC's. But many a company and consumer is still on XP. For MS, this is lethal. It NEEDS the continues upgrade revenue to fund its many programs. And those who are still on Windows XP also didn't upgrade their office. A double blow.
The original xbox was a disaster, the 360 slightly less so but remember that MS counts replacements as sales. So how many 360 sales are really replacement units for the countless ring of death failures? Count these out and suddenly the figures look very different AND no matter how you count the Wii outsold it by far. The 360 is a decent performer, but that was NOT MS ambition. Sony and Nintendo are still ticking over for the next round meaning MS has yet another round to fund with its diminishing Office and Windows income.
Windows Phone 7 SEVEN, SEVEN and it is still crap. So much for the third release being the charm. While Rim, Android, Nokia and Apple are biggering about who is biggest MS is lingering at the bottom. Yet again.
A bit to early for judging Windows Mobile 7? Hardly, it is after all not the first time we handled this beast. We can judge it very easily, has MS learned from mistakes in the past? No? Then it will fail for the same reasons as before.
As for dominate the OS marketshare? Oh boy, you are a fanboy aren't you. OS market share on what? Tablets? No, that is Apple. Mainframes? No IBM. Servers? No that is Linux. Smart Phones? No that is... Apple again (at least not MS) Handheld gaming consoles? MP3 players? Media players? Oh, the desktop... yeah and Apple who does NOT sell Windows is the biggest PC seller right now. Doesn't that give you a bit of a clue?
I know it must hurt for a MS fanboy but their performance of late isn't up to form. MS has a VERY large warchest and can keep the fight going for a long time but they would be smarter to re-examine who and what they are. Their constant shifting position on Windows gaming is just a very obvious clue. Then it is "Everything must be on the console" then combined, then windows gaming alone, then windows live then back to gaming on the PC again. MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND. IE9 shows just how little the company understands about its own products. It claims IE9 can be Windows 7 only because it needs some special shit to run... there are FOUR browser makers who have FASTER browsers AND have it running on XP. But MS itself can't fix the crap IE6. That shows how little MS cares about its customers who might be running OLD software but BUGGY software that MS sold them. And don't come with IE is free because then you are to stupid to talk to.
Recent events like the London stock exchange going to linux after MS putting major money into it AND using it in ads, that shows an MS that is no longer the power it once was. IE has dropped to 50%. This is the browser installed by default as you claim by the company that controls the OS marketshare. Doesn't that TELL you something? Browsing is what most consumers use their computer for and they replaced the default browser with their own choice. It doesn't matter how you measure it, this is LOW.
And how do you measure MY pc in your OS dominance? My work PC? My servers? Running linux all, but either barebones or replaced Windows installs. In my department, the windows guys are in the minority. Granted the Apple guys help with that but still. The days when you would find only Windows machines in a company are gone. This means the days of forced use of the latest office products is gone. The boss with his apple book is a powerfull driver to use an exchange EVERYONE can use.
Bye bye lockin, the prime mover and shaker behind Microsofts success.
No, MS is far from gone, but it can't afford to many more mistakes. In many ways I think MS has become its ancient enemy, IBM. IBM could have owned the PC, it didn't because it made all the wrong choices. IBM is still there, but it no longer controls the industry as it used to. MS might end up the same if it hasn't already.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Since MS does make hardware, the x-box and keyboards and mice at least, your claim is basically: MS doesn't make a tablet because MS doesn't make tablet hardware...
Well neither did Apple until it did. And Apple makes the tablet, not the hardware that goes in it that it buys from suppliers.
So what is your argument again?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
When was the last time you saw something from Microsoft that made your jaw drop?
Remember the first time you saw Google Earth? Remember the first time you saw your house on Google Street View? The iPhone...?
When did Microsoft last produce that effect on anybody? For me I think it was maybe Windows 95. You'd have to be a really sad specimen to get excited over Windows 7 or the Office Ribbon.
No sig today...
The fundamental difference between Microsoft and Apple (or other consumer product companies) is that people like you or I are not MS customers.
Microsoft's customers are Dell, HP and Acer, and large corporate IT departments. That's where most of their money comes from, and they know it. MS cares about their needs and not ours.
Ian Ameline
OMG, dying consumers ;-)
that CNN is reporting it. I remember when people here were saying this, but the mainstream press had nothing but glowing things to say about Microsoft. The fact that the mainstream press is NOW saying it, means that even less technical people are looking elsewhere for the toys.
"Ones and zeros were everywhere. I even think I saw a two!" - Bender
"Windows 7 is a success? Sorry, I can't afford the article space to mention it."
Depends on how you look at it.
Independently, "Ford Festiva" and "Powered by Microsoft" aren't things that make me think "oooh, gotta get me some of that". Together, it's more of a "RUN!!" reaction.
I knew people who had Festivas back in the 90s -- they would have been better off resurrecting the Pinto name. Maybe even Edsel. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Today IBM, which will be 100 in June, has a greater market share and more dominant role in the mainframe market than it ever did. Great margins, too. If this is Microsoft's fate, then they are far from dead.
Walk through the offices any of the Fortune 2000 companies of today. On the ground, Microsoft has a death grip on IS infrastructure and the desktop.
People are underestimating Microsoft's trajectory in the mobile computing space.
Remember how Window 3.1 and Windows 95 took off? It needed the hardware to reach that level in order for people to adopt the GUI based desktop in enterprise as a mainstream device and not just for the book keepers and the odd manager (and of course enthusiasts in the consumer space).
Today's phones are reaching that tipping point in hardware maturity (1GHz processors and 1GB RAM) where a common software layer (the operating system) is an acceptable overhead and people can expect to do more than just text and email.
We're approaching a situation where the PC type software-OEM model is viable in the mobile space - and Microsoft has proven before that it can wield partners in such an environment to a common goal unbelievably well. And then the management of the enterprise sales.
But the problem Microsoft is now seeing is that not as many articles are being written about it as before in the press.
I guess Facebook with the farmtards, Google and Apple just have sexier stuff to report on. But that is mindshare.
In 1985, Microsoft was a $15M company, and Apple was at $300M. Things turn around. There have been several articles in the past where Microsoft has been cited as a late entrant into a space only to dominate it later. (leave antitrust out of this argument, the means are not the point of the discussion)
To call it a "dying" brand would only apply in reference to the public's short memory.
So once this gets to the Supreme Court, Microsoft won't have any business at all!
Microsoft encouraged companies to build in-house web apps on top of IE6, using its many poorly-documented proprietary features. Many of those features were so poorly documented and maintained by MS that they won't even work with newer versions of IE!
Obviously, this was a poor decision on the part of a lot of IT departments and corporate web app developers, but I do think Microsoft deserves a good part of the blame for encouraging such departures from web standards.
(Writing this from Chrome, while I wrangle a recalcitrant IE6 web app in another window... )
My bicyles
I got the release of the original Mac, and... nothing else comes to mind. Oh, was that the year MS "discovered" mice and innovated with Windows?
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
so dead that Apple has to send me e-mail telling me I should buy the new Microsoft Office for the Mac, which I am but I would love One Note as well.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Bravo! Now do the chair throwing thing again. You are a riot, Steve! Seriously though, you need to leave MS for it to grow into a brand people trust, not a brand that my company must thrust (upon me unwillingly). People are running to the crappy iPad away from Windows laptops. Fix that, bro!
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
And in engineering it's almost 100% Windows. Why? Software.
Someone explain to me how this post is a troll.
And that makes sense, because it's engineering. My question is why does everyone claim that their Run-of-the-Mill-State-Liberal-Arts-University runs Windows, when my experience is the exact opposite. Just sayin', most people haven't spent as much time in and working for Universities as I have, so it is an odd claim to make. (Yes, I understand the logical flaw of appeal to authority I just made, but it's a valid one).
That reminds me of a comment when car shopping yesterday. When kicking back during a test drive, the salesperson said, "its syncmyride, not stinkmyride".
Sync is pretty cool for what it offers. It definitely gives OnStar a run for its money when it comes to features.
Most commentators like this CNN reporter immediately position WinPhone7 in competition with the iPhone, but just maybe it's RIM who's really the initial target. Consider the enormous investment large corporations have in a Blackberry infrastructure that co-exists with their Exchange servers. Having Outlook on a cell phone with a secure connection to Exchange makes RIM rather superfluous.
There were 10 million Blackberries sold in the first quarter of 2010 according to Gartner. Devices running the iPhone and Android OS accounted for about thirteen million. If I were running Microsoft, I'd start by leveraging my existing clients and targeting those RIM devices. Switching a single large enterprise from Blackberries to WinPhones brings a lot of business Microsoft's way in a hurry.
First quarter year-on-year growth was 40% for RIM compared to -0.9% for Windows Mobile and 117% for iPhones. Sales of Android devices grew a whopping 800% but did not overtake the iPhone in total. Most of those phones were being sold to consumers, of course. Denting that market would be nice for Microsoft but not as lucrative as converting corporate Blackberry accounts.
The pre-eminent management professor Peter Drucker once said "The bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle." And the bottleneck at the top of Microsoft is around the Adam's apple of Steve Ballmer. If they get a creative CEO in there rather than a drone, then in 10 years he could turn it around like Steve Jobs did at Apple.
Your experience is very limited, even if it is more than most people's. Out of the thousands of colleges and universities you have experience with six or seven? And, somehow, I think if you looked closer at the other colleges in the schools you name you would find a great many more MS machines.
It must be the Japan is xenophobic comment. There might be some truth to it, but it's not nice to say so.
Regardless, the rest of the post is insightful/informative.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
If only M$ could get their heads out of their asses, and at least try to come up with a better business model, their old one just does not work anymore...offer free upgrades to all using xp to change over to windows7, not only will the net be more secure, but then you can charge them afterwards for any updates at a better price then the failing shares would allow.
Yes. Xbox fans have been making this inane claim for the past eight years.
The eight year long Xbox fiasco has racked up some 4-4.5 billion in losses for the first Xbox, another 3-4 on the second Xbox. And these are just the visible losses that come after all the other profitable software products Microsoft mixes the Xbox losses in with.
I've heard Microsoft people say the actual Xbox losses are in the 15 billion range when you separate them out from all the profitable products thrown in to hide them.
Just last quarter the E&D division that includes the Xbox lost 180 million. That means that even with all the other profitable products in E&D plus the hundreds of millions in online fees Microsoft charges a year, the Xbox still after five years losses enough money to help drag the entire division into the red.
And yet this dying brand will continue to have the most used OS in the world, and will continue to dominate the living room with Xbox 360. It must suck to be part of a company in decline.
Really? You are not seeing this on a University Campus? I see plenty of OSX around. In fact, I just recently bought a ThinkPad and wanted to see if I can give it to the Academic Computing people for warranty repair just in case, and they are posting an "OSX only" sign. And this is a major research university with a reputable CS/EE department.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
What you are mentioning is a reflection of experience at our university where I work as well. Nearly the same anyway. In fact, 90+% of the computers on this campus are windows based PC's. Macs are popular but far from a majority even with the students here. This fantasy land that universities are almost entirely mac dominated is false. Certainly, there is a higher percentage of students and faculty that use macs at universities than elsewhere but its hardly a majority. I also reflect what is said about lab and office machines that take forever to start up. But then again I think we are one of the last to still be using Novell. There is an active directory migration and win 7 migration occurring but it will take a long time to finish. I only wish the XP machines would boot faster. Taking 5+ minutes to boot a machine is ridiculous. But they have 100+ applications and network login etc along with novell that occur at startup. There has to be a better way though. I'll be glad to say good riddance to XP but now they just want to use the old XP image in vmware booting which defeats the point of going with 7 in the first place. Nonsense.
...Sure, I still hate them out of habit, but I'm old and tired now. I feel like a bed-ridden, old and gray, Elmer Fudd who still mumbles that he "could have had that wascilly wabbit', but in reality doesn't really care and just wants you to leave him alone so he can watch Diagnosis Murder.
I'm sorry you've given up on your convictions. But you know, it's never too late to change your mind and decide to live your life. For starters, why not back off the "Diagnosis Murder" or at least try to watch only what you bother to record on your DVR. Then, when TV time is done, pick up something new & interesting to learn in the open source world. Spend some time at your local Linux Users Group. Have you revised your "short list" of reasons why Microsoft are a bunch of disgusting assholes? You may not be a gamer, but perhaps your friends & families deserve to know that (just like their software products), Microsoft also cranks out garbage hardware with 40%+ failure rates (see http://www.destructoid.com/new-survey-puts-xbox-360-failure-rate-at-42--171088.phtml). Give the history lessons of Stack Inc., "cutting off Netscape's air supply", the anti-trust case and the fact that before Outlook the whole notion of a virus being spread in an E-Mail as *LITERALLY* an old Internet joke.
I'm approaching 40 and I've been a software developer for almost 14 years now & fighting and hating Microsoft since I first laid my hands on an MCC Interim Linux distro on six 3.5" floppies in 1993 as I learned that there was better, more secure & more capable software in the world than DOS. I've learned a lot, built a career, and I'm not about to give Microsoft a pass to pollute the world with more crap, vicious business tricks & closed "standards" as they always have just because I'm starting to get tired.
"Old" is a state of mind, and once you decide to stop growing and learning you're going to be stuck there...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
Really? When I was in it was mostly mainframes although they were accessed by either PCs or Macs if not on a terminal. Even then, the Macs were mostly empty because nobody knew how to use them. This was good for me because I knew how to log into the mainframe from the Mac and thus never had to wait for an open workstation like all the other engineering students. Of course, that was 15 years ago.
Still, if things have changed that much, which I don't doubt, in the last 15 years, then they could easily change again in the next 15. I think that is what is going on here, somebody is suggesting that it is. Things went from mainframes to desktop computers. House phones are all but disappearing due to mobile phones. The landscape is changing and the desktop PC may be losing ground to something else.
Microsoft dominates the business desktop and business server markets. They make boatloads of money.
But that has nothing to do with the article, which is about the consumer market. Microsoft is not doing well there, with the possible exception of the Xbox. The Xbox is kicking Sony's ass, but that's damning with faint praise. I wouldn't call the Xbox a failure, but I wouldn't call it success, either. The long-term profitability could go either way. Have they made up the earlier losses yet?
Microsoft had the browser market, got complacent, and lost control over the future of the web. They were making good progress in phones, and they got complacent, and they lost control over the high-margin portion of the market.
That's the key: margins. Profits are how you measure success, not market share. Market share is a strategy, not a goal. Microsoft has very, very nice profits in the business sector, thanks to Windows 7 and Office. And poor profits in the consumer sector.
That's a problem. Apple has shown that there is good money to be made in the consumer sector. Nintendo is making good money in the consumer sector. Microsoft isn't. That would be OK if they had decided to focus on the business sector and walk away from the consumer sector, like IBM got out of the consumer and business personal computer markets. The problem is that Microsoft has pursued the consumer market and mostly failed.
That raises questions about leadership. Ballmer's responsible for every Microsoft product, business and consumer. Microsoft has the talent and money to develop whatever he wants. So the lack of success in the consumer area has to be blamed on a failure of leadership. And that leadership extends to the business side. Is Microsoft's success there due to good decisions, or is it due to inertia and decisions made long ago?
IBM owned the computer market, back when computers were so expensive that they were shared by all departments. Technology made smaller, cheaper computers possible, and the minicomputer was created. IBM overlooked that, but DEC didn't, and DEC owned the departmental computer market. VMS ruled. Then came the microprocessor, which made the personal computer possible. DEC missed that. Microsoft didn't.
Now, systems-on-chip are here, and small, portable appliances are everywhere. And Microsoft has missed that. Businesses will continue to use desktops and laptops for many years, but the tasks that most home computers are used for can be done with other devices, and that trend is growing.
Yes, I see Microsoft as a dying brand in the consumer market. They could become a dying brand in the business market, but ten years later. Will they become a IBM, who brought in new leadership and changed direction? Or will they become the next DEC?
They SAY they're open but most people don't give a crap.
The point that those companies have set themselves up so that they don't have to compete against each other but can instead all "rise with the tide."
None of the software I wrote since 1976 has ever escaped the clutches of the companies I developed it for.
Most of the software I wrote actually deserved it. (I am unashamedly blowing my own horn but I was damn good. That's why some of it survives even now. [That, and the fact that payroll software needs "legal" status , AKA expensive and time consuming blessing by hordes of corporate lawyers. {Some of that shit may be around until they stop mainframe emulation. :-}]]
Payroll was boring but it paid the bills.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
When my daughter and I visited colleges last year they generally reported about a 50/50 split between Windows and Macs among incoming students. I have no doubt that the success of the iPod and the iPhone have a lot to do with this adoption of Macs among current college students, along with fears about viruses and possible service needs.
Actually, it's Fiesta, not Festiva, though they're both equally cursed names. Why Ford chose to reuse the Fiesta name (esp. in this age of anti-Mexico sentiment), I have no idea. The Fiesta/Festiva were always cheap, shitty cars.
It's actually OK for a car company to have shitty cars in its past, and move on from there and improve their reputation. Hyundai is a case study in this. However, their infamous early, shitty car was the Excel. Do you see Hyundai calling any of their modern cars "Excel"? Hell no. They've permanently retired that name, and came up with all-new names for their newer (and much better) cars.
It's amazing how American car companies seem to almost never learn from their mistakes.
And yes, Ford would be better off resurrecting the Edsel name. To my knowledge, the Edsel was a flop only because its styling wasn't that great, but it wasn't a cheap-ass unreliable econobox like the Fiesta/Festiva. Reusing the Pinto name would make about as much sense as reusing the Fiesta name though. What's next? A new Chevrolet Chevette?
It's still there for me! If you click the link and then click on the "Available voice activated Sync" you will see the Sync Powered By Microsoft logo on the right.
Since day one, Ford has advertised it as "Sync, powered by Microsoft." It's never been any different. I see the picture from your link, but that is not the official logo from Ford and has never been.
I do see that others ads don't have it, but the ad I just watched before my post was a local dealership advertising the Ford Fiesta for 2011 and it also had the same logo I pointed to.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
I only wish you could customize the voice.
Why? Did they use Balmer's? I'm surprised they could record him over the sound of crashing chairs.
That is all.
It is? Doesn't Microsoft dominate the OS marketshare,
Yes. However, if you used to dominate OS marketshare more than you do now, this isn't judged to be good performance.
wasn't Windows 7 a huge hit,
Comparatively speaking? Perhaps not. Each successive version of Windows could be the "best selling ever" without actually being a "huge hit" if sales of Windows did not keep pace with or grow faster than the PC market itself. If one assumes the PC market grows every year, and every new PC after the new system's release comes with that OS, you could "beat" your previous OS sales record each and every year, but that isn't really any kind of improvement. In fact, you could slip in terms of growth and market share and still claim "best selling Windows ever"-- and this is, in fact, exactly what Microsoft claims.
isn't xbox 360 kicking ass right now,
Again, in what way? The first iteration was a distant second in a three horse race, barely edging out the GameCube by most metrics. Good show for a first attempt, and certainly better than other MS products have managed (I'm looking at you, Zune.)
The 360? A slightly less distant second in a three horse race, despite launching a year ahead of the competition. It does well in some areas (attach rate of games and accessories) but less well in others (poor hardware reliability leading to large one-time charges for replacement of faulty hardware).
I own a 360 and quite a few games and it's a pretty good project, albeit not without warts. If one considers that "kicking ass" then perhaps one needs to raise one's standards, because it's neither as dominant as Windows is in its own arena, nor as good a financial performer as other Microsoft products, despite charging for things the competitors give away for free.
or are we just judging Windows Phone 7? Cause if we are then i gotta say it's a bit early for that.
Heavens no, that wouldn't be fair. It's not as if anyone else came out with a touchscreen phone with handheld computer capabilities and launched it without cut and paste, but then added it later, all the while causing furor about whether or not it was necessary... oh, wait...
Come on CNN atleast don't make link baiting so obvious and Slashdot stop putting inaccurate shit on the front page.
Since Slashdot posted that this was a CNN story that says Microsoft's brand is dying, it isn't inaccurate. It is indeed a CNN story, and the story does indeed say that. Whether or not CNN's story is accurate is a second question, but the fact that CNN is willing to make that assertion is news in and of itself.
Besides, it's not that big a stretch. The idea that Microsoft would maintain its position as king of the hill forever is naive in the extreme. One day yet it may become Just Another Company, much as IBM is today, and a brand known more for its products of yesteryear than what they make today. It's never too early for amateur fortunetellers to start pointing out that they think they see the start of this process happening right now. One day, one of them will be right.
Innovation is not restricted to technology or end product. Corporations also innovate on business methods. Microsoft's gift to the world was backward-compatibility for the masses on top of a commodity hardware base. Darn hard to do, as the open source community has discovered. Apple's take on this was "just buy everything all over again (machine, software, peripherals), we need the revenue; shiny new, shiny new, la la la la la la, can't hear you".
Back when a kick-ass PC workstation set you back three grand, the Apple tax was ungodly. It wasn't until the majority of their product line was sub $1000 that the Apple business model really caught flight. Turns out people are willing to chuck a $500 gadget that's 18 months old if the replacement gadget screams hotness. Apple should have modeled it's marketing department after women's tennis, where the careers last about as long as the average Apple product introduction, and scream almost as loudly.
What Microsoft pulled off with their business method was the most profitable business method innovation in human history even if it came mostly from the department of velcro thumbscrews, rather than the software coders. Loathed all the way to the bank.
The goal of every dominant corporation is to escape market discipline by redefining your own niche entirely to your own satisfaction. Actually competing on virtue is strictly for losers. You might even lose money if your product is mediocre. Intolerable! Mostly the companies competing on virtue are the companies that have yet to displace the incumbent gorilla. We watch Google nervously for the onset of absolute power.
Few companies wish to concede their gorilla envy, so everyone at the top of the ecosystem (gorillas and gorilla-wannabees) screams "innovation" at the top of their lungs to throw off the scent.
Did the Little Shop of Horrors innovate? Damn right, but rarely did they make an appearance as the hottest up and coming women's tennis star. Not for them to be washed out at twenty one. No, they were always more interested in being one of those old guys on the golf tour cranking up the career winnings wearing those funny clothes. The trendy golf cap with the Xbox logo fools no-one. The rest of the outfit is pure polyplad. Puffy men with Rolex's drool in admiration.
Reading slashdot feels like dropping in on a pool boy convention. Yeah, we're the man, feasting on neglected trophy wives and rolling along with a twelve-month life plan. Yeah, the man has three houses in Palm Beach and forty billion in loose change, but what has he done lately?
Embrace - Extend - Extinguish is obviously a good strategy for getting large market share and maximizing profits. However, I don't think it's a great way to keep market share over the long term, especially if you rarely innovate, are expensive and, on occasion, a sub-par value. Your customers will eventually notice you're serving your share holders disproportionately more than you're serving your customers. That's when they're likely to leave.
The Xbox is massively successful in sales, adoption, and mindshare. Former console champ Sony is playing catch up. My only console is a PS3 but I freely concede that Xbox Live kicks the stuffing out of the lackluster, unintegrated Sony online experience. Microsoft did absolutely everything right with the Xbox and is continuing to do so.
Windows Phone 7? No, it's Windows Phone 1.0. It's a new product with a bad name. (What will the next version be, Windows Phone 7.1?)
Looking at Xbox and WP 7, you see the same page from the classic Microsoft playbook. First, let your competitors spend money defining a market. When you're ready, put together a clone that does most of what the competitors do, and use the Microsoft name to establish a presence in the market. Next, release a 2.0 version in which you throw a drawerful of half-baked new features at the user. Take careful note of which ones get used and garner attention from the press. Finally, release version 3.x in which you solidify the features that people liked in the first two versions, plus streamline the experience and make it slicker.
Windows 1 and 2 were mostly a joke, but Windows 3.x became the enterprise standard despite not being as good as Mac OS. Windows 95 iced the cake.
Windows Mobile originally looked like a practical joke: obscene hardware requirements, desktop UI, bloated. Who would want such a thing over the elegant, trim Palm OS? We know what happened there.
Xbox? Seriously, you're going to take on Sony in the console space? "OMG xbox is hueg!" Yep, it's huge all right ... now.
Now we're looking at Windows Phone 7 and people are saying the same things they've always said when MS is getting ready to (re)establish itself in a market: "Too late, too slow, too derivative, too stodgy, too Microsoft!" The iPhone is the belle of the ball and Android's dance card is full. RIM has the ticket concession and the catering. MS is arriving late, slightly disheveled, and announcing "Me too!"
I always get nervous when I see MS entering a market because they have a history of killing the competition, and MS products tend to suck when they don't have competition. I ground my teeth when I installed Win 7 and discovered that, sure enough, Bing was the default (and only) installed search engine. I can only imagine how many people started using it because it was, "meh, good enough." I'm the furthest thing from a Microsoft booster ...
The iPods and iPhone have a little to do with this, but it has been this way since I first enrolled in college....in 1988.
It's more of a "I don't have time to mess around with my computer so I'll get a Mac" than a "iPods are really cool, so I'll get a Mac" thing.
It's also a "my parents have enough money to send me to college so they obviously have enough money to buy me a Macbook" thing.
Then there's the whole, "most of my friends will also have a Mac, and most of the campus infrastructure is set up for Macs" thing.
Universities have always had a skewed proportion of Macs, just like Macs are over represented amongst educated people (in comparison to the general population).
I agree with most of your points but it is likely that Xbox hardware will be profitable from now on. The losses last quarter were most likely related to R&D and manufacturing of the new Xbox model and the Kinect.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'll end up un-moderating a few posts that I modded, in order to reply to this comment.
It may seem like Microsoft was resting on its laurels, this is not actually what happened. Microsoft did not come out in a blaze of brilliance, and then say, "There, I did it. Now we don't need to do anything else, because we've made it."
If you look closely, you'll find that Microsoft attempted the opposite: based on their uncontestably dominant position, their stranglehold, they went on to try to branch out into all sorts of other ventures: palmtop computers, gaming consoles, portable media players, search engines, social portals, web servers, you name it. They even valiantly tried to trailblaze out their very own futuristic computers in the form of the tablets (no, not iPad, those laptop thingies with the swivel screens that fold back onto themselves the way your spine folds backwards against the back of your knees).
And each time, they fell flat on their face.
Microsoft has been incapable of becoming a technical leader. They just plain don't know how to innovate! Imagine it --they even had the clout to go tell the various hardware vendors like Acer, "This is what the future of computer hardware is, which YOU will create" --and they obediently came out with those tablets-- and they STILL failed to make any significant headway into the market.
It becomes clear that Microsoft has been a big name in computing because of their business strategy, and not at all because of any advantage they have in technology or expertise.
The final effect is that they have been resting on their laurels, but only because they have been incapable of doing anything else. Goodness knows what potential advances in computing they have ended up suppressing because they were technologically incompetent.
It's very sad.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]