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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."
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.
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.
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.
Even Ray Ozzie has admitted that a fundamental shift in today's computing environment is underway. Microsoft has traditionally used its Windows operating system as a means of controlling other markets, and he basically admits that this business model is done. The future is all about embedded devices and cloud computing.
My blog
Microsoft dominates DESKTOP OS market share. I doubt if it dominates OS market share, considering Android, Symbian, iOS, OSX, Palm, Linux .....
I've said this before, but it fits here. Microsoft is a WINDOWS company (with exceptions), it is NOT a technology company. Almost everything they do is for WINDOWS, and WINDOWS is their primary focus. Apple and Google have let Microsoft have the WINDOWS market. They are after other markets, and why they are killing Microsoft in the process.
I'm reminded of an old story, from the late 1800s. The story is about a Railroad Magnate who saw his business as being "railroading". That was his focus. The problem was, that view was myopic and very short sighted. IF he had a broader viewpoint, saying instead he was in the "transportation" business, he would have able to incorporate automobiles/trucks and aircraft when those came onto the scene.
What business is Microsoft in? It is in the WINDOWS business. THAT is their product, that is their service, that is what they do. That is their Achilles Heel, and why they are dying (Netcraft Confirms it)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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.
Not xbox-- that division has lost billions since inception. And not "etc.", either. Just Window and Office. Really, Microsoft never WAS a consumer company; it's always been a business company. So saying it's "no longer" a consumer brand is like saying that Apple no longer dominates the enterprise market.
E pluribus unum
Their money makers are windows, xbox, office etc.. none of which are mentioned in the article.
Microsoft has an incredibly great balance sheet and is making shitloads of money, and that's good news.
The bad news is that Redmond has developed a nasty habit of releasing incremental improvements and lackluster copies of what the competition is doing.
It's not that what they sell is bad, Windows Seven is actually a very good operating system (and this is said by someone who switched to Ubuntu, but I still see enough Windows Seven to like what I see). The xbox obviously gets great reviews (I'm not a game machine owner, so I can't judge for myself). Windows phones have always had a good reputation as decent phones. Hell, you can have my Microsoft Natural Keyboard when you pry it from my cold, dead, grateful-not-to-have-needed-carpal-tunnel-surgery hands. Microsoft makes some really good stuff.
The problem with Microsoft is that they aren't trying to make brand new stuff any more, and their copies of others' work has become really lackluster. Windows Seven is great, but set Windows 2000 next to Windows Seven and tell me there's 10 years of significant innovation there. Tell me how many revolutions that product has gone through since they dumped the 95/98/ME kernel. No, I'll tell you. Zero. Nada. Zip. It doesn't make Seven BAD, it just makes it BORING.
Where are they in social networking? Where are they on mobile stuff? Search? Bing? Really? Where's my Microsoft Flying Car? Why am I carrying a cell phone at all? Where's my glasses with a heads-up display, eye tracking, and an earpiece built into the wing? What is Microsoft Labs working on? Oh, right, a ribbon interface for Office, a poor clone of Google, and an update to Windows CE. Yawn. Snore.
That's how the market works, if you don't come out with something that makes people go "WOW!" every now and then, you're dying. That doesn't mean bankruptcy is imminent or your shareholders should be concerned about not making a dividend 3 years from now. It just means that you aren't a leader any more, and you need to get off those laurels before they leave a permanent mark on your ass. Because once people start looking to others for new stuff, they'll start drifting away from you on your cash cow products.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
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.
They might have "owned" Palm but both platforms were complete crap when it came to actually getting stuff done. Not to mention the hardware has advanced to the point where mobile devices are at par with slower computers.
It is an entirely different market and a market I can't see Microsoft making a dent in. Windows Phone 7 has plenty of terrible design decisions, for example what does the YouTube app do? It is a shortcut to IE which goes to YouTube's mobile site which then loads in a Zune player. WTF? No multitasking for third-party apps? Even Apple allows that now!
Yes, I know that the iPhone/Android/BlackBerry/WebOS/Symbian/whatever wasn't perfect on day 1 either but Microsoft has no excuse to be making such brain-dead decisions. The way I see it, the iPhone can win for the UI, Android can win for openness, BlackBerry can win for corporate drones, WebOS can win in design elegance, Symbian can win in it seems like every market other than the US. But Windows Phones I don't think have a chance anymore unless MS releases a big "service pack" that puts them up to speed with iOS and Android at the very least.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
"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.
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.
This is /. any anti MS stuff gets a horde of comments in seconds.
The underhanded, questionably ethical, and sometimes downright illegal (as determined by courts of law around the world) actions Microsoft has repeatedly taken have earned them the disdain they now experience. I don't like fanboys either, but there are perfectly objective non-fanboy reasons to dislike Microsoft.
Their love of vendorlock and their embrace-extend-extinguish practices are among the biggest. They avoid open standards and easy interoperability because that would mean having to compete on the merits of their implementation. Why should I support a company that has so little faith in their own products that they avoid letting them compete on merit alone whenever possible? If the vendor (whom you can expect to be biased in favor of its products) feels this way about its offerings, why would I argue with them?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Actually, MS is huge in the server market. There are certainly more Windows servers in existence than ones running Linux, for example.
Share in terms of sales that's probably right: http://blogs.computerworld.com/16263/windows_widens_lead_over_linux_in_the_server_market
But that's probably wrong in terms of units in existence. There are lots of Linux servers out there because it's free. When you need an extra one, you install one and that's it. No need for licenses.
The fact that people are actually buying Linux servers and they make up 20% of the sales (as per the IDC numbers) indicates to me that there could be more Linux servers installed than Windows servers, because the ratio of nonpurchased Linux servers to purchased Linux servers is very likely to be higher than 4:1. Many places do buy and use Redhat, but guess how many Centos servers they would also have installed and used. Many companies have installed many free Linux servers without _ever_ buying any at all. A previous workplace had lots of such free Linux servers scattered around the world. And they weren't "desktops", Windows was the standard for desktops there.
I'm not including stuff like linux based APs, DSL routers etc. I'm talking about those towers and rack stuff.
Google alone has quite a number of Linux servers. http://gizmodo.com/5517041/googles-insane-number-of-servers-visualized :).
I doubt they'd do so well if they had to resort to paying for say Win2K8 R2
Microsoft doesn't have a dominating presence in the server market. They do have stuff like AD, Exchange and Sharepoint. But the way I see it, if the OSS bunch start moving up the ladder it's going to get ugly there for MS.
The desktop market will probably remain Microsoft's for years to come, unless someone finishes something like ReactOS soon (and even so they'd probably get tied up in court).
True, but don't forget that Apple, Android, and even WebOS have a several-year head start on Microsoft in the mobile space.
Several years.
That's a lot of lost ground to recapture before you can even begin to overtake any of them.
Zune was DoA. Kin was DoA. Courier was vaporware. XBox 360 bet heavily on HD-DVD, and lost.
Was Vista part of the "getting better" process? IE6 stagnated for years until they were forced to begin upgrades again by Firefox. WP7 is several years behind its competitors, and for all its promise, it still has to make up that lag if it wants to seriously compete.
This is not to say that MSFT is a 'dead' or 'dying' company. But they've gotten complacent as the 800-pound gorilla, and other companies are capitalizing on their inability to adapt & move quickly, and in many cases, beating the pants off them. I think Microsoft's success is far from guaranteed, and it's clear that they are mostly in a reactive mode, rather than an "innovate & open new markets" mode -- they're *responding* to Apple & Android tablets. They're *responding* to Apple and Android phones. They're *responding* to the iPod. They're *responding* to other gaming consoles, other browsers, other search engines, other social networks. And every misstep they make, you can bet one of their competitors will capitalize on it.
If they don't get out of that reactive mode, they will slide towards irrelevance, and end up a "me too" brand on the market. It's not that MSFT is a "bad" company - they have a lot of bright people working there. But I don't think management has a clear strategic vision for the company, and it shows in the clear "nobody will take this segment seriously until there's a *MICROSOFT* product there" attitudes that Ballmer et. al convey. Nobody was going to take the iPhone seriously. Nobody was going to take the iPad seriously. Nobody would want an iPod once Zune was available. That's coasting, not leading.