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Steve Ballmer: We're a Devices and Services Company
Nerval's Lobster writes "According to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's latest shareholder letter (not exactly a gripping read), Microsoft sees itself as a 'devices and services company.' The subsequent 1,200-odd words hammer that point, mentioning software such as Office and Windows 8 largely in the context of tablets and other hardware — and while Ballmer acknowledges the 'vast ecosystem of partners' building a 'broad spectrum of Windows PCs, tablets and phones,' he leaves the door wide open to Microsoft building its own toys in-house. If one takes Ballmer's words at face value, it seems that Surface, the tablet Microsoft's building in-house and promoting as a 'flagship' Windows 8 device, isn't so much a lark but the harbinger of the company's future direction. Whether Microsoft's decision to build its own devices affects its long-term relationship with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other manufacturing titans remains to be seen. Perhaps Ballmer can take some comfort from Apple, which profited enormously by pursuing the 'we build everything in-house' route. But it's indisputable that a devices-centric approach is new ground for Microsoft."
Microsoft is a software development and licensing company.
At least that's where all the money comes from. The Devices and Services aspects are huge money losing hobbies they've started.
I hope this means the end is near.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
It's not going to be a smooth ride. Microsoft will have to keep an eye on software updates to existing products as it attempts to shift it's position
Other than Xbox MS is largely unproven on the devices front. Surface could be a winner like Xbox or it could be a complete disaster like the Kin.
Windows 8 OS will either be a success or annoy users completely. It seems there's little to no middle ground. If you're gonna have to learn a new OS why does it have to windows?.
They're probably gonna piss off some OEMs as well. In the short term if they're lucky, long term if they're not.
Ballmer's track record is not great. Ballmer completely missed the way things were going with mobile and search. Sure, MS now has competitive products and services (some yet to launched (Surface), some not finished (updates to Windows after it was RTM)), but its behind Google on search and mobile. MS never misses and opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Now we're supposed to believe that Ballmer knows devices and services as well? They're at least three years behind Apple and Google. If they had been on the ball they could have predicted trends and even set trends, they could have had huge profits like apple and market share like google. There's only one reason they haven't. Ballmer.
Even the board knows it, this years bonus for him was 9% less than last year. That's three years in the trot he hasn't made his maximum bonus. Some of that is due to the economy, some of it is because he's simply missed opportunities to create or expand markets.
Watch those corners
Many PC users will not tolerate the astronomical prices of Apple hardware.
Microsoft's mice and keyboards have always been really good - or a better way to put that would be - the old ones I bought years ago are really good. Still using them! I don't know about modern ones. My point? I like their peripherals so there is a chance the tech they make will be good. Software ... another matter.
When a company starts/has to define "what it is", that means trouble is on the horizon.
That means people are starting to ask, "just exactly what is that you do?"
It means the company has started to turn to jello on the inside.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
"Services" is a code word for "Windows 9 will require monthly payments."
Microsoft seemed to be heading in this direction, with Microsoft keyboards and mice on the shelves and rumors of a "Microsoft PC," when they were rudely interrupted by the anti-trust suit (which lore attributes to federal judges really detesting IE4).
Now they have resumed this path.
It might work for Apple; will it work for Microsoft? Possibly, especially if their model is licensing their OS and software as a precursor to hooking us up with smart homes and persistent, cloud-based data (or buzzwords of the day).
The signal here is that Microsoft may no longer see the OS as a huge moneymaker, as people shift away from PCs to tablets and the like, and they may also have doubts that people outside business will keep buying Office and other software. I'm skeptical on this; I don't think tablets will replace PCs or that people will stop buying software (usually for the support contracts).
One thing that history seems to make clear: the bigger a company is, the more likely it is that it will become unresponsive to market forces, and drop like Goliath with a head wound.
Ok Microsoft, so you're Hardware and Services now, just like Apple. Now go and price your OS upgrades the same way Apple prices theirs. I can guarantee that you'll see much quicker uptake on new OSes if they're $20 and one purchase covers every device in your house.
I read the internet for the articles.
SAD Company.
A chair counts as a device. They should start making them. Then as an added service they can make them fly.
Everything I needed to know to run Microsoft, I learned from Apple
Devices! Devices! Devices!
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Nokia, if I was you, I'd be making sure I had working Android ROM's for all those Lumia phones (and new faceplate designs) as it looks like the Surface Phone is turning out to be true....Microsoft doesn't have your back (when has MS ever been satisfied with just a little bit of a market).
Every time Microsoft copies another company, they fail. The only notable exception is XBOX which they sustained losses for a while in order to develop market share.
Look at the rest of MS copycat products/services:
Hotmail (worst web email experience ever)
Zune (worst brand-name MP3 player ever)
Windows phone 0-7.5/7.8 Worst smart phone OS ever (No multitasking)
Silverlight (worst copy of Flash)
Virtual PC (worst VM, at least QEMU can host multiple architectures)
MS Windows (worst OS2 clone ever)
The problem is that me-too mentality just does;t translate into ground breaking products. They only get as far as "good enough".
Some things I left off the list are Word and Excel. However these happened early enough on that they were clones of DOS programs (WP and Lotus 123) that when they went graphical MS took "proper" ownership of them.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
The 90's called they want their meme back.
Microsoft has gone full Apple. I'm curious to see whether this will end up taking an Android like approach, with Microsoft producing 'flagship' devices for 3rd parties to aspire to, resulting in wide price ranges, or if they'll end up catering to and designing for their own (expensively priced) hardware only (ala Apple). The latter could be very bad for Microsoft's bottom line (all those licensing fees) in the immediate future; stockholders would have to prepare for quite the rollercoaster...
It wasn't nice knowing you.
But really, they could have easily optimized their company around both worlds. Instead, they are ditching a whole section of the market for casual users. (ironically, the most profitable side of the damn business)
Their new OSes are downright insulting to a power user, as is their new Office packages in recent times.
Ribbon? Sorry, I'm not blind and I am not using a tablet, I have fine vision and I am using a pixel-precise mouse.
This is hilariously stupid. They can't just copy the Apple idea, nobody (sane) likes Microsoft, nor will they even if they produce some shiny new gadgets.
Apple has some stupid levels of love for them because of a really good but late marketer.
They have no advantage in hardware or software, not any more. They lost that years ago when the core squeeze hit and major changes had to be done to x86 to go any further before multicore. IBM stagnated. Apple switched and lost that advantage.
The only thing they have going for them now is a legacy and image. That will absolutely no doubt fade with time.
And it already is now with all the pointless mass-lawsuits against others.
It, I know people say this a lot, but it might actually be close to The Days Of Desktop Linux.
I seriously hope Microsoft actually do piss off their other partners, I really do. If it pushes more people to Linux, all the better.
So long as RMS doesn't cry his ass off that non-free non-open software are used on Linux, things will get better, driver support will come with install-numbers, everyone will be happy.
Please be this future.
I often wonder why the likes of Dell, HP, Samsung, ASUS, Acer etc don't band together to produce and market a Linux distribution. This would allow them to increase their margins or lower their costs because the would no longer have to include Windows with each computer. It would also reduce the reliance on Microsoft, so their sales don't collapse whenever Microsoft releases an operating system like Vista or Windows 8.
The main reason Linux fails is because of a lack of driver and application support and a lack of advertising. If the major PC makers started pushing Linux that would solve both these problems.
They've let Microsoft push them around for long enough, and now that Microsoft what to start competing directly with them switching to an alternative operating system seems essential. If they continue to do nothing they'll find themselves increasingly marginalised.
I'm not sure why they haven't focused more on that side of the business.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
and so they're trying to lock down and keep the keys to hardware you thought you owned. They're doing it with windows 8 and they're managing it even though the hardware is sold through third parties (even if with redmond tax). That signed boot thing isn't about software security but about control. Control they're not going to give Joe R. User. Certainly not to you.
They've even started to redefine "malware" to include anything they don't like, such as key generators. Cleaner programs are hard to find: You might input some numbers, and out comes a licence key that some other program hopefully will accept as valid. This they don't like. I can get that. But it's not "malware". So they're redefining "malware" to include "anything we don't like". That's not good for Joe R. User. And it makes them look even more like manipulative idiots. Then again, they're marketeers. Not really a software company, never have been. It's always been about control ("every device in the world will run windows!") and that is the essence the GNU crowd go to war against.
This latest turd is but the public re-spin of what they're up to. Pay close attention, though. Before you know it, they've found something else to take control away from you with or from.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, their ability to expect to continue making money of software licensing in the future is constrained by other "devices and services" companies (notably, Apple who started as devices and has been ramping up services, and Google who went the other way around) at commoditizing software in the areas on which Microsoft relies, directly and indirectly, for its software licensing revenue. Even Ballmer can read the writing on the wall with Apple passing Microsoft in 2010 to be the biggest tech firm, and Google passing Microsoft this year in the #2 spot. Whether Microsoft can reinvent themselves successfully remains to be seen, but that their past business model may not be viable much longer is pretty evident.
I think the end of Microsoft-as-we've-come-to-know-it is quite near; whether the end of Microsoft as an independent major player in the tech industry is near is a different issue, though.
I wish to god they'd get into bed with Canonical.
I'm using the beta version of Ubuntu 12.10 and it's insanely great (to borrow a phrase). It's easy to use, has great hardware support (which would only be better with OEM involvement), big name software vendors are supporting it (Valve with Steam for Linux, etc).
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
wasn't Ballmer claiming tablets and smartphones were just a fad?
Here is why. MS can't make hardware. Sure they have a mouse and a keyboard, but who does not. They make a crap xBox 360 and their response to bad quality is just to replace all the bad machines. Hardware is not software where you can sell an release candidate to the public and fix it later. That is not how you make a profit and profit is what MS lacks.
The resellers are willing to put up with crap profit because MS is taking the risks and fronting the cash. But if MS becomes a competitor, and has the ability to undersell then what is the motive to continue to use MS products. Can you imagine what would happen if Dell, HP, Lenova all got together a funded a uniform XP like *nix desktop and a Wine like compatibility layer? XP is still widely used, and no one is going to be moving in hordes to Windows 8, In a year they could have machines that run MS software but not MS WIndows. What will happen to MS then? MS is counting that they resellers can't leave, and will have to deal with MS as a competitor, and in the short term I think they are correct. In the long term there are not going to be any big PC makes for MS machines, and most mobile is going to run Android.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Maybe that explains why Microsoft upgrades are consistently more cumbersome, restrictive, and difficult to use. I think I liked them better as a software company.
No need, eventually desktop android will be released and the manufacturers will be able to jump on that bandwagon.
FTFY. There is no call to try to paint the Xbox as anything other than a money-loser. It has lost money in recent quarters to add to the historical losses. It may be the darling of advertisers and M$ boosters, but was only in the black a short part of its life and has now returned to being in the red.
Moving into hardware is a bold move for M$, but it's an area that the have not proven themselves in. It's also an area where the are as likely to anger partners as not.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
MS (and others) always mimic the wrong parts of Apple. Apple products are successful for two reasons (in this order): (1) They provide social status and (2) they provide a good user experience.
People buy Apple products, initially, because of the marketing and the fact that owning such a device elevates their social status. When they're waiting in line at a grocery store, they like the feeling of holding that lovely, shiny device in their hands, knowing others are looking at it, evnious. You absolutely don't get that feeling with a dumbphone, or even most other smartphones. Pretty much the only the phone that will trigger that feeling is a probably Galaxy S3.
The user experience only comes after that fact. It's what keeps customers; that's its only real purpose, business wise. Without both the ability to attract customers, and keep them, Apple products (or any products) won't be very successful.
That's all that there really is to it to Apple's success. They make people want a product, and then they make them want to keep it. Things like "Apple makes their own hardware, so we will too!" or "Apple is a walled garden, so we will be one too!" never work if you don't concentrate on those two things. Everything else is, at most, just a means to an end.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
I don't see Microsoft dying off quite yet. They still rake in an obscene amount of money from the enterprise half of the tech world, and that's where all the money is. After all, what's $50/seat for a consumer OS license when they're raking in $5,000 or more for each Enterprise-tagged SKU?
I can however see them losing the consumer side, and hard. That in turn will start creeping into the Enterprise side of things - first as a trickle (iPhones at work, anyone?) then as a flood.
It'll take about 10 years, but by then I think that unless Microsoft does something drastic and effective, they will be reduced to selling Exchange servers/services/licenses, and that's about it (unless GMail takes over even that...)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Microsoft is a monopolistic public utility that sells Windows and Office the way Consolidated Edison sells electricity. Everybody buys it, but nobody particularly likes it.
IBM is not a technology company; it's a multilevel sales organization.
Apple is not a hardware company; it's a software company that bundles its software with large, sleek, phone-shaped license-enforcement dongles.
Google is not an Internet services company; it's an advertising and market research company. So is Facebook.
HP is a printer ink company that's desperately trying to be something else. Anything else.
Oracle is not actually a company; it's actually a newly discovered type of supermassive singularity with a gravitational pull that only affects corporate accounts.
A-fuckin-men. Seriously an HP/Asus/Acer/Dell that shipped with a decent Linux distro - ANY distro - would be awesome. Get good 3D graphics drivers, wifi, sound, etc., pay Microsoft $0, maybe even allow some limited crapware if they needed those subsidies too. Invest more in Wine for Windows app support.
Alternatively, fund ReactOS to get to API parity with Server 2003 and sell direct to corporates.
At this point any hardware company that isn't looking at a non-Microsoft offering is just asking for a knife in the back.
"six oil supertankers welded together side by side, with two of them welded on backwards"
That used to be what MS was good at. They were last to enter after the "innovators" made typical "pioneer mistakes", then MS swooped inand cleaned up. But something happened by about 2002 and they can't do that anymore.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Microhard.
Microserve. (that one would almost work phonetically too if you went for "Microserved").
I have a fairly cheap Microsoft Comfort Curve keyboard. The keys are gently bent in an arc, so you have some of the benefits of an ergo keyboard, but without the weird split, and it takes little adaptation to continue touch typing just like any other qwerty keyboard. It's cheap, although not that durable, and it is a joy to type on.
If that's the direction Microsoft wants to take their products, I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
IMHO you have to play to win... or atleast be in the running.
ballmer is neither smart or dumb in this, just common sense.
I think the key is creating/using a brand that isn't "Linux."
"Linux" is great but isn't a great name for a commercial product.
As nomadic suggested, Android is already widely accepted by consumers (and developers) and has fantastic brand awareness. That may be the key route to ending the Microsoft monopoly with an open source replacement.
And it's still Linux on the desktop! :)
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The only excellent product MS ever made is the Microsoft Mouse. I have used many different rodents, but my MS Mouse is perfect and it works beautifully on my Fedora Linux laptop computer.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So long, it's been fun. Hope Google and Facebook aren't too far behind you.
Its been reported that Ballmer is now reporting this descision to the shareholders after a late night with the remaining frat boys and microsoft insiders playing a charades-like game where they tossed out key technology words and whatever sounded good stuck. "We're a technology company." "No, too general, we're a services company!" "Cloud! We're now into the cloud!!" "B2B, we're a B2B company!!!!" and so on...
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Everyone thinks there's more money in services than in software, even for business customers. It's a great thing that we have open source software, so we can use computers without paying recurring fees to N companies.
Ballmer really is an idiot. I thought it was just a summer thing..
MS getting into the hardware business is misleading. They and everyone else knows hardware sales are not where the money is. The ecosystem of bundling software, hardware, and SERVICES is where the money can be made. The services themselves are not big but they can be if and only if your coupled hardware and software offerings are geared toward requiring those services and discourage using someone elses. A company can take a cut of all three. Think of the cable companies. They provide cable to your house, their internet, their pay per view, their DVR, The only decent way to make sure people use your services is if you build your own software and hardware that needs those services. Companies want and need that steady monthly serivce income along with the hadware and sfotware income. Why do you think MS came out with the software assurance program years ago and why do you think Apple "highly encourages" that you use their app store. It is not for your benefit to limit choice. It is their benefit to limit choice.
I often wonder why the likes of Dell, HP, Samsung, ASUS, Acer etc don't band together to produce and market a Linux distribution.
Well, many big ones have tried to push some Linux out the door at one time or another. Turns out that it costs money to give Linux away.
If they abandon the windows market, they are just handing money that used to be part of their revenue stream over to someone else.
"His name was James Damore."
Uh. They did. Its called the Open Handset Alliance, which governs a Linux-based operating system. Well, okay, not HP, but Dell, Samsung, ASUS, Acer, and a number of other hardware manufacturers. Acer and Samsung also partner with the same big-as-Microsoft company that does the heavy lifting in development for the Linux-based operating system marketed by the OHA on devices with a different Linux-based operating system.
That's probably why a number of major hardware makers are hedging their bets with an alternative operating system. OTOH, rather than trying to ramp up and do it in all in house, they've found a software-oriented company with an interest in providing them with an alternative operating system and teamed up with them.
By demanding UEFI on the PC side and 'Windows Only' chips on the ARM side, we will finally destroy all this 'Install Other OS' foolishness. Profit!
PPS - Please don't tell the EU.
Isn't this Android?
Yes, the Xbox lost them boatloads of cash, and no, they weren't really doing their own stuff before the antitrust period.
Bear in mind (some Slashdotters may be too young to remember some of this) that Microsoft didn't even develop the majority of the copycat products mentioned throughout this thread: Xbox - developed from their time working with Sega on the Dreamcast (the original Xbox was basically a Dreamcast clone, right down to the controller, but black instead of white), Zune - a rebranded Toshiba player, Virtual PC - originally developed by Connectix, it allowed Windows to be emulated on the Mac OS (the Mac is no longer supported), etc., etc., etc. Hell, the title that sold the Xbox initially was Halo, developed by Bungie, a formerly Mac exclusive developer that Microsoft acquired (Halo was originally a Mac exclusive. It was about to go gold for the Mac when they were acquired and that original version was cancelled, though the Xbox versions did make it to the Mac years later). I don't know that Microsoft has ever 'made' much of anything themselves outside of the Windows / Office core, and that isn't going to sustain them indefinitely. This business model continues today day with Nokia, game developers they've partnered with, and so on, they are clueless. And let's not even get started about how they've partnered with media companies to get a foothold only to unceremoniously dump said partners at the expense of the investment of their users!
Innovation has never exactly been Microsoft's middle name or raison de etre - they got lucky in the 90s. Will they disappear? No. But I don't expect them to really fully catch up this time, mobile really caught them with their pants down. Getting rid of Ballmer and simplifying might get them on track again, but I'm not holding my breath.
People buy Apple products, initially, because of the marketing and the fact that owning such a device elevates their social status.
I'm getting rather tired of this social status meme. Nobody sells 80 million phones on social status and most people who buy Apple products do so for fairly practical reasons. (perceived ease of use, network effects, halo effects, perceived quality, etc) Apple products aren't rare or hard to get and nobody thinks you are special because you have one. Status isn't elevated unless there is some sort of exclusivity. There is almost no exclusivity with Apple products - people who want one typically go ahead and get one. They're not cheap but they are well within the means of lower middle class families in the US. Apple products are considered cool but not because they are exclusive and certainly not because of a few social climbers.
If Microsoft starts selling hardware in competition with Dell, Lenovo, et. al., there is a very strong chance it will backfire on them. There is absolutely nothing stopping those competitors from abandoning Windows 8 entirely in favour of some flavour of Linux, likely Ubuntu.
There is nothing I need to do with my system that I can't do with Ubuntu 12.04. I haven't run across any unsupported video formats, I haven't run across any documents I couldn't open and view/edit, and the only piece of software that I haven't been able to get running under it is the Oracle RDBMS.
The average user is going to have a learning curve moving to Windows 8. I wouldn't be at all surprised if several corporations decide that such retraining is a bad investment, and instead have their users retrain on Linux based desktops. Alternatively, many companies have shifted to web-based tools for their internal systems, so as long as their users have Firefox and Open/Libre Office, they've got everything they need to do their jobs.
Microsoft is in trouble. They're changing things for the sake of change, focusing on tablet UIs for desktop PCs, and are likely to find the same kind of user backlash that the Gnome 3 developers did when they shafted the "traditional" desktop users.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Companies change. The development of the Macintosh was funded by the Apple II/AppleWorks cash cow. IBM, once the largest hardware company, used money from its PC business to help change into a services company. And then there's Kodak...never mind.
In the Vanity Fair piece, J. Allard tested the MS answer to the iPod in 2003, two years after the iPod came out. His assessment was the MS device was terrible. Gates concluded that time was a factor and the longest MS took, the more entrenched iPod would become. Yet it took MS another 3 years for the Zune.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Right, because Android has been so profitable for OEMs like Motorola, LG, Sony Ericson, etc.
None of the major Android manufacturers are making a profit but Samsung and HTC - barely.
Just do your own thing and find your own niche. That's essentially what Apple and Google did. I'm not saying either of those two companies never used another idea from outside the company (internet search, Android, iPod, etc.). But they were in their own space and did their thing.
Microsoft is trying to be Apple after trying to be Google and prior to that who knows what else. Maybe they feel their model is crumbling and this is the way forward. My guess is that they look at their top competitor and try to ape them.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Only one i would object to is the idea that IBM isn't a technology company. In fact, they still have some excellent technologists, their R&D investments and results are still significant and important - and they file LOTS of patents, and very noticeably the kind that don't make us all swear at the PTO, in that they pass the legitimacy smell test.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
I mean, seriously, throwing chairs may be an amazing party trick, but he's running Microsoft into the ground.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yes, don't feed the trolls.... but for a car analogy it would be a Ford Fiesta welded in between two Hummers, and only the Fiesta has gas in the tank.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Well look, I already told you! I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
First thing I thought of when I read the headline :)
The problem is that Microsoft, like many other companies, have always either totally undervalued or even fired anyone that actually innovates.
Their entire business model has been to explicitly avoid the costs and risks of innovating, in favour of (badly) copying others already successful products, then try and win business just with marketing hype over actual content.
As a natural consequence, the only people that Microsoft are bullshit managers and marketing types, neither of which could actually innovate/develop something really new even if their life depended on it.
Now Microsoft are really paying the cost of years of leeching and bland second-rate products, but they still apparently don't have the basic ability to grasp the obvious reason why.
In the last decade of existence, the only innovative thing they have come up with (besides Kinnect) is Surface, which is hardly any more than a big touch screen running windows just mounted horizontally.
Its a fundamentally terrible concept unless what you really want to sell is chiropractic services. ITs certainly not the thing to bet the company's future on.
Not everything they choose to do is successful so suddenly they're not a successful company? What kind of logic is that?
My reading of this thread suggests that the GP's logic is more that Ballmer has zeroed in on an area where Microsoft has made considerably less money, and has lost considerably more money, than in the company's core business of software.
From the things I've read as a casual follower of MS's progress, the Zune lost a ton of money, Windows Phone hasn't done all that well (the Kin vanished after months of hype, for instance), and I don't think the XBox has broken even when viewed over the whole history of the console rather than just in any one fiscal year.
Meanwhile, the Windows OS and Microsoft Office software businesses have been moneymakers for decades now.
So the logic appears to be not that "some of Microsoft's operations aren't successful, ergo the company as a whole is unsuccessful" -- instead, it's that "Microsoft is focusing more and more on its lossmaking operations, ergo the company as a whole will be increasingly unsuccessful."
Considering that this move directly threatens partners such as HP and Dell, we could wind up seeing more support from such companies for Linux as they seek to hedge their bets against Microsoft's incursion into the hardware market. I think the software and computer industry could be on the verge of becoming much more interesting.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
(written on a MS keyboard. their hw has been pretty good - but not a good business for them.)
I mostly agree with your post, except for that bit at the end there -- the only hardware that MS seems to be good at is commodity hardware that's hard to get wrong. Anything really new that they have to invent and develop seems to be a colossal screw-up -- c.f. the RROD, "squirting", or that Kin thing that vanished after months of hype.
Keyboards, sure, but new stuff? They can't seem to handle it.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Most of them faltered at the first hurdle (providing the same level of stability and support as they do with Windows), and were stomped on by Microsoft and their contractual obligations.
Assuming they were willing to stick fingers up at Microsoft (this fantasy situation assumes they're using Linux as a lifeboat to escape competing with their biggest supplier), the support and stability thing is just a matter of persistence. They've never had the motive to stick with it before; who knows how it would go if their corporate lives depended on it?
Apple beat Google to market and still are far behind in market share; there are enough people using Android that users will accept a desktop version. Whether all handset manufacturers are making a profit right now on it isn't especially relevant.
Most of them faltered at the first hurdle (providing the same level of stability and support as they do with Windows)
Thats what costs money. Do I really have to spell this stuff out for you zealots?
The large part of windows "support" is done by the consumer going to google without involving the OEM, with ready-made answers in a majority of those cases, and forums handling the rest.
Linux does not have the same level of readily available no-cost help. Even the ready-made answers for Linux are beyond the average user, and they forget about hitting the forums.. Linux folk tend to be very intolerant of grandma.
When you sell a windows PC to grandma, support costs mainly deal with bad hardware. When you sell a linux PC to grandma, even a perfectly functioning unit has significant support costs. Thats just the way it. It might be different in the future, but its not different right now.
Assuming they were willing to stick fingers up at Microsoft (this fantasy situation assumes they're using Linux as a lifeboat to escape competing with their biggest supplier), the support and stability thing is just a matter of persistence.
Just a matter of persistence? Thats called money. Its just a matter of lots of money.
"His name was James Damore."
I went from slackware 12.1 to Debian 6 myself; for my kids I put Ubuntu 11 on (3 netbooks with wine for games). I decided I didn't like Debian but then heard about the GUI shit in Ubuntu 12 so stuck with Debian far longer than I should have. Anyways, last weekend I installed Ubuntu 12 and installed XFCE, that is a REALLY nice combination :) Debain was too flaky and hard to work with (this coming from a person who used Slackware.... sad, real sad).
"Market share" doesn't pay the bills - money does.
Apple makes 66% of all mobile phone profits with HTC making 1% and Samsung making the rest. The aim of a profit seeking corporation is to make a profit.
What good is market share if you are losing money? Even Google admitted that 66% of their mobile traffic come from iOS devices. After spending 12 billion on the money losing Motorola, even Google hasn't made a profit on Android yet.
Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar company that still depends on the revenue from Office and Windows to keep afloat. They don't have a future if that future depends on selling 'Windows 16' and 'Office 2024.' Even someone dumber than a box of rocks will eventually figure out that it's just software and the most important feature in 'Office 2024' is that it reads the 'new' file format. So...Microsoft has to develop new business doing something other than selling Office and Windows because there will come a day in the not-so-distant future when Office and Windows sales will trickle away to...nothing.
So what is old is new. This is why Microsoft came to being, to fight against the 'services' model.
Admitting defeat must be hard for them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And you will never will be.
He's the good ol' buddy of Billy G.
If this is not Exhibit A of cronyism, I don't know what is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronyism
There seem to be a lot of CEO's recently that have been put in charge of places that are "too big to fail" that seem to have done their best to prove that nothing, not even a destructive CEO, can finish off the company. HP, Australia's Telstra and QANTAS and many other places have had people that could not have done more damage if they were being paid by a hostile party to destroy the company they were leading. Nokia of course is busy demonstrating that they are not too big to fail :( However MS has enough rusted on customers that they will survive no matter what happens.
MS Hardware is very rarely designed by anyone at MS.
It's not like they're new to devices. Xbox makes them a lot of money. They're seeing the different kinds of vertical integration that Google and Apple have pursued, and now are seriously getting into it themselves. That's been their way for a long time - let others shake out the market, then move into it aggressively.
So what, "Devices and Services" is a company identifier with a lower tax bracket than "Software"?
Or, is Microsoft following in the footsteps of *gasp* ANOTHER company this time?
:)
No need to be rude. We're pretty much agreeing. Windows is popular because it's popular. It has critical mass. Acer/HP/Dell/etc. already have built up support structures internally, and the internet is already full of users to support each other. Compare with Linux and it's lack of big corporate backers, and smaller user base.
If Acer/HP/Dell/etc. wanted to go with Linux, they'd need to really *commit* to it to get over those hurdles. Doing it half-heartedly won't work. They'd need to spend lots and lots of money on building up a credible, supportable, stable system, and then ride out the stormy early days while the user base (hopefully) grows.
That's never happened, and never been likely to happen before. But assuming that, in this fantasy situation, Microsoft abandons the OEM model to "do an Apple", and the very survival of Acer/HP/Dell/etc. depends on a drastic change of strategy, then who knows?
I like Debian - had enough experience with Ubuntu before switching to Debian (although I had some experience of older debian release over 5 years ago) from Fedora, and I rather staid with Fedora than switched to Ubuntu - that's sad in my opinion, though part of the reason certainly is that I had been using Red Hat/Fedora Core/Fedora since I switched from Windows in '02 so I was used to it...
I really like the stability of Debian, and more up to date software is available from backports/multimedia and other 3rd party repositories... The thing Ubuntu really messed was upgrades - while debian has rolling upgrades where I don't necessarily even notice upgrading from one release to next, Ubuntu not only broke that but I has seen Ubuntu upgrade installs breaking where it previously worked far too often for it to be funny :(
Ubuntu does some things fantastically, but they really need to get their act together on working upgrades that won't break things if the previous install worked fine. Stuff like wi-fi breaking after upgrade install is not acceptable!
Personally I love debian, and I've even installed it to one "Avg. Joe" as for his needs it was just perfect (provided that I helped setting it up with video drivers, media codecs and stuff...). For most, especially if I'm not there to help them, I recommend Ubuntu and tell them that Mint is widely recommended but I have no experience on it, because with them they are likely to succeed on install - then cross my fingers and hope their Ubuntu won't break on upgrade ;p
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
I think the key is creating/using a brand that isn't "Linux."
"Linux" is great but isn't a great name for a commercial product.
As nomadic suggested, Android is already widely accepted by consumers (and developers) and has fantastic brand awareness. That may be the key route to ending the Microsoft monopoly with an open source replacement.
And it's still Linux on the desktop! :)
I saw an amazing Android/Linux OS solution on Youtube video - I believe it used Ubuntu for the "Linux OS" side but not sure... Anyway, it ran android environment when used like regular tablet, but when docked to station it transformed to desktop Linux environment automatically...
Don't remember the name, can't provide link (won't waste time to search), maybe someone will... I'm sure it's not hard to find, anyway I think it would do much better than running android environment on desktop use, as long as the application compatibility can be provided (maybe it can run android applications on Linux desktop? It's certainly possible to make it...).
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
They did try it, but had to give up due to drivers always breaking when going from one version to another. So Linux is a bad model. A better idea would be going w/ PC-BSD, where at least that breakage won't be there, and the OEMs can write their drivers once, make it an EasyPBI and then it will be good for ever. This is for laptops - on the server side, they should do the same w/ FreeBSD or OpenBSD.
Microsoft is a software development and licensing company.
At least that's where all the money comes from. The Devices and Services aspects are huge money losing hobbies they've started.
I hope this means the end is near.
Problem is that the software has gotten good enough that there isn't a compelling reason to upgrade any more, the way there was in the Windows 95 days or the Windows NT days. Only major reason to upgrade from XP to 7 is if one is going 64-bit. But other than that, none. It's gonna be a lot tougher for MS to upgrade people from Windows 7 to either 8 or 9. And even if they hadn't come up w/ the Metro interface, they would still have had an uphill task going from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Maybe going from Windows XP to Windows 8 might have been easier, had Metro been just an option, and not something forced.
So you have their software which has been good enough for quite a while now, and then on top of that, once one throws in prices that one has to have in order to be profitable, it's even more of a disincentive to buy. So they have to look at other things. Honestly, they could do a lot better by morphing into a services company. At some point, just make their software free (since it's being pirated anyway) and just have people to do bug fixes, develop newer drivers, and so on. Sorta like IBM. They're not gonna conquer iPhone or Android the way they steamrolled Netscape and others in the past.
I don't care for how Bill Gates became rich, at the expense of an entire industry, but he had some vision and it worked out well for him. Some young guy in the grocery store told me recently that Bill single handedly gave us the personal computer. There was no arguing with the guy, because we were in the kool-aid department of the store, and his cart was full. Steve Balmer is in my opinion, the Anti-Jobs. He is running -80 on the charisma scale. No one I know believes anything he has to say. I was told once, if you want to make lots of money, you have to help others do so as well. It sees to me that Microsoft has a long history of turning on it's strategic partners. These days it's turning on the developers and bailing on VS in favor of HTML5/script. Also turning on it's OEM partners by going into the hardware business. Their devices will always have better versions of software than they release to their OEM's. As an example, in the early days, they licensed MFC to compiler companies in order to let them target Windows. But there was always a newer more capable version of MFC bundled with Microsoft's compiler. Balmer just doesn't inspire the customers. They think they need Windows and Office, but in general I think WIndows/Office owners don't feel pride in their choice of computing equipment.