Will Microsoft Sell Off Its Entertainment Division?

This article is bullshit! by theRunicBard · 2013-01-21 05:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

I cannot believe this is getting posted here. I know Slashdot hates Microsoft but this is the equivalent of me saying that Apple will sell off the iPad because the iPhone didn't sell as well as they wanted it to. Or something like that.

Re:This article is bullshit! by devleopard · 2013-01-21 05:24 · Score: 1

Pretty sure that's a personal decision by a person and their health, not "Apple". That's like saying that Linus is rude, therefore Linux is a rude operating system.

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The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 05:29 · Score: 3, Informative

Forbes has already taken the story down. I get an "Oops!" with a picture of an old typewriter when I click the link.
Agree the story does not make sense. MS is sitting on a bigger pile of cash than Smaug the Dragon. They can easily afford to be in four, six, fifteen different businesses at once.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2013-01-21 05:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967

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"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Re:This article is bullshit! by realityimpaired · 2013-01-21 05:32 · Score: 1

Been on #ubuntu lately?
Re:This article is bullshit! by SJHillman · 2013-01-21 05:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Probably not the best example... Linux can be pretty rude at times. Just the other day, it told me to go fsck myself.
Re:This article is bullshit! by mark-t · 2013-01-21 05:36 · Score: 1

To be fair here, the submitter may only be guilty of reporting something that they were hearing was already true from another source that is presumably trustworthy.
I'd read about this happening earlier this morning... several hours before I saw it on slashdot.
It may be that the article is BS, but I wouldn't suggest that it appeared here only because of MS-hate.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Re:This article is bullshit! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 05:45 · Score: 1

Is it in ring 0?
Re:This article is bullshit! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 05:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

Where are you getting your numbers that the Xbox has lost a lot of money? Xbox has been profitable for years now.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Joce640k · 2013-01-21 06:09 · Score: 1

Isn't there some law or other about headlines that end in a question mark? Something about the answer always being "NO!".

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No sig today...
Re:This article is bullshit! by GodfatherofSoul · 2013-01-21 06:30 · Score: 3, Informative

Microsoft has being playing this insane whack-a-mole strategy of jumping into any industry they see a potential new tech giant emerging. I wouldn't consider it a terrible strategy except for the way they make it so obvious that all they want to do is contest every layup; and when they've vanquished an opponent they all but quit (see how Window Mobile imploded).
Of course, that strategy only works so long as you're so flush with cash you can throw billions at all kinds of ventures and not need to worry about the outcome.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 06:33 · Score: 1

I think you're confused. The XBox 360 and PS3 hardware are sold at a loss. This doesn't come close to factoring in software, though, which is the driving force behind selling hardware at a loss.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-01-21 06:36 · Score: 5, Funny

Isn't there some law or other about headlines that end in a question mark?
No.

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The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Falkentyne · 2013-01-21 06:45 · Score: 2, Informative

This is an article from 2011:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-01-28/tech/30063548_1_xbox-live-money-pit-kinect
In January of 2011 they were making 1 billion/year profit. Not too shabby. That's just for the Xbox/gaming division. The online division (whatever that includes) was still a money pit at that time but the Xbox has been turning a profit for some time now.
Re:This article is bullshit! by it_ain't_my_fault · 2013-01-21 06:48 · Score: 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
Re:This article is bullshit! by hairyfeet · 2013-01-21 07:08 · Score: 5, Interesting

Oh not only is it THAT retarded but it makes one of the oldest. fucking. mistakes. on Slashdot, the kind of shit we expect from noobs NOT from TFA. Say it with my boys and girls, correlation does NOT equal causation!
And who in the fuck is listening to those fucking retards in the press that think we are going back to one PC? because as a retailer that sells PCs and services I'd like to bitchslap him/her for being so fucking stupid. that is NOT why sales are down, its the exact opposite in that everybody has too many computers with even the poorest people i know having 2 or 3 of the things!
For those that want the actual FACTS from somebody down in the trenches its REALLY fucking simple, the mid 90s through mid 00s? THAT was a bubble, that was NOT the natural state of the market. Look at the sales from before as well as the sales after and you have a perfect bell curve. The reason WHY you saw a bubble blown in PC sales is because you had AMD and Intel dueling in the MHz wars and thanks to how incredibly easy it is to take advantage of a faster single core a PC you bought 2 years previously would struggle to run the latest stuff and by 3 years it couldn't run shit that had been released. I went from a 300MHz to 733MHz, 1100MHz, and finally 2200MHz, all in less than 4 years. That's a more than 7 fold increase in speed folks.
But then a funny thing happened that ironically we are seeing play out all over again in ARM and that is both AMD and Intel ran headfirst into a thermal and power wall, chips were hitting close to 140w TDP and were requiring bigger and bigger coolers, with Intel it was a big enough problem that they had to keep the P3 in mobile because between the power sucking and all the fans it took to keep the damned things from melting you could count the battery life of a P4 laptop in fricking minutes....so what to do? Simple instead of constantly ramping up the MHz ramp up the cores and sell multicores to the masses! Brilliant!
But it turned out for the chip makers and companies like MSFT that had gotten fat and lazy and had convinced themselves and Wall Street that like the real estate bubble the PC sales bubble would continue that it turned out this plan was TOO brilliant because we PC retailers noticed a curious little fact, once you got to dual cores, which gave you one core for foreground and one for background processing? With the vast majority you saw diminishing returns REAL fucking quickly, with the average user not able to tell the difference between a dual, triple, or quad, much less a hexa or octo by the way they acted, why? Because they just couldn't come up with enough useful work to feed the chips. Hell myself and my two boys are fricking PC gamers which traditionally required pretty damned quick PC turnover, during the bubble I was building a new PC every year and a half and building the boys new ones every 2 years, now? Me and the oldest have nearly 3 year old hexacores that have more cores idle than being used a good 90% of the time and the youngest who is the MMO player in the family is so happy with the fast Athlon triple that I loaned him while his quad was waiting for a part he told me just keep the quad, the triple was more than he needed.
So it is NOT that "the PC is dying" or that anybody is trading their fricking laptops or desktops for some dinky ass smartphone, its the simple fact that for nearly 6 years PCs have been insanely overpowered so people see no need to buy a new one when they can't stress the old. Most of my business and home users simply had me install Win 7 when it came out rather than buy a new Win 7 PC, why? Because what I was selling on the LOW end 5 years ago, we are talking the cheapest new builds I had, were fricking Phenom I triples and quads with 4GB of RAM and 500GB HDDs! What normal user is gonna be able to max out a Phenom I triple? Heck I have an engineer customer that runs the latest Solidworks with extremely complex robot models on a Phenom I triple and he's quite happy with the performance.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by thetoadwarrior · 2013-01-21 07:12 · Score: 1

The entertainment division is a big money loser. The xbox is the pride of that department and it's in third place. It only really does well in the US and the UK meaning it won't take much for any new xbox to be a total failure by no doing well in the US. If this were to be the best generation for the xbox then that's awful because it's not been *that* good considering it had the best price/power ratio and a year lead and still blown away by the wii and eventually taken over by the PS3.
Re:This article is bullshit! by ranton · 2013-01-21 07:15 · Score: 1

Sold through OEMs doesn't mean it's in use.
Yes it does. Almost no one installs a different operating system on their new computer. I would be surprised if even 1% of people buying a computer with OEM Windows 8 plan on uninstalling it.

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-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Re:This article is bullshit! by kwark · 2013-01-21 07:21 · Score: 1

Turn on auto correction/completion in your shell if possible (or switch shell).
Re:This article is bullshit! by jbengt · 2013-01-21 07:26 · Score: 1

I seem to recall that they made some changes to make the entertainment numbers look better, like adding Apple software to the division. So the numbers you cited don't directly follow X-Box anyway.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Rogerborg · 2013-01-21 07:35 · Score: 2

Great rant, A-.
Hey, I had a P4 "laptop". Actually sold as a "desktop replacement", which I guess it was, if you wanted to replace your desktop with something about the same weight that screamed like a banshee and cooked anything placed within a foot of its fan outlets.
I'm with you: shizzle be fast enough. I've just bought a new gaming rig to replace my 5 year old Athlon XP, also a bit of a screamer. I plumped for an i3 rather than an i5 or i7, to get more clocks per active core per buck. It's never come near to using its 8GB of RAM, and the HDD was the cheapest 500GB that I could find with a 64MB cache. It's more than capable of playing anything in my Steam library with all the options cranked to 11, while running whisper quiet and cool.
A major consideration in upgrading was first securing a copy of Win 7 (thanks, MSDN!) to replace the XP on the old box, on because I will be God damned if I'm paying Redmond a penny for their jumped up gaming OS. The only USP of Windows is now DirectX and acting as a Steam client as far as I'm concerned. If they slough off "entertainment" and take their eye off of that ball then, really, what do they have left?

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If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-01-21 07:41 · Score: 1

I was trying to make a joke. Apparently I still haven't had enough coffee.

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The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Stewie241 · 2013-01-21 07:44 · Score: 1

Whoooosh
Re:This article is bullshit! by bitt3n · 2013-01-21 08:37 · Score: 2

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967
he sure loved the passive voice. It's a wonder he didn't declare "A dream is had by me!"

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how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Re:This article is bullshit! by lennier · 2013-01-21 08:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Generally I am repulsed by those repulsed by the profit motive
And I'm repulsed by those repulsed by those repulsed by the profit motive. It's repulsors all the way down.

They didn't owe me a job in the first place so if I'm let go, so be it.

Hear, hear! Good clean social Darwinism. There shouldn't be any kind of "social contract" at all. Our corporations should be sleek, vicious, beautiful monsters, utterly amoral, streamlined of every impulse except a ravening urge to destroy the competition and feast on the juices of sweet, sweet captive markets, the blood and ichor of consumer franchises trickling down their fangs.
We don't need none of this Commie socialist "empathy" or "compassion" or "rational planning" or "thinking about the issues". That's for sissies.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by VortexCortex · 2013-01-21 08:45 · Score: 2

So it is NOT that "the PC is dying" or that anybody is trading their fricking laptops or desktops for some dinky ass smartphone, its the simple fact that for nearly 6 years PCs have been insanely overpowered so people see no need to buy a new one when they can't stress the old.
As a developer, it's not that I can't push a system to it's limits, it's that the glacial console cycle has a chilling effect on progress. In order to give you better games we need more detailed assets and physics computation power, but we have to look at the market and sell what people are able to play -- We have to compress our effort in such a way that it's useful to the widest range of players.
With PC-only games you can put something out that requires some really high end stuff -- needing lots of RAM (texture and vertices), and lots of compute (shaders, physics, logic) -- and in 18 months your min sys req. is half of what the high end systems offer. That is to say that folks can catch up really quickly such that in two years time the high end becomes mid-range, and around the 3year mark the system specs required are considered low-end.
With a Console or Cross Platform game you have to go by the most common denominator. It takes double effort to re-topo models to and re-rig them for animation, scale down physics and shaders, and test them, etc. in order to make a game the best it can be on each platform. That's why you get a PC game that looks damn near the same as a console game. Look, games made for one system requirement still run on better hardware years later, what we need is to have upgradable game consoles, and if they're going to be that powerful then 3rd parties need to be able to sell parts and users need to be able to run whatever software they want on them so they don't have to have a PC in addition to the other General Purpose computer (console). Except we already have game consoles like that, they're call PCs, so really we just need consoles to DIE.
MMOS? Seriously? That's one type of game that targets the low and mid range systems because they make the most money when more people can play the game. Typically they have system requirements that were easy to meet even 8 years ago. It's not that they can't push the system, it's that they look at their target market, and make the game accordingly -- Also, you can't upgrade and require better systems for an MMO too quickly because people will stop paying subscriptions when the game suddenly breaks. So, MMOs are bottom of the barrel spec-wise, just above mobile and casual games.
Publishers won't pay for the physics and graphics to get revamped / resampled (well, except for textures & sound since the process can be automated), so modern games are predominantly tied to the console levels. Now you know why it is that "for nearly 6 years PCs have been insanely overpowered", they only seem that way because you're talking about playing games, and game developers are making insanely underpowered games.
For people who actually NEED the power, say folks like me who do video transcoding while running accurate physics simulations of sound propagation for commercial acoustic design and/or industrial noise abatement, and would like to still be able to work in their CAD suite with multiple detailed 3D views open, it is quite clearly NOT a "simple fact" that PCs are "insanely overpowered", that's fucking ridiculous you fool! The systems are never powerful enough.
You're welcome for those nice zig zaggy walls near freeways that keep your neighborhoods quieter, and for industrial plants that don't cause hearing loss. Games? Pfffah! Gimme a break kid, go get a real lawn to shout from.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Safety+Cap · 2013-01-21 08:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

who was devolving deeply into socialism toward the end of his life

Welcome to 2013, Mr. Fossil, where the word "Socialism" doesn't make red-blooded Americans wet their pants the way it did back in the '50s.
Of course, I'll have to ask you to stop using our Socialist services, including: roads, Fire/Police protection, public parks, water/sewer lines, power grid, internets, national defense, FDA-approved foods/drugs, labor laws, radio/broadcast spectrum, currency and education systems.
Thank you.

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Yeah, right.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Alex+Belits · 2013-01-21 08:52 · Score: 1

It doesn't mean, it's sold to consumers, you dumbass. Microsoft is famous for stuffing distribution channels with unpopular products while claiming that they are sold to consumers, in hope to push those products on impression of being popular.

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Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Eirenarch · 2013-01-21 08:57 · Score: 1

Let me remind you that the whole Windows Phone loss is covered by the Xbox. Think about this next time you think Xbox is losing money.
Re:This article is bullshit! by tripleevenfall · 2013-01-21 09:09 · Score: 1

Haven't you seen the dancing tablet commercials? I think they will sell well because people dance when they are using them. Also, you can pay a bunch of extra money to have it be pink.
Surely this is the death knell for all other tablets.
Re:This article is bullshit! by exomondo · 2013-01-21 09:20 · Score: 1

The Xbox has lost boxloads of money and they're about to have to throw billions more into the pit to produce a new version.
A saner company would have dumped it long ago.
XBox360 has been making huge profits since 2008, more than recouping the initial outlay, the xbox is carrying the whole entertainment division. Not sure where you get the idea that they've lost money on it.
Re:This article is bullshit! by LDAPMAN · 2013-01-21 09:35 · Score: 1

Government funded services != Socialist services. Your promoting a false dichotomy.
Re:This article is bullshit! by vux984 · 2013-01-21 10:05 · Score: 2

For people who actually NEED the power, say folks like me who do video transcoding while running accurate physics simulations of sound propagation for commercial acoustic design and/or industrial noise abatement, and would like to still be able to work in their CAD suite with multiple detailed 3D views open, it is quite clearly NOT a "simple fact" that PCs are "insanely overpowered", that's fucking ridiculous you fool! The systems are never powerful enough.
You're welcome for those nice zig zaggy walls near freeways that keep your neighborhoods quieter, and for industrial plants that don't cause hearing loss. Games? Pfffah! Gimme a break kid, go get a real lawn to shout from.
Sure... but "video transcoding" do you really NEED to rip a blu-ray while doing that? ;)
The point the parent made about PCs being overpowered is true. The home market for engineering workstations is pretty niche. It may well be your niche, but you can't possibly think the majority of people are like you. The big block of home consumers responsible for 100s of millions of PC sales over the last decade, along with the armies of office PCs in accounting, sales, data entry, admin are more than adequately served by PCs of the last few years and don't feel any compulsion to upgrade for 'more performance', even the power users and gamers. The market for PCs has gone flat; because last years PC is still good enough. People are now mostly just replacing PCs when they break.
Re:This article is bullshit! by LordLucless · 2013-01-21 10:12 · Score: 1

What normal user is gonna be able to max out a Phenom I triple?

who do video transcoding while running accurate physics simulations of sound propagation for commercial acoustic design and/or industrial noise abatement
You have an odd definition of normal.

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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Re:This article is bullshit! by ChrisMaple · 2013-01-21 11:03 · Score: 1

So if your presence is risking the viability of the whole company and the hundreds or thousands of people it employs, you think you should be able to keep your job. I'll throw at you the epithet I'm sure you were thinking of: you're SELFISH.
Companies prosper by making goods and selling them at a profit. Running inefficient, wasteful companies out of business is a side effect: but you obviously prefer the waste of effort and lives that an inferior company represents.
Grow up.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by ChrisMaple · 2013-01-21 11:22 · Score: 1

There are private roads, private fire protection, and private water companies. Many, perhaps most, local and state parks were donated by private owners. Most power companies are not government owned. Most of the internet is equipment owned by telephone and cable TV companies. Radio/broadcast spectrum is just there as a property of nature, and it is no way provided by the government, just made more difficult to use by the government. Currency exists independent of governments. Government education systems are markedly inferior to privately run schools. Labor laws are either superfluous or counterproductive. The FDA does not provide food or drugs, just makes them more expensive, or prohibits their use, all the while absorbing bribes on a mind-numbing scale. Privately owned companies (including those owned through stock) actually make food and drugs.
That covers everything except police and defense, which are provided by nearly all countries and thus do not qualify as distinguishing characteristics. Socialism is based on the proposition that the individual owns nothing by right. In fact, socialism is dedicated to wiping out the concept of the individual, as proclaimed by Ted Kennedy.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by shutdown+-p+now · 2013-01-21 11:43 · Score: 1

I'm getting mine from reality. The Xbox division cost billions of dollars and has been making millions. Last I looked it was still years from repaying those costs

So what you're saying is that it was a considerable initial investment, that is slowly being repaid (now that the business is actually profitable) but is not fully repaid yet. And how would it be a smart idea to sell that business now when it actually started to bring in some profit (and is bringing more of it every year)?
Re:This article is bullshit! by mikael · 2013-01-21 11:43 · Score: 2

They used to be called "the 300lb gorilla in the living room" . They'd just squash, stomp and squish anything that remotely looked like it might be a threat to them; web browsers, 3D API's, GUI libraries. Their goal was always to be the interface between the hardware and the user. In the past corporate customers had to buy an Intel CPU desktop with a Windows operating system just to read email.
Problem is tha now, for the majority of users who want to read email or surf the web for leisure, a tablet, ipad or netbook suits their needs. For watching videos from the internet Smart-TV's with network connections are becoming available. If a tablet or netbook is too clunky, a smartphone is enough. Console systems cover the gaming angle for someone who doesn't want the hassle of constantly upgrading a desktop PC.
For high-performance computing a sixteen core CPU with multiple Kepler and GPU boards is the choice (Boxx). Even SGI is back making workstations like the Octane III, Tezro and Onyx. That just leaves office applications as the main purpose of a desktop PC.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by warrigal · 2013-01-21 12:21 · Score: 1

Xbox has been profitable for years now.
True
But at $200-$400 Million profit for E&D per year it's not enough to pay back the $8Billion that the XBOX has lost.
Percentage-wise, it's probably not even paying the interest.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Curate · 2013-01-21 12:47 · Score: 1

In the example quote you gave, there's no subject. How would you rewrite that quote, using the active voice, so that it flows as smoothly as the original quote?
Re:This article is bullshit! by Pseudonym · 2013-01-21 13:09 · Score: 2

Actually, the word "socialism" can be legitimately applied to social democracy and social liberalism, and has been since at least the 1930s.

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sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Re:This article is bullshit! by symbolset · 2013-01-21 13:53 · Score: 1

"For people who actually NEED the power, say folks like me who do video transcoding while running accurate physics simulations of sound propagation for commercial acoustic design and/or industrial noise abatement, and would like to still be able to work in their CAD suite with multiple detailed 3D views open, it is quite clearly NOT a "simple fact" that PCs are "insanely overpowered", that's fucking ridiculous you fool! The systems are never powerful enough."
Autodesk does 3D CAD rendering in the cloud now. Imagination Technologies offers a 3D ARM based ray tracing card called Caustic R2500. Transcoding has similar solutions.
You really don't need that screaming monster under your desk any more, nor the awful costs and effort of upkeep that come with it.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by symbolset · 2013-01-21 14:07 · Score: 1

It is an epic rant and I cannot disagree that this is an important factor. But it adds to the article. It doesn't take away. A slower refresh cycle of Windows PC and Server shrinks Microsoft's slice of the overall pie even faster. Most certainly since as mobile devices rise in client share past 70%, demand for proprietary server-side solutions (Microsoft's server-side bread and butter) evaporates entirely.
Google Android devices now have twice the market share of Windows PCs and are growing quickly. Apple has a big slice of the pie too. That means that Microsoft's traditional strategy on the server-side of preferring IE and such is suicidal as it is seeking to leverage its market power over 20% of the clients to control the path of everybody: it's trying to be the tail wagging the dog. And that is probably why Bob Muglia left.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by CAIMLAS · 2013-01-21 14:31 · Score: 1

There shouldn't be any kind of "social contract" at all.
Please show me this social contract you signed. I never received a copy.

Our corporations should be sleek, vicious, beautiful monsters, utterly amoral, streamlined of every impulse except a ravening urge to destroy the competition and feast on the juices of sweet, sweet captive markets, the blood and ichor of consumer franchises trickling down their fangs.
Oh baby, say it again, I'm getting wet.
Sarcasm aside, though: employers aren't obliged to offer you more than you agree to receive for your services. Unfortunately, we need to get -everything- outlined in iron clad contracts; it's preferable from a freedom perspective to do contractual work instead of be an employee, so if you can do that, go ahead. It's liberating but also somewhat more complicated/takes more effort.
Corporate personhood is another topic entirely. That's wrong.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by evanism · 2013-01-21 15:07 · Score: 1

Yoda, that would make him.

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Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Alex+Belits · 2013-01-21 16:16 · Score: 1

Channel partners don't continue buying product if it isn't selling you fool, but they have continued to buy Windows 8 licenses. It's not spectacular and it's not setting any records but it is solid.
They don't have time to "continue" when Microsoft already "sold" a year's supply to them.

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Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Nefarious+Wheel · 2013-01-21 16:31 · Score: 1

Hear, hear! Good clean social Darwinism. There shouldn't be any kind of "social contract" at all. Our corporations should be sleek, vicious, beautiful monsters, utterly amoral, streamlined of every impulse except a ravening urge to destroy the competition and feast on the juices of sweet, sweet captive markets, the blood and ichor of consumer franchises trickling down their fangs.
You owe me a keyboard, mate, and a fresh cup of tea. I won't charge you for the damage to my nasal mucosa.
You are either a brilliant comic writer, a Republican company harvester or presidential candidate. I'll give you the former.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by exomondo · 2013-01-21 17:46 · Score: 2

The PC isn't dying, it will always have a place, but the market for PCs is declining for two major reasons. The first is the increase in capability, usability and accessibility of mobile devices (tablets and smartphones), where many of the common user tasks such as browsing, email, basic games, maps, reading documents, etc... have become much more convenient rather than sitting at a computer, leaving not much for the PC. There's still a small subset of the gaming market but even then much of that follows the console market.
The second is that with the computing power of consumer hardware not advancing at such a rapid pace there is little reason for people to upgrade or replace their existing systems, even if a home user needs/wants more than a tablet or whatever can provide they are probably best off with an ultrabook and perhaps and external monitor, but even that will last many years.
I just can't see the need these days for a desktop PC for the average home user.
Re:This article is bullshit! by rtb61 · 2013-01-21 18:56 · Score: 1

Of course there is always the subtle difference between sell and split off. So say xbox and MSN, with similarly aligned segments on one side and windows and office on the other side. Shove all the spare cash on xbox and MSN to give them a solid start under new management and leave windows and office to ruthlessly exploit their market for as long as possible. So MSN and M$.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:This article is bullshit! by geminidomino · 2013-01-21 20:17 · Score: 1

"No one can conquer giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people?"
Re:This article is bullshit! by thegarbz · 2013-01-21 20:53 · Score: 1

Why is the motive to keep employees happy at odds with the ability to be a sleek and competitive company. I say they are one and the same.
I remember back when our government messed with the employment legislation to allow companies to let go employees at will. The unions bitched and moaned that everyone will get fired, end result... nothing.
It costs a fortune to replace and retrain employees. You don't need empathy, compassion, or any of that stuff.
Re:This article is bullshit! by hairyfeet · 2013-01-22 00:08 · Score: 2

Thanks and I'll back up my anecdote from the ground with an actual example, what I have found frankly to be the perfect microcosm of the "typical user"...my dad.
My dad could NOT be more of a typical PC user, having started out in the days of the Trash80 he has gone through just about every PC trend there has been and when you take a look at his uses for a PC: Webmail, surfing, burning discs, watching videos and movies, chat, running Quickbooks, he is as close to a typical user of a PC as one could possibly get! So when the Phenom IIs hit the cheap bin I thought "Ya know, its been awhile since I built that $150 Phenom I quad system for him, maybe I better see if its time to move up***" so I monitored his PC performance for 3 weeks and then came by and pulled up the record...what did I find? 45%, that is what I found, the absolute MAX he was able to slam that now nearly 7 year old Phenom I quad was 45% and comparing the performance log to the Windows logs I found that was when he had a tab hang in his browser, removing that anomaly we had an average of less than 35% typical core usage.
So for the "average user", the one which as you point out buys hundreds of millions of PCs a year compared to niches like CAD or even gaming, even though we gamers DO spend crazy money, the PC has been past good enough and into insanely overpowered for almost half a decade now. Hell I DO use video transcoding and editing but I've found this Thuban X6 I picked up for a cheap $100 can do video transcoding AND surfing AND play a lot of the current games without skipping AT THE SAME TIME by just dividing the load between the cores, so why buy a new one? Looking at my own PC usage I found that more than 65% of the time my PC is in "turbo mode" which means that 3 or more cores are IDLE so AMD ramps up the speed on the remaining cores. Now if a guy like me, that is "Mr Multitasker" and often has two or more jobs in the air at once, can't even stress out a $100 chip? What are the odds Joe and Jane Average are gonna be able to stress out a quad?
***oh and for those that say "Fuck you, no way you were building systems THAT cheap" you have forgotten about the TLB bug, when that came out I was getting triples and quads, especially the BEs because of the Core2 bug that kept you from OCing the chips, for DIRT cheap. I can still get Phenom I quads in the $50-$65 range but with the Athlon X3s so cheap they aren't worth getting anymore unless you trip over an AM2 board that will take 'em.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by hairyfeet · 2013-01-22 00:25 · Score: 1

I already addressed that, what you WILL see in ARM is the exact same thing that is happening to X86 now and WILL happen in 3 years, probably less. Nvidia is already up to 5 cores, Samsung has a 6 core in testing right now, and nobody has been able to figure out how to come up with a language or framework that can scale most jobs over multicores smoothly.
And honestly it does NOT have to mean MSFT's slice of the pie gets smaller, not if they had a CEO that wasn't a fucking moron that can only see Cupertino from his front desk. Put ME in charge of that company and I WILL double profits in 3 years or you won't owe me a dime! How, simple by supplementing the traditional MSFT sells software model with a services model. Companies want to keep XP? Fine pay for a service contract, if enough of you buy contracts we'll extend it for as long as you're willing to pay...BAM! Big chunk of money right there and all MSFT will have to do is security patches. Make an app based on the MSFT cloud that lets a user at work access his home PC or vice versa using 2 part auth based around flash sticks so they can carry a "key to their PCs" in their pocket next to the car keys..BAM! Another pile of cash that comes in monthly or yearly. backport the appstore to Win 7 and bring in some guys that know how to build an appstore, making it as close to "push button to get stuff" as possible while making deals with the biggest freeware companies to have their stuff, Flash, Reader, Java, all the programs people forget to update, included so for one low monthly price you can have ALL the hassle of keeping a PC totally updated in your average SMB gone...BAM! Another pile of cash.
IBM is making more money than ever, even though they sell less big iron than ever, by adding services and support to software and hardware. There is no reason why MSFT couldn't do the same if Steve Ballmer wasn't an MBA idiot that doesn't know shit about his own market and instead think merely aping Cupertino will magically give them Cupertino's customers...not gonna happen, full of fail, they will lose billions and not gain shit. I would have Win 8 for touch devices only, giving users the choice of it or 7, and by constantly adding new services and features for sale I would have Windows become an ala carte OS that YOU could decide what exactly it does or doesn't do. Not only would I be making money hand over fist but people would love MSFT again because they would feel more in control and it would give them constant revenue, even from old installs, without having to force people to take software they don't want.

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Re:This article is bullshit! by dbIII · 2013-01-22 01:31 · Score: 1

Maybe not in good old doubleplusgood apple pie burn them commies like that limey jew commie millionaire Chaplin 'yawl, but if the discussion is in English those services can indeed be considered socialist.
Re:This article is bullshit! by dbIII · 2013-01-22 01:38 · Score: 1

I don't get it. Was Ted Kennedy supposed to be an individualist, a socialist or wiped out? Maybe some other members of the Kennedy family fit at least one of those descriptions but I think you are going to have to take a bit of a look at the dictionary if you think Ted Kennedy fit's that description. Maybe idiot with a scriptwriter that went to grandiose lengths (especially with the words his brother delivered from the same source - how did "pay any price" work out with Vietnam?), but socialist? Don't make you teacher cry.
Re:This article is bullshit! by dbIII · 2013-01-22 01:41 · Score: 1

I choose liberty. Thank you very much.
What's wrong with the actual definition of socialism instead of the bullshit you've posted AND liberty?
Re:This article is bullshit! by Viewsonic · 2013-01-22 04:36 · Score: 1

Right, but when someone refers to Socialism, you are generally referring to an economic method in contrast to Capitalism. Social services such as government run health care, education, utilities, and such are available in all economic methods including Capitalism. What makes a country Socialist is not "free health care for everyone", but rather, the lack of privately run businesses. The closest we have ever seen of true Socialism is Venezuela. What we see in all of Europe is simply Capitalism. People mistake "social services" as Socialism because it has the word "social" in it. This is a misnomer.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Farmer+Pete · 2013-01-22 05:29 · Score: 1

I already addressed that, what you WILL see in ARM is the exact same thing that is happening to X86 now and WILL happen in 3 years, probably less. Nvidia is already up to 5 cores, Samsung has a 6 core in testing right now, and nobody has been able to figure out how to come up with a language or framework that can scale most jobs over multicores smoothly.
I agree with you on the smartphones, but I don't know if this will directly transfer to ARM as a whole. Every day, there are more and more devices running ARM processors. Heck, I just bought a Nest thermostat a month ago, and I'm sure it has an ARM processor inside it. If people want a computer in their oven, (not sure who wants this, but apparently someone is building it), then you're going to see more and more devices with ARM processors.

Companies want to keep XP? Fine pay for a service contract, if enough of you buy contracts we'll extend it for as long as you're willing to pay...BAM!

Microsoft already does this.

Make an app based on the MSFT cloud that lets a user at work access his home PC or vice versa using 2 part auth based around flash sticks so they can carry a "key to their PCs" in their pocket next to the car keys..BAM!
Microsoft already does/did this. (Windows Home Server).

I think the only good idea is the app store one. I'm sure it would be nice to have for old versions of Windows, but I don't see Microsoft doing it. I'm sure they wont want to spend money/time on getting technology to work on an OS they want people to migrate away from. I'd rather see them make a version of Windows 8 that looked and felt like Windows 7. I'm sure they'd make more money that way.
Re:This article is bullshit! by Pseudonym · 2013-01-22 07:48 · Score: 1

Right, but when someone refers to Socialism, you are generally referring to an economic method in contrast to Capitalism. [...] What makes a country Socialist is not "free health care for everyone", but rather, the lack of privately run businesses.
Maybe you do. Hell maybe most of America does, but America is crazy.
The context of the discussion was the claim that Martin Luther King, Jr. "was devolving deeply into socialism toward the end of his life". What he said was probably more to do with the liberal form of Christianity that he held his whole life, not "Socialism" as you define it here.

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sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Re:This article is bullshit! by Curate · 2013-01-22 11:27 · Score: 1

"No one can conquer giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people?"
Would you like to try again? You changed one instance of passive voice to active, but not the other: "... ARE CONSIDERED ..." So you kind of proved my point that avoiding passive voice is not so easy. Sometimes you have to do awkward contortions to accomplish this, and the end result using active voice doesn't necessarily flow any better. What does it actually accomplish (serious question if you care to answer)?
Re:This article is bullshit! by geminidomino · 2013-01-22 13:09 · Score: 1

Since you invited me to. ;)
"No one can conquer giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism when [people] consider machines and computers, profit motives and property rights to be more important than people"

Xbox 8 by denbesten · 2013-01-21 05:16 · Score: 1

Either that, or they will release Xbox 8 as an "upgrade".

Sigh.

Re:Xbox 8 by vlm · 2013-01-21 05:45 · Score: 1

Either that, or they will release Xbox 8 as an "upgrade".
Sigh.
Too late. More likely purchase Valve/steam and both "windows 9" and "xbox 9" will fundamentally be a ubuntu install with a linux steam client. The difference is "windows 9" installs on any old PC hardware, whereas "xbox 9" will be hardware with ubuntu/steam already installed and guaranteed working drivers etc. Port Office9 to a steam application, and let the dough roll in. There's no point paying devs to make something "like ubuntu" if ubuntu will release it for free, but there is money to be made in integration, training, support, etc. They'll have to walk the fine line between selling support contracts and putting out a great web presence.

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Re:Xbox 8 by Alex+Belits · 2013-01-21 08:55 · Score: 1

One user in five Universes!

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Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Re:Xbox 8 by vlm · 2013-01-21 08:57 · Score: 1

Maybe. Don't necessarily have to buy... What if instead of (or in addition to) smelly piles of crapware being installed on each shipped machine, MS "demanded" that steam be installed on each new machine? Same end result more or less.

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Won't happen by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 05:16 · Score: 2

This is the dumbest thing I've heard on this site yet.

Re:Won't happen by oodaloop · 2013-01-21 05:19 · Score: 5, Funny

What, did you just start reading today?

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Re:Won't happen by war4peace · 2013-01-21 05:42 · Score: 2

I would have marked you insightful. There's plenty of retarded stories out there on Slashdot. This is merely one of them, and it doesn't even make top 10.

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Re:Won't happen by dubbreak · 2013-01-21 06:28 · Score: 2

What, did you just start reading today?
Obviously his first time since Dice took over.

How could anyone forget: How To Use a Linux Virtual Private Server?

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"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Re:Won't happen by thoughtlover · 2013-01-21 07:30 · Score: 1

How could anyone forget: How To Use a Linux Virtual Private Server?
Oh fuck, I feared this kid of tripe would filter through after Dice bought /.... The worst part of that 'content injection' (I'm assuming it's being used to drive traffic and raise search status for Dice) is it's not even a question, aka, Ask Slashdot!
So as not to digress too far, I want to add that it's pretty unthinkable that Sony would be able to purchase MS's entertainment division: They're not doing so hot, financially, themselves, and the DOJ/FTC probably wouldn't allow the acquisition, and that's not taking into consideration the shareholders' wishes. And, would Sony want to even if they could??

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Re:Won't happen by dubbreak · 2013-01-21 07:41 · Score: 1

And, would Sony want to even if they could??
Well it would take a competitor out of the market and they would have a huge list of exclusive titles to the PlayBox/XStation which might make their sales competitive with Nintendo. If it went through there is a lot of potential. Of course, knowing Sony they'd screw it up somehow.

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"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill

Xbox is finally making money by alen · 2013-01-21 05:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

Last i read

The online part is the money loser along with mobile

And why would Sony buy it? They already have a console

Re:Xbox is finally making money by substance2003 · 2013-01-21 05:34 · Score: 2

To kill off a competitor? It's wouldn't be a 1st. Well maybe a first for Microsoft. They usually are the one buying the competitor to kill off their competing product and nto vice-versa.
Re:Xbox is finally making money by sourcerror · 2013-01-21 06:04 · Score: 1

The online part is the money loser
They're the only ones charging for P2P multiplayer, how could it be unprofitable?
Re:Xbox is finally making money by alen · 2013-01-21 06:05 · Score: 1

not sure if the x-box ever lost that much money
that division had a few other things as well that were proven money losers. the x-box had the best attach rate for games for many years now
Re:Xbox is finally making money by h4rr4r · 2013-01-21 06:28 · Score: 1

Only year to date. Xbox has never paid back its development costs.
Re:Xbox is finally making money by HaZardman27 · 2013-01-21 06:33 · Score: 1

I think he meant online part as in Bing and perhaps Skype.

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Re:Xbox is finally making money by ilguido · 2013-01-21 06:35 · Score: 1

that division had a few other things as well that were proven money losers. the x-box had the best attach rate for games for many years now
But that division has/had other things that were proven money grabbers: the EDD division collects royalties from mobile devices (Android phone/tablet makers, among others), Office for Mac (until 2010), actual devices (mice, keyboards). The division has lost a couple of billions since 2001, however this figure does not include the original Xbox development costs (the EDD was founded just prior the Xbox launch), so the actual losses could be even a billion or two more.
Re:Xbox is finally making money by man_of_mr_e · 2013-01-21 06:36 · Score: 1

You're confusing the divisions profits and losses with the products. Yes, XBOX took a little while to become profitable, but it was never losing billions. The division was losing billions, because XBOX was typically bundled up with huge losses like WebTV and other products.
XBOX makes much more than $350m, it's the other products that are dragging down the divisions overall profit. XBOX is actually propping up the losers.

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Re:Xbox is finally making money by ericloewe · 2013-01-21 06:48 · Score: 1

Why's not the question. It's where. Where the hell would they get the money to buy any division of microsoft?
Re:Xbox is finally making money by hackula · 2013-01-21 07:11 · Score: 1

That is not how profitability works. The most you could say is that their online part is the only one that has a chance of being profitable. Costs to run XBL could very well exceed the revenues from subscriptions. PSN might actually be less "less profitable" than XBL, since I would venture to guess that Sony only invests a fraction of the resources into it.
Re:Xbox is finally making money by tgd · 2013-01-21 07:30 · Score: 1

I voluntarily simplified by equating XBox with the E&D division but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. Actually Microsoft has made an effort to prop up E&D's financials by moving profitable activities under its umbrella. For example, the Mac Business Unit, which makes most of its money by selling Office for Mac reports under E&D.
A voluntary simplification that turns the resulting conclusion around exactly backwards. That's not a simplification, that's just spinning facts to fit a position you already had.
Re:Xbox is finally making money by bloodhawk · 2013-01-21 07:37 · Score: 1

Sony is border line bankrupt, where exactly would they find the billions and billions required to spend just to kill off a competitor?
Re:Xbox is finally making money by fwarren · 2013-01-21 08:33 · Score: 1

Don't forget the wite off of 1 billon plus for xbox 360 repairs. They figured out what it would cost for 2 years to cover all the repairs and wrote it off at one time. This way a year later it stil lcost 500 million but the did not have to figure it into the mix. It was reported the year before.

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Re:Xbox is finally making money by Insanity+Defense · 2013-01-21 10:13 · Score: 1

Lets talk Darl McBride into buying it then he can sue Microsoft. ;)
Re:Xbox is finally making money by mjwx · 2013-01-21 15:43 · Score: 1

Sony is border line bankrupt, where exactly would they find the billions and billions required to spend just to kill off a competitor?
This, trying to buy out MS's games and entertainment division would kill Sony...

Nintendo would have the cash behind the couch. But the Xbox is the antithesis of Nintendo's gaming and business philosophy.

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Re:Xbox is finally making money by sourcerror · 2013-01-21 15:46 · Score: 1

Yeah, that would make more sense.
Re:Xbox is finally making money by exomondo · 2013-01-21 15:49 · Score: 1

Only year to date. Xbox has never paid back its development costs.
So how much have they made and how much did they spend?

MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by RogueyWon · 2013-01-21 05:19 · Score: 5, Interesting

I've not understood MS's strategy around gaming for years now. Don't get me wrong, I owned an original Xbox and liked it, I own a 360 now and like it a lot - but I've never understood why MS would choose to move into the console market.

I'd have thought that there's much more of an incentive for them to make Windows work as a gaming platform. After all, what's one of the biggest reasons that people shy away from switching OSes? The games. Running modern commercial games consistently and in a relatively hassle-free manner is - and has for quite a long time - been one of the things you can do on Windows that you just can't do on other OSes.

So they launch the original Xbox which is basically - at launch at least - the console that runs games you'd otherwise have expected to be focussed on the PC (Halo and Knights of the Old Republic were both from genres that the PC utterly dominated at the time). Then the 360 comes along and - for quite a long time - if the only reason you stick with Windows is gaming... then why not just buy a 360?

And then as we get to the late-cycle point where PC gaming really starts to outstrip what the consoles can do (even on a bargain-bucket PC), they go and foul it all up with Windows 8.

It's like MS is determined to take one of its biggest advantages in the OS market and hammer it into oblivion.

They make periodic efforts to "get serious" about the PC as a gaming platform, but these tend to be inconsistent, badly thought through and horribly unsuccessful. Games for Windows Live, anybody? With Valve looking at the PC gaming market in a distinctly predatory manner, MS should be seriously worried.

And while it's not such a major matter, they've also made some really odd choices with their internally developed games. First they shut down the Flight Simulator series - a brand with immense loyalty from its enthusiast following - abandoning the market to competitors. Then they try to come back with Flight - a free-to-play-pay-to-actually-do-anything monstrosity that discards the series's historic strengths.

Selling off their entertainment division? At the point where they're finally making a profit from console gaming? It would fit...

Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by alen · 2013-01-21 05:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

a console is $199 to $399 compared to a lot more for a gaming PC
i used to build PC's for fun and don't want to do it anymore. along with millions of other people who don't care about specs or whatever. you can buy a $199 box with a library of hundreds of games that mostly just work and play on a big TV. the fact that a $1000 PC may have better graphics is a non-issue for most people
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Ice+Tiger · 2013-01-21 05:24 · Score: 2

The last version of flight simulator still has new 3rd party products coming out for it and from what I understand was making MS a profit. You can't buy brand loyality like that.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Zeromous · 2013-01-21 05:24 · Score: 1

>The games. Running modern commercial games consistently and in a relatively hassle-free manner is - and has for quite a long time - been one of the things you can do on Windows that you just can't do on other OSes
FTFY:
The games. Running modern commercial games consistently and in a relatively hassle-free manner is - and has for quite a long time - been one of the things you can do on STEAM that you just can't do on other OSes.
Anyone who has messed around with DRM on Windows in the last 10 years knows what I am talking about. Xbox is about getting a microsoft PC in your living room, that "just works", and in the living room of every person who 1) wouldn't touch windows with a 10 foot pole or 2) people who can't be bothered to figure out why the third game the purchased at brick and mortar last month, won't play (hint: SecureROM and btw, it's your fault the game won't run).

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Dishwasha · 2013-01-21 05:32 · Score: 3, Informative

but I've never understood why MS would choose to move into the console market
It was always Microsoft's goal to have a computer in every home. The Xbox has allowed Microsoft to continue in that vein.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by CastrTroy · 2013-01-21 05:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

Games is one of the serious reasons why people won't upgrade their OS though. Because you never know which games are going to stop working when you upgrade your operating system. A lot of games stopped working when you went from DOS to Win95, from Win98 to Win XP/2K and From XP to Vista/7. Games tend to use all kinds of tricks to run at the highest speed possible, as well as for DRM, and often those tricks don't work on the next version of the operating system. Removing games from Windows actually gives people a lot more freedom to upgrade their system when a new OS comes out.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by parlancex · 2013-01-21 05:49 · Score: 1

They wanted a living-room presence for their software. It doesn't sound like a big deal now, but 10 years ago it was. Someone probably pitched their ability to leverage their existing investment in Direct-X, both as a platform for games development and with the existing investments made into that platform by partners (easy ports).
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by 0123456 · 2013-01-21 05:50 · Score: 1

Games is one of the serious reasons why people won't upgrade their OS though.
Who in their right mind ever 'upgrades' to a new version of Windows? 99.9% of Windows users get whatever version of Windows is on the new PC they buy.
Microsoft have screwed themselves by helping to trash the PC gaming market which was the main driver for buying new PCs.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by oic0 · 2013-01-21 05:54 · Score: 1

Because the Xbox is a walled garden they can exploit for maximum proffit. They can carefully extract more money from you constantly as opposed to PC where they only get cash at OS or system purchase and later if you buy their games.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by TheNinjaroach · 2013-01-21 06:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

$500 gaming rigs do just fine, really. And you can use them for so much more than just games.

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I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Kelbear · 2013-01-21 06:25 · Score: 1

The biggest reason games are big on PCs is because Windows is big in business. Those businesses have windows throughout their organization, so they continue to use it for compatibility year after year, regardless of whether or not it might be the "best" tool for the job, it's the one that is working, so they have no urge to rush out and break it. People continue to use windows at work, they know it, it's familiar to them, and then they go home and use a Windows PC at home. All those Windows PCs out there get developers to make games for windows. Games on PC are pretty much locked up for MS with little more effort than pushing out Direct X.
Consoles carved out a separate market from PC gaming in a livingroom. MS wants a piece of that market. If people drift from the computer to a laptop, tablet, console, TV, they're moving away from MS's domain. When consumers drift away from a desktop, MS is losing it's hold on the baseline consumer. The Xbox helps them stay relevant when people move into the livingroom instead.
As for Windows 8, it's terrible for desktops, but since new PCs are going to be sold with windows 8 on them one way or another, they'll get an install base that developers can sell to. That'll get them apps. That app foundation can help get them tablet sales. Basically, windows 8 is a shitty deal for the desktop user, but the point was to sell to tablet purchasers anyway. They want to leverage their momentum on the PC and Console to creep into phone and tablets with a unified theme. It's still a shitty theme, but they've got a plan for the future at least. They tripped right after leaving the gates (pun unintended) but conceptually, it's not a terrible idea to offer users a unified experience across their many devices.
I would very much like to have my desktop, laptop, and phone all be 1 single platform that seamlessly integrates without any effort on my part. That's where things are going. Apple is farther ahead on this point, MS is playing catchup, and Google is even farther behind but is gaining speed
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Andrewkov · 2013-01-21 06:37 · Score: 1

It was because in those days all the talk was about covergence of TV and Computers. Of course, MS completely missed the whole mobile and tablet shift that came a few years later, so xbox may now not fit into their future plans. Who knows.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Junta · 2013-01-21 06:37 · Score: 1

I payed 300 dollars for my most recent PC.

It can play all the games I care about. Better yet, 10 years from now it is very likely I'll be able to buy a brand new system and continue to play my current games should my existing system fail.

I don't want my gaming library dependent upon a locked down hardware device that, in 10 years, will be a rare 'museum' piece, impractical to replace should I have the need.

Emulators once upon a time could be relied upon to deliver the gaming library from a console to the PC, but it seems to be an ever increasing gap to overcome. More commonality in game engines makes HLE more viable, but even that isn't really doing enough to make up for the slowing pace of PC performance improvement.

Of course, the commercial game market is looking vulnerable as of late. If Steam went offline for good in 5 years time, then many legitimately acquired game licenses would be rendered unusable.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by guru42101 · 2013-01-21 06:39 · Score: 1

Agreed, I build a upgrade PC every 4-5 years for 500 or less. New ram, board, cpu, graphics, and half the time a new HD. Keep the previous CD r/w and DVD r/w, case, power supply, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. When I get a new case I'll usually get a new power supply with it. I generally stick with boards that have sound and networking on them. With my latest build I finally trashed the floppy drive I had from my original 486dx2. I have a few things that make me an exception, but I would suspect a common exception. I work from home moderately often. I watch DVDs on my PC moderately often. I immediately rip any CD I purchase and some movies so I can upload them to my Kindle when I want to watch them on it. When I upgrade it is usually because the old PC died, not for performance. In a sense all I'm doing is paying an extra 50-100 for a nicer video card.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by MBGMorden · 2013-01-21 06:42 · Score: 1

That's the issue really. Though tablets are changing that to some degree, the simple fact is that almost everyone is still going to have a PC for their regular usage. So you don't really compare to cost of a whole gaming PC to a console - you compare the price difference between a PC that can play games vs one that can't.
Most modern systems can be "gaming" PC's with the addition of a mid-range graphics card. $100-150 or so. Like the GP I also used to build PC's for fun (overclocking and all that) but I'm now in my 30's and just don't have the time to tinker anymore, but I still keep a PC able to play the occasional game. It costs nearly nothing. Do I have the latest specs? No. I'm running an older Core 2 Duo 3.2Ghz and an NVidia GTX 460. I doubt I have more than $500-600 in that system but its still playing everything I want to just fine.
Not to mention that many PC games are now coming with support out of the box for an Xbox controller combined with Steam sales that have me able to get just about any game more than a year old for $5-10, I just don't see much point in playing my console these days.

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"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by aekafan · 2013-01-21 06:45 · Score: 1

Never understood this line of thought. Sure, hardware will cost a little more on the PC side, but the cost of software will more than make up for that over time. When I can get a PC title for 25% the price of its console equivalent this argument makes no sense. In the next generation of consoles, software prices are getting a sharp increase, thus making an even better argument for PC gaming
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by BumpyCarrot · 2013-01-21 06:47 · Score: 1

For about 6 months, it seems. I'm an ex-PC builder/gamer that switched to Mac and Xbox, and I did it because I got sick of the constant upgrade cycles involved in keeping a gaming PC relevant.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Rogerborg · 2013-01-21 07:00 · Score: 1

$200 consoles do just fine, really. And you can use any old beige boxen you have lying around for so much more than just games.
OK, I agree with you, I've just upgraded my gaming + other stuff box, but you can be sure that it got my MSDN Windows 7 on it (for, you know, evaluation). However, I'm posting this from my wife's rinky dink little nettop (remember those?), freshly resurrected with another GB of RAM, a re-glooping of thermal paste. It's been upgraded over the years from (the sticker proudly boasts) "Windows Vista Basic" to Windows XP then Mint LXDE.
But even my gaming box is essentially just a Steam client now. If Valve launch a decent "console", this could really mark the end of my PC purchases. We're a dying breed.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by TheNinjaroach · 2013-01-21 07:00 · Score: 1

My video card is over 5 years old at this point, and it's the newest component in my PC. I still get to play most games at 1080P resolution.

Are you sure those upgrade cycles were really necessary?

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Gideon+Wells · 2013-01-21 07:21 · Score: 1

What is advantageous to Microsoft with games is not the same as to gamers.
By pushing a console style market Microsoft is getting a chunk of every game for that console. Look into the problems Fez has with updates. Just to update your game you need to pay Microsoft. Windows 8 potentially falls into this vein. If they can get people to treat computers like iOS then they'll have a chance at a slice of every game sold through the windows market.
But that is the plan B. The more people who game on a PC, the less console gamers (in theory), and thus the less direct control they have over you. To the point that Sony, maybe Microsoft too, are looking to find ways of preventing you from playing used games on your consoles. They don't care about the processing power of PCs over consoles. Their concerns are that you buy games for their console.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by DigiShaman · 2013-01-21 07:45 · Score: 1

Well, actually, that was the vision of Bill Gates. But Steve Ballmer is the CEO now. And he's hellbent on pushing Windows 8 even if it drives the company under. Damn the torpedoes, fuck it all, Windows 8 or bust!! Or so that's his vision.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by fwarren · 2013-01-21 08:49 · Score: 1

They saw XBOX pay per view. They saw someone making a netflix service. They saw that the XBOX would be the must have item in every room in America. Did not matter that a $400 XBOX cost $530 to make. Once they owned that market, then every TV show or movie streamed would have to disgourge part of their profit to Microsoft. They would make a killing.
To bad the XBOX got the stink of death about it The XBOX 360 has never been ubiquitous enough that Microcoft could dictate a cut of netflix profits. Their dream never came to be.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by mitzoe · 2013-01-21 09:17 · Score: 1

Better yet, 10 years from now it is very likely I'll be able to buy a brand new system and continue to play my current games should my existing system fail.
Provided all the DRM servers haven't been shut down.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by antdude · 2013-01-21 09:18 · Score: 1

But they break easily. Drivers, antimalware protections, configurations, etc.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Junta · 2013-01-21 09:43 · Score: 1

Yes, as I alluded to, that is the bane of the gaming industry. The bad news for consoles is that they too have such schemes.

So in PC land, screwed by DRM but the platform will continue to be availoble.

In Console land, screwed by DRM *and* the whims/fortunes of the platform provider hardware wise.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Pontiac · 2013-01-21 09:53 · Score: 1

I've not understood MS's strategy around gaming for years now. Don't get me wrong, I owned an original Xbox and liked it, I own a 360 now and like it a lot - but I've never understood why MS would choose to move into the console market.
Maybe because someone at MS realized the console is the gateway to your TV. The console isn't just about games anymore
People are moving away from cable to streaming services and the console is the perfect platform to own that market.
I have an Xbox, Wii and a Blu-Ray player at home that spend more time streaming netflix and amazon video then anything else.
We dropped Dish and put some the $$ saved into a faster internet service.
Lets face it. The streaming TV market is an open field. No one device is dominating.
Amazon Instant video, Netflix, Hulu already play on Xbox.
The next gen X-box 720 is rumored to have Blu-ray and DVR capability.
Nintendo missed a chance and didn't give the WII U even DVD playback.
Apple and Google missed by making their devices streaming only..
The last thing I want is another device and another remote to loose.
I want one box to run it all..

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by pscottdv · 2013-01-21 10:28 · Score: 1

Actually, their original vision statement was, "A computer on every desk." They had to revamp the vision to justify the XBox.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by teh+dave · 2013-01-21 10:35 · Score: 1

if the only reason you stick with Windows is gaming... then why not just buy a 360?
Hmm, let me think about that for a minute:
1. Mods. What mods you say? Bah! Who plays mods? Lots of people do. It's pretty easy too. I've even made a couple simple ones, such as one for Oblivion that lets you use any spell effect in the game to make spells and enchantments. Don't forget entire games have been born from the ability to mod, such as DOTA. Mods also include unofficial patches for games that fix bugs that the developers won't, which are very handy.
2. I can back up my save games. Tried backing up your Fable save on the 360? Game won't let you. That's just one example.
3. I can use my gaming rig to do anything else with my machine, unlike a console. I have dual monitors and I can have a full screen game on my main monitor and throw chat windows, web browsers and the like on the second one. My PC, being an Intel hex core, is also great for working with media. Did you know that I can transcode an entire FLAC album to MP3 in just 80 seconds? My PC is my general purpose computing device. Why do I need another one just for games, when this one actually does a better job?
4. It's faster. Not just in processing, but storage - games load metric shittons quicker too. What's not to love about that? Of course, the PS3 is far worse in this regard than the 360.
5. If I want to buy an old game, I'm not forced to pay the same price it was when it was released. Steam reduces their prices over time, so most old games are very cheap (well, except for Call of Duty, but only teenagers play that these days). Those that aren't, will be cheap in the next sale.
And this is the most important, by far:
6. I can use my mouse and keyboard. Sorry, but your shitty little joypad doesn't cut it. I need a mouse. Yes, PS3 supports mouse and keyboard... except, you can't use them in 90% of games.
You can keep your console thanks.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by SeaFox · 2013-01-21 10:57 · Score: 2

$500 gaming rigs do just fine, really. And you can use them for so much more than just games.
Yes, but how many people really do anything more with their PCs? If I had a Facebook account, I could access it from my blu-ray player now.
With consoles doing what WebTV could back in the 90's, and HDTVs making it not an eye-straining experience to do so, for lots of people a smartphone + console is all the "computer" they really need.
They can spend $500 and get more kick-ass graphics, but then they'd have to make additional purchases of gaming controllers and deal with the usual virus/spyware issues a desktop PC has, where a console covers the main functions they want out of the box and is cheaper, too.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by mikael · 2013-01-21 12:06 · Score: 1

Around 1995, Sony had the Playstation, SEGA Saturn still had developers. Around 1996, ID Software had published Quake which did software based texture-mapping in real-time. SGI freaked out and pushed to make a software-based version of OpenGL. Microsoft saw the success of Sony and how this was cutting into PC game profits and brought up a startup to make their own 3D API, DirectX. 3Dfx brought out a piggy-back board, followed by NVidia forming their own chip company. ID Software moved Quake over to hardware based 3D acceleration. Then the 3D chip wars began with about 40 different vendors all racing each other to bring out 3D chips that fully implemented a graphics pipeline including transform, lighting and clipping.
Then Microsoft realized they had to make their own console system to rival Sony. The only way they could get a PC to match the cost of a console was to eliminate all the different variations and combinations of hardware, and the XBox was formed.

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Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by shutdown+-p+now · 2013-01-21 12:33 · Score: 1

Actually, their original vision statement was, "A computer on every desk."

It was both. Specifically, the full version was "A computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software."
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Bureaucromancer · 2013-01-21 14:24 · Score: 1

Pretty much hits it on the head. Microsoft really has no idea what it's doing with anything consumer targeted.
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by bemymonkey · 2013-01-21 18:40 · Score: 1

Back to this old argument again? To get the same experience (in terms of immersiveness) from a console as you'd get from a PC gaming setup with a standard 24" 1080p monitor (which is what, $200?), you'd need something along the lines of a 70-80" TV. If you have one anyway, the console might be cheaper, but for the rest of us... a $1000 tower with a $200 monitor is cheaper than a $200 console with a $3000 HDTV. :)
Re:MS's gaming strategy has been weird for years by Bootes · 2013-01-22 10:04 · Score: 1

They have abandoned PC gaming and it does annoy me, but I can't say it doesn't make good business sense.The thing is that they don't make all that much money on each PC sold. How much is a single license to Windows? About $100? That's it for MS as far as revenue from most PC sales. They make their $100 and they're done. They don't just want their $100. (They've been trying to make Windows a subscription service for a long time.) They want constant streams of money coming in from each customer and that's basically what they've finally obtained with the Xbox. They get paid for every game sold on the Xbox, the get paid just for the ability to write games for the Xbox, they get paid for updates released for games on the Xbox, they get paid a monthly subscription by any players who want to play online, and they get paid for every accessory (HD, controller, headset, etc). It's a much better system for them as far as profits are concerned. They're not limited to $100/4 years. They charge $60/year simply for the ability to play online, use Netflix, etc, they make $10 off every game sold, etc. This adds up quickly, anyone that's really using their Xbox is paying way more than the $100/4 years they used to pay for Windows licenses.

Completely nutty by Samlind1 · 2013-01-21 05:19 · Score: 2

If that's the case then Uncle Fester is completely around the bend. They have one division that is a leading player in a rapidly developing market, and that is Xbox in a market where entertainment is starting to be delivered by IP network and the cable companies are starting to cave or become irrelevant. Just at this moment Fester decides to sell. Holy Jebus Gates, fire that idiot.

Re:Completely nutty by Guspaz · 2013-01-21 06:23 · Score: 1

But that division is also losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, which isn't sustainable. I don't think they'll ditch the xbox, but it seems likely to me like they might gut a bunch of other stuff in the entertainment & devices division. Windows Phone could be a candidate. Bizarrely, the Macintosh Business Unit, which produces Microsoft Office for Mac, is also in the E&D division... They're also still operate the WebTV service, although they (relatively) recently stopped selling new devices. But on the other side of things, it would appear as though the Surface tablets are NOT part of the Entertainment & Devices division, but instead the Windows and Windows Live division.
Re:Completely nutty by Cid+Highwind · 2013-01-21 06:39 · Score: 1

Bizarrely, the Macintosh Business Unit, which produces Microsoft Office for Mac, is also in the E&D division...
...because while Mac Office isn't quite the license to print money it was 5-6 years ago, it still covers the losses turkeys like Zune and Windows Phone rack up. At least that's the only theory I've heard that makes any sense.

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I Dunno by MightyMartian · 2013-01-21 05:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

If Windows is in trouble because of market shrinkage (and that's most certainly the case at the consumer level, not really at the business level), then how does decreasing Microsoft's diversification (which is what I always assumed the XBox division was all about) help things? Sure, it might make some quick cash, but then Redmond is still stuck with the same problems.

I think Microsoft has got an uphill climb with Surface, but while it may not be winnable in traditional Redmond terms (90% for MS, 10% for everyone else), I don't see why in the medium term it couldn't at least grab some modest market share. Beyond that, we already know they're preparing a version of Office for the iPhone, so Microsoft always has a few cards like porting major software packages to competing environments, up its sleeve.

I don't buy this. Not yet. Maybe in five years when Microsoft is in some sort of severe structural decline, then maybe they start selling off divisions, but while the situation is hardly in their favor right now, it's hardly desperation mode at Redmond.

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Re:I Dunno by smpoole7 · 2013-01-21 05:28 · Score: 2

> If Windows is in trouble because of market shrinkage (and that's most certainly the case at the consumer level, not really at the business level), then how does decreasing Microsoft's diversification (which is what I always assumed the XBox division was all about) help things? Sure, it might make some quick cash, but then Redmond is still stuck with the same problems.
This.
I would believe that Microsoft would start deemphasizing Windows and Office in favor of more profitable activities before I'd believe this article.

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Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Re:I Dunno by fermion · 2013-01-21 06:31 · Score: 1

It is not uncommon for a firm to separate it's legacy product that are no longer in a growth sector from the current growth products. That an analyst would suggest this does not so much indicate that a company actually has any real plans for this to happen, but rather suggests that the players in the market want this to happen so that short term profits can be realized in trading. Such things can be negative for a firm, but generate profits for the vultures.
Examples of such separations are RJR-Nabisco. This is not really an relavent example. except that tabaco products are kind of like the Windows desktop, something that is no longer seen as sexy, even by corporate drones.

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Re:I Dunno by MightyMartian · 2013-01-21 12:26 · Score: 1

And what activities other than Office and Windows does Microsoft sell that makes a profit. The XBox division may be in the black now for the last few quarters, but it's literally years from paying off the same investment. MS's various iterations of its web portal have seen billions sunk into it and no profit to date.
The only thing that guarantees Microsoft's profitability is Windows and Office; OEM licenses for consumer hardware and volume licensing at the enterprise end.
While I think MS would take a hit if it seriously began to slip on the consumer side (and I still think there are better than even odds that it will lose substantial ground in the nest 2 to 5 years), it still has its business customers, who are locked in Active Directory-Exchange-Windows-Office. That will keep them as a force to be reckoned with for a long time to come.

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Steve Ballmer by ClaraBow · 2013-01-21 05:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'm just a lowly user, but I predict that the next big move that MS makes is to get rid of Steve Ballmer. And the second big move that MS is going to make is release Windows 8 Pro Classic -- which will simply be Windows 8 without Metro bolted on! They have no choice if they want to keep their business customers happy!

Re: Steve Ballmer by ddtmm · 2013-01-21 05:28 · Score: 1

I don't think they'll release a Windows 8 Classic because there'd be no difference between it and Windows 7 (other than having removed Media Center.)
Re: Steve Ballmer by Microlith · 2013-01-21 05:47 · Score: 1

Well, the entire "Modern" enviroment and associated tablet-oriented Start screen notwithstanding, they're the same. But Microsoft is banking on Modern and the WinRT API to establish their walled garden, which they feel they need to compete with Apple.
Re: Steve Ballmer by cnettel · 2013-01-21 06:01 · Score: 1

There are plenty of kernel improvements. Memory page deduplication seems kind of nice (no, not only COW, but detecting copy-on-write from pages that were not allocated with the explicit intent of being identical). Some of the revamping of Explorer could also be kept, depending on the actual intent.
Re: Steve Ballmer by luther349 · 2013-01-21 06:09 · Score: 1

yea you know that huge pc market share apple has oh wait. waled garden might work on tablets but it will never become anything other then a bad idea on the pc.
Re: Steve Ballmer by Andy_R · 2013-01-21 06:32 · Score: 1

I think you're right, Ballmer's performance has been less than stellar. Windows RT is a strategic disaster (teaching customers that they can to adapt to an OS that's all different where their existing programs won't work is practically a training course for adopting Linux/ChromeOS) and Metro is a dud, but I think the move they *ought* to make is to find their own Jony Ive and give him absolute control over the UI and the look and feel of their products, to stem the tide of bad designs, and to provide a longer term USP that Linux/Open Office can't easily compete with.
Selling off the games division makes no sense to me, it's the part of the company that has consumer loyalty, and isn't fighting battle against free software that Microsoft absolutely has to win every single time, or the company will collapse overnight.

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Re: Steve Ballmer by tgd · 2013-01-21 07:27 · Score: 1

I don't think they'll release a Windows 8 Classic because there'd be no difference between it and Windows 7 (other than having removed Media Center.)
Most of the improvements in Windows 8 are under the covers. The GP is wrong, because Metro really has virtually no impact day-to-day on anyone (its a big start menu, nothing more...) But kernel, memory management, filesystem, and management changes make Windows 8 an absolute no-brainer to any IT organization that actually understands the differences.
Microsoft's challenge will be educating people on those, though.
Re: Steve Ballmer by JBMcB · 2013-01-21 08:54 · Score: 1

Windows 8 runs much nicer than 7 - Metro notwithstanding. Think of the performance enhancement from Vista to 7, that's what you see in 7 to 8. They removed more crufty legacy code and cleaned up the kernel quite a bit. So, yeah, I'd take 8 with the start menu added back in and all the Metro/touch garbage stripped out.

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Re: Steve Ballmer by Chewbacon · 2013-01-21 09:58 · Score: 1

Agreed. If it doesn't get any better, I may have to go Mac. At least Mac OS still has the fundamentals Windows 8 left behind. I can figure the rest out with Xterm.

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Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.

404 by devleopard · 2013-01-21 05:23 · Score: 2

Article not's there anymore. Not surre how long it's been gone, but it's cute to see how many comments there are in spite of this.

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Re:404 by David+Gerard · 2013-01-21 05:30 · Score: 3, Informative

http://www.thephoenixprinciple.com/blog/2013/01/sell-microsoft-now-game-over-ballmer-loses.html

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Re:404 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 07:25 · Score: 1

You should know no-one on ./ reads TFA, hell, some of us don't even read the summary.

Balmer is the real problem by ddtmm · 2013-01-21 05:23 · Score: 1

They should be ditching Balmer, not the Entertainment Division. Behind almost every failure is a failing management team.

Frankly, dear Microsoft... by faragon · 2013-01-21 05:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

... I don't give a damn. Instead of selling Windows 7 and 8 at reasonable prices, you're turning Windows 8 into 200$, after some time in the 30-40$ (source. You'll die, slowly, because of being greedy and short-sighted. In my opinion.

Re:Frankly, dear Microsoft... by CastrTroy · 2013-01-21 05:43 · Score: 2

I agree. I bought Windows 8 specifically because it was only $40. That's a pretty good price if you ask me. This is how much the upgrade should cost. The only reason I can think of that they would have upped the price is because PC manufacturers were complaining that too many people were just upgrading their current computer instead of buying new ones. If you have to spend $200 just for the OS, you're more likely to just go out and buy a new machine for $400 which already has the new OS it. Not sure if it actually happened, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me.

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Article disappeared! Mirror copy by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 05:25 · Score: 1

The article has inexplicably vanished. Here's the text from the Google cache while it lasts:

Microsoft needed a great Christmas season. After years of product stagnation, and a big market shift toward mobile devices from PCs, Microsoft’s future relied on the company seeing customers demonstrate they were ready to jump in heavily for Windows8 products – including the new Surface tablet.

But that did not happen.

With the data now coming it, it is clear the market movement away from Microsoft products, toward Apple and Android products, has not changed. On Christmas eve, as people turned on their new devices and launched their first tweet, Surface came in dead last – a mere 2% compared to the number of people tweeting from iPads (Kindle was second, Android third.) Looking at more traditional units shipped information, UBS analysts reported Surface sales were 5% of iPads shipped. And usability reviews continue to run highly negative for Surface and Win8.

PC sales declining

This inability to make a big splash, and mount a serious attack on Apple/Android domination, is horrific for Microsoft primarily because we now know that traditional PC sales are well into decline. Despite the big Win8 launch and promotion, holiday PC sales declined over 3% compared to 2011 as journalists reported customers found “no compelling reason to upgrade.” Ouch!

Looking deeper, for the 4th quarter PC sales declined by almost 5% according to Gartner research, and by almost 6.5% according to IDC. Both groups no longer expect a rebound in PC shipments, as they believe homes will no longer have more than 1 PC due to the mobile device penetration – the market where Surface and Win8 phones have failed to make any significant impact or move beyond a tiny market share. Users increasingly see the complexity of shifting to Win8 as not worth the effort; and if a switch is to be made consumer and businesses now favor iOS and Android.

Microsoft’s monopoly over personal computing has evaporated

From 95% market domination in 2005 share has fallen to just 20% in 2012 (IDC, Goldman Sachs.) Comparing devices, in 2005 there were 55 Windows de

Illogical. by NuAngel · 2013-01-21 05:26 · Score: 1

To make more money, we're going to sell of the division that currently brings in the most profit? Microsoft is far from being in the kind of bind where they need to start selling of parts of the company. Microsoft's "weak" Windows 8 sales were predicted. Maybe not quite as weak as they have been, but Microsoft didn't "bet big" on Windows 8. They knew the wildly revamped interface would be a huge gamble, and they expected negative reaction. But they are safe, because the large sales of Windows 7 in the enterprise world cushioned the harder than anticipated blow of Windows 8. But with so many businesses so heavily invested in Windows 7, Windows 8 was the PERFECT time to release an OS that had more "market research" potential than "sales" potential.

Re:Illogical. by gbjbaanb · 2013-01-21 08:00 · Score: 1

not really - you sell at the peak, and xbox division is there now. To maintain its position it'll have to maker a new xbox and we all know how much that costs!
So, get rid of it while you can really. And besides, since when did Uncle Fester do anything sensible? Really think he wouldn't sacrifice xbox at the altar of the twin Microsoft gods Windows and Office?

Backwards by MobyDisk · 2013-01-21 05:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

Microsoft is more likely to sell off the Windows Os side and keep the entertainment division. XBOX exists because they knew that the future of Windows depends on it being in your living room. They are supposed to be using the xbox to sell Windows in the same way Apple uses the iPad and iPhone OS to sell Macs.

With that said, Microsoft is doing a terrible job at this, but the strategy depends on tying entertainment to OS so selling it off would be illogical.

Re:Backwards by NewWorldDan · 2013-01-21 05:48 · Score: 1

Mod you the hell up.
Everything these days on the consumer side is about the user ecosystem. Whether it's the Google, Apple, or Microsoft system, it's about having a suite of applications and services that work together. Microsoft is the only one with a game console. The X-Box represents a huge amount of leverage and tie in and there's no way they'd give that up. That's why they bolted Metro on to Windows 8. By itself, Metro is actually pretty slick, even if no one really seems to want it. But if developers can target the desktop, game console, and mobile in one application, that's a pretty big advantage.
If anything, Microsoft should be looking to buy out Barnes and Noble. It gives them an online sales footprint and a nationwide chain of stores. The Nook tablets might not be the most popular, but I'm betting that they're outselling WinRT by a fair margin. Of course, Microsoft would find a way to destroy B&N, but that's a subject for another post.
Re:Backwards by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 05:50 · Score: 1

Microsoft is more likely to sell off the Windows Os side and keep the entertainment division. XBOX exists because they knew that the future of Windows depends on it being in your living room.

Gamers are a fickle bunch. There is a generational shuffle. Atari, Sega, Sony, Nintendo, and almost every player in the industry has enjoyed time at the top only to get shoved to the bottom in the shuffle. MS can't effectively lock-in gamers like they can OS/Office users.
Re:Backwards by a_n_d_e_r_s · 2013-01-21 06:09 · Score: 1

Windows is the part that they use to leverage their sales of Office which is Microsofts main cash cow.
With Windows no longer being able to to give Office an extra advantage, Office will have a hard time to compete and will no longer be dominating and it will be really downhill for Microsoft.
Its all about follow the money. A company in trouble usually sell off the parts of their business that dont show a big profit.
Selling the cash cow means you are left with a business that hardly gives any profit for the future. That is a bad bet for a company that aim to survive. Selling Xbox is thus the better choice for the company. Its just sound business strategy.

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Just saying it like it are.
Re:Backwards by snadrus · 2013-01-21 06:51 · Score: 1

Agreed. XBox culture runs Microsoft (Metro is proof). WinRT tablets are primarily XBox portables. MS will diversify under the XBox influence.

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Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
Re:Backwards by MobyDisk · 2013-01-21 15:05 · Score: 1

I was at a Barnes and Noble yesterday and I heard a salesperson explaining to an older couple about the Nook. I overheard something like "...you don't load apps onto this, it is for reading books.... no, you can't copy those files..." It was a very interesting conversation. She was basically telling this couple that everything they heard was cool about tablets and PCs didn't work on this device. If I had stock in B&N I would have sold it after hearing that!

UPDATE THE LINK! by David+Gerard · 2013-01-21 05:29 · Score: 5, Informative

Forbes has vanished the article. Here's a copy on the author's blog.

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Re:UPDATE THE LINK! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 05:49 · Score: 1

Thanks. Some followup issues -
1) Hartung predicts huge layoffs at MS, on the order of half the company. That would be a far bigger story than spinning off Xbox. That would be like IBM in the '90s.
2) But do his numbers make sense? I doubt it, but Hartung does have a decent resume. Just because Apple is kicking MS' butt and is picking up market share doesn't mean that the MS has to shut down half the company. Fire the CEO, now, that's a different matter.
3) Why did Forbes take Hartung's story down? I wouldn't be surprised if someone on the business side got a phone call from Redmond, WA.
Re:UPDATE THE LINK! by man_of_mr_e · 2013-01-21 06:47 · Score: 1

I'm guessing they took the story down because it contains misleading information. Like claiming that MS"s share went from 95% to 20% in 8 years. That's simply not true, because it's comparing two different things.
MS's share of the desktop/laptop market has not changed significantly. He's also adding in phones and tablets, markets which previously MS did not expend significant effort on. (and were not a significant part of the overall device market).
That has changed, but only because MS has decided to compete more heavily in those markets and to take them seriously.
It's like saying that MS's market share dropped significantly when they entered the server market. That's just rubbish statistics and reporting.

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Re:UPDATE THE LINK! by Rogerborg · 2013-01-21 07:09 · Score: 1

It also contains a split infinitive. I don't care how incisive the analysis is, the author is a cad and a boor and has no place in Forbes.

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If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Re:UPDATE THE LINK! by Nefarious+Wheel · 2013-01-21 17:55 · Score: 1

It also contains a split infinitive. I don't care how incisive the analysis is, the author is a cad and a boor and has no place in Forbes.
That will cause serious concern and consternation when it's translated into Latin!

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Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear

Re:won't by JoosepN · 2013-01-21 05:36 · Score: 1

Will Will!

An anecdote by David+Gerard · 2013-01-21 05:36 · Score: 1

Anecdote: my work currently has XP, Office 2007 and Lotus Notes. We're looking at replacing Office and Notes with Google Apps ... and XP with Linux or Chromebook-style thin clients unless you can come up with a good reason you need a general-purpose PC. Google Apps is pretty much the hot favourite with lots of people saying "hell yes!"; the second part is just being mooted, but it's being seriously mooted. It'll be interesting. (I can already do all my work in Xubuntu.)

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http://rocknerd.co.uk

No. by Megane · 2013-01-21 05:37 · Score: 3, Informative

Betteridge's law of headlines

The best part is that Forbes (apparently) pulled the article because (apparently) it was just too much wild speculation.

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Re:No. by Farmer+Pete · 2013-01-22 05:44 · Score: 1

I really wish Slashdot would disallow headlines asked as a question. Ask slashdot included. :-)

So MS Holds onto the OS Buggy Whip? by BoRegardless · 2013-01-21 05:38 · Score: 1

Pardon the pun, but it looks like MS is going to carry WinOS & MSO to the grave.

Xbox is a foothold in the living room by Stone316 · 2013-01-21 05:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

Why on earth would they sell that off? Makes absolutely no sense. This type of reporting is totally and utterly a pile of crap. Must be a slow news day and this guy has an article quota to keep.

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"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."

Re:Xbox is a foothold in the living room by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · 2013-01-21 06:38 · Score: 1

Why on earth would they sell that off? Makes absolutely no sense. This type of reporting is totally and utterly a pile of crap. Must be a slow news day and this guy has an article quota to keep.
Keep in mind that IT writers make bold predictions. It writers have been predicting "the end of the PC" for more than 10 years now. Back when the first abysmal failure tablets came out in the very early 2000s that writers were saying that the PC was dead and tablets were the future. They missed on that. It took Apple to make the devices successful as nobody before them had a clue on how to do it, including Microsoft. Yes, it eventually did happen, but not when the writers all said it would.

Anyway, whether the blogger is correct or not remains to be seen. But here's his line of reasoning.
1) Microsoft bet the company on Win 8. It lost that bet. The financial implications of this will be disastrous to Microsoft.
2) Microsoft only knows how to make money on Windows and Office, so it will conclude that it needs to keep those going to make money, even though that will be proven to be a losing strategy in hindsight.
3) At least 50% of the company will be laid off in the upcoming years as a cost savings measure.
4) Anything losing money is getting closed down.
5) The entertainment division will be sold as it will be viewed as a distraction to the goal of item #2 above.
6) As business shifts to the cloud, Microsoft will suffer and its inability to build compelling cloud solutions will cause it to drop even further.

It's just a guess, and that's what IT writers do. They try to guess the future. If he is right, well, it looks like he'll be able to be the first one to say "I told you so". I tend to be more skeptical about trends that IT writers see as unstoppable, so I think that Microsoft may well be able to survive Win 8 being a failure.
Re:Xbox is a foothold in the living room by DigiShaman · 2013-01-21 07:50 · Score: 1

They need the entertainment devision to bind with their Windows 8 platform. It wont be long before the next Apple TV become the next gaming platform tied to your iCloud/iTunes account. It's only an OS or hardware revision away. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, etc should be pinching a loaf about now.

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Life is not for the lazy.
Re:Xbox is a foothold in the living room by Stone316 · 2013-01-21 08:32 · Score: 1

Granted, I don't have the details on the licenses but how exactly is MS losing money? 95% of PC's shipped still have a version of windows on it. Vista was considered a dismal failure and it still brought in a ton of money. Unless new PC's are being shipped with Linux or Mac OS then i'm not sure how MS is not making money?

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"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."

Completely stupid article by js3 · 2013-01-21 05:41 · Score: 1

Makes no sense

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did you forget to take your meds?

Re:Warning: duplicate word at line 1. by war4peace · 2013-01-21 05:43 · Score: 1

Also, "Lets not forget".

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This doesn't make any sense by macwhizkid · 2013-01-21 05:44 · Score: 1

The Xbox is basically a specialized, stripped-down Windows gaming computer, in terms of both software and hardware. The games use DirectX, just like regular Windows, and make it trivial for developers to port their games to desktop. In other words, the Xbox ecosystem makes the Windows platform stronger, not weaker.

Re:This doesn't make any sense by 0123456 · 2013-01-21 05:52 · Score: 1

In other words, the Xbox ecosystem makes the Windows platform stronger, not weaker.
Uh, no. The Xbox has helped to kill Windows gaming because the majority of new 'PC' games are crappy ports of crappy console games which barely touch the power of a high-end gaming PC.

Something will happen by AdmV0rl0n · 2013-01-21 05:45 · Score: 1

Although people are venting, it should be of note that both MS and Google are in a war. And that war is bleeding casualties

Microsoft is killing MSN Live and Messenger. Google has killed off services and solutions. Windows 8 is part of a huge MS screw up where they are trying to align devices. This isn't a fit for their windows, so windows has had to go through the disaster that is called 8.
Phones, Xbox, PC and Tablet all with the same dire 'Modern *Cough Metro *cough* UI - and they killed zune which could have used the same. Their store is a disaster, as are the applications - and the development platform where you write once and deploy across devices is pure fantasy land.

Xbox depending one how much fiddling you do on the accounting side has lost MS billions. Its now at the end of the current machine design lifespan. And the high street market in the UK where they used to sell into is a disaster area. They are currently basically giving away 8 for peanuts, and only doing so has generated sales. They give away office in surface, because its so utterly broken and can't operate with add ins and stuff people need that they would not get away with charging for it.

At some point, and I think it will be soon unless there is something not visible, something will crack. Either the numbers or the money will turn into the red, and this stuff will go through the ringer. MS in recent times made ok money, but 7 started losing sales, and 8 has tipped into a slide. On the other side, while they are still shifting office, the theory of driving office on top of modern UI may well end up like a Win 8 disaster in the office area.

At which point certain plans or divisons will end up under scrutiny. I'm not expecting divions that lose billions to survive with that background.

MS is a very scewed up company right now. Its old divisions are being decimated and wrecked, and new ones are a mess. Includin the 'everything cloud' and azure.

To put this in a context. Here is a prime example. You can't add surface to AD.
How that actually passed board level or adult level checks its hard to know. A windows machine that is aimed at business users, has office installed (albeit laughably broken) and cannot be added to AD.

The bottom line is actually some of this shit has die, be sold off. Because frankly they are wrecking everything, stupidy, in badly thought out efforts to unify unconnected systems and devices, into an eco system no customer asked for, or wanted. Or will want.

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We`re all equal .. Just some of us are less equal than others.

Re:Something will happen by man_of_mr_e · 2013-01-21 06:55 · Score: 1

Microsoft is killing off the Messenger client, not the Messenger service, which has essentially been subsumed by the Skype instant messaging client (which can now connect to the messenger service).
They're just getting rid of excess clients, but keeping the basic overall functionality.
You also make the basic mistake of thinking that metro is just a UI. It's not. It's actually an entirely new OS, running side-by-side Win32. This OS is currently in the infant stage, but will gain strength in further revisions, the first of which is expected next summer.
MS has been selling 8 at a discount, but that ends next week when it returns to the regular price. If it was such a disaster, why would they get rid of the discounts?
Azure is doing quite well, actually. Skydrive, however has not yet caught on. Don't confuse MS's web services strategy for it's apps with Azure the service (for third parties). The first may use the second, but the second is a whole lot more.
Microsoft is killing some services, such as Live Mesh, but they're replacing them with new services rather than just killing them off (which Google does).

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Re:something will happen by man_of_mr_e · 2013-01-21 16:41 · Score: 1

Surfaces are, at the moment, not intended for business use. In fact, you aren't licensed to use Office in a business environment on it (though I'm sure many will).
So why would they allow it to connect to an AD if you aren't allowed to use it in a business environment?
It may be a stupid decision, but at least it's consistent.
Skypes new functionality is equivalent to Messenger, plus adding Skype to it. So it's more like Messenger+Skype.
Skype has desktop sharing. Skype has video calls, etc..

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Betteridge's Law... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-01-21 05:46 · Score: 1

No.

The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by eldavojohn · 2013-01-21 05:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

I cannot believe this is getting posted here. I know Slashdot hates Microsoft but this is the equivalent of me saying that Apple will sell off the iPad because the iPhone didn't sell as well as they wanted it to. Or something like that.

No, I see distinct differences between your comparison. I wasn't able to read the article before it was pulled but let me address your bad analogy. While you're right that this "analyst" needs to pull his head out of his anal cyst, your comparison is quite laughable and let me tell you why. Traditionally Microsoft's software has been a cash cow. You want the latest Office? You want the latest Windows? Pay up. Everyone. For each computer. Now. And while that's faltered before, Windows 8 has been subjected to a lot of bad PR (both warranted and unwarranted) as well as actually having poor sales.

Now, let's look at their entertainment division. With the initial Xbox release, that division was a sinkhole of money. Like, literally a burn pile for billions of dollars. But Microsoft was patient because they had other stupid insane routes of income with which to fill the tire fire that was the Xbox. Even when they launched the second incarnation -- they fared much better but still they took a loss on the console assuming publishing royalties would pay and later on they did. Now, you know, after the bomb of the Zune has run its course and now that Wii U is out Microsoft could be looking at their entertainment division as a potential sale. Why? Because in the past it has been a very risky venture for them and recently profits and revenues of that division have been dropping faster each quarter. Basically I see their sales stagnating until they release another console to drum up more money -- and even then they'll probably take the strategy of letting later publishing sales subsidize the initial unit to compete with Nintendo and Sony.

So, now that their cash cows are looking pretty thin will they be in a position to take another gamble in the console market? Will it be painful like Xbox one or will it be great like Xbox 360? And I'm not in this area of management but I imagine they are looking at their revenues and if committing to the next console is a make or break move for Microsoft as a whole (which would be totally f*cking insane if they are looking that bad) then maybe they'd try to sell it to someone else with huge cash reserves. I don't know why Sony would buy and I don't see B&N having a ton of cash after their brick and mortar stores are a fond pastime.

So, to wrap it up, no this is nothing like Apple selling off the iPad because the iPhone didn't sell as well as they wanted it to. I don't think the iPad ever lost them money and the market still looks good for tablets.

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My work here is dung.

Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by Gilmoure · 2013-01-21 06:08 · Score: 1

What if Apple considered spinning off it's personal database software group?

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I drank what? -- Socrates
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by llZENll · 2013-01-21 06:39 · Score: 5, Interesting

Windows is dying, office is dead, quit trying to force them! Zune is dead, and windows phone is in the ICU, Microsoft's only somewhat healthy division with a possible future is entertainment, why in the hell would they sell it?
If I were Microsoft, I would launch a new console immediately, featuring kick ass hardware with no dvd/bluray drive and all software is downloaded with a 30% royalty rate, good bye publisher distribution! The current xbox live gold would become free, and a new tier of xbox live would add a free video streaming library like netflix, AND HERE IS THE BIG ONE, a free video GAME library that works like netflix, you can only check out a certain number of games at a time and their save state is wiped when the game is returned. The only games in the this library are older and lower tier ones, much like the netflix movie library.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by ericloewe · 2013-01-21 06:46 · Score: 2

Windows is very much alive. Plenty of horrible Windows versions before 8. Office is alive and well, and will be for the foreseeable future. Zune doesn't even exist anymore. Windows Phone is suffering mainly from a lack of marketing and some absurd decisions by manufacturers, at least in my region.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by rogueippacket · 2013-01-21 07:05 · Score: 5, Funny

Dear Sir/Ma'am,
I am pleased to offer you the position of CEO, Microsoft Corporation, effectively immediately upon your acceptance. Your vision for our company, relatively low Slashdot ID, and ability to forge ahead during difficult times have made you a prime candidate for this position. Your salary is negotiable at time of signing, and in keeping with the spirit of our company, you will be provided with a warehouse full of office chairs of varying weight and size, such that you may throw them at your subordinates should the need arise. Human Resources has already agreed to waive any complaints from these incidents up to ten (10) times per calendar year.
Welcome to the Microsoft family!
Signed, S. Ballmer
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by bondsbw · 2013-01-21 07:24 · Score: 1

no dvd/bluray drive and all software is downloaded
So Gamestop, Best Buy, and the many other retail game stores will suddenly only have games for the newest Sony/Nintendo consoles, and nothing will be available for the new XBox?
Somehow, I don't think you thought your cunning plan all the way through.

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All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by bondsbw · 2013-01-21 07:26 · Score: 1

The current xbox live gold would become free, and a new tier of xbox live would add a free video streaming library like netflix, AND HERE IS THE BIG ONE, a free video GAME library that works like netflix, you can only check out a certain number of games at a time and their save state is wiped when the game is returned.
Oh hell, I knew I should have read the entire comment before assuming the first statement was the most ludicrous one.

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All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by Gr8Apes · 2013-01-21 07:29 · Score: 2

... maybe they'd try to sell it to someone else with huge cash reserves. I don't know why Sony would buy and I don't see B&N having a ton of cash after their brick and mortar stores are a fond pastime.
News flash - Sony is bleeding cash faster than a victim in a Tarantino movie, and last I recall, didn't B&N go into bankruptcy? The only "others" with huge cash reserves are, in increasing order: FaceBook (probably not), Google (potential, here), and Apple (probably already 95% down this road, and don't need the XBox anything.)

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Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by Soluzar · 2013-01-21 08:20 · Score: 2

Maybe PS4 will be digital only. Wii U takes discs, this is known, but it also allows games to be downloaded. Maybe the brick-and-mortar portion of the game retail sector will shrink to the point where they are no longer quite such a relevant concern.
This is already happening in the UK.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by theRunicBard · 2013-01-21 09:25 · Score: 1

Overall, I'd say you're correct, but there is something else to consider: Microsoft's image. Windows and Office are what your parents (most likely) used. That makes them lame, broadly speaking. So if Microsoft has only those, it's lame. And nobody outside of industry has head of Lync or Exchange. Try getting a teenager excited about them. So to reach these people, MSFT needs something hip or cool. What is that? It could be Skype sure. That's pretty sweet and has a big following around the world. Or maybe if Windows Phone takes off, it could be that. You laugh now but that phone is... unique, to say the least. But what it really is right now is Xbox. Xbox is cool. It's the center of so many American homes. Your kid wants an Xbox. Microsoft can't afford to give that up. Maybe, if my wishes come true, Steam consoles and OUYA will rise up, but they haven't yet. Xbox is all that separates MS from a wrinkly old prune. Hell, even their CEO is old. And if Sinofsky comes back and succeeds Ballmer? He's also old. Xbox is the only thing there that's even slightly young. I doubt they'll be selling it.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by mattack2 · 2013-01-21 14:04 · Score: 1

and a new tier of xbox live would add a free video streaming library like netflix, AND HERE IS THE BIG ONE, a free video GAME library that works like netflix, you can only check out a certain number of games at a time and their save state is wiped when the game is returned. The only games in the this library are older and lower tier ones, much like the netflix movie library.
Since you compare to netflix, I don't think you actually mean free, do you? You mean "all you can eat", not free?
Since you say the save game is wiped, I think you MIGHT mean actually free (as in included in the base price of the system), but I don't think you really mean that.
A low price (lower than gamefly) for old/lower tier games might be reasonable, but not if it wipes out your saved games. Heck, I already wait until games are in the $20 range to get them. Sony has successfully gotten me into re-buying some PS2 games as PS3 collections, though so far the Sony published ones, so I end up getting them for no cash due to using my accumulated Sony credit card points.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by Grishnakh · 2013-01-21 14:49 · Score: 1

Windows is dying, office is dead, quit trying to force them! Zune is dead, and windows phone is in the ICU, Microsoft's only somewhat healthy division with a possible future is entertainment, why in the hell would they sell it?
You seem to be applying logic and good business sense to the situation. The problem is that Steve Ballmer doesn't have any. That's why MS is likely to sell their only healthy division.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by Nefarious+Wheel · 2013-01-21 16:07 · Score: 2

First impression: Sony will buy it all, and kill it stone, cold dead.
Anyone remember Vanguard, from Sigil? They bought the game, fired the developers, and left it in its buggy, buggy state. Occasional upgrades with horrible art.
Either Sony was amazingly inept at games, or they were amazingly malicious. Given their history (read Groklaw.net if you want a review of their advanced corporate thuggery) I am given to believe it's the latter.

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Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by exomondo · 2013-01-21 16:53 · Score: 1

The frustrating thing is that the Windows-centricity and fear of anything that could canibalize it has led to the curtailing of innovation and killing off of potentially great products like the Courier.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by Farmer+Pete · 2013-01-22 05:00 · Score: 1

How do you suppose that you download a blu ray sized game? I've got an 18mbit internet connection, and downloading a 25+ GB game would take quite some time. Lets also not forget that a lot of people have caps on the amount they can download. Download 4 games in a month, and your ISP may very well cut you off. Also, you would need a large hard drive to hold all of your games. I'd imagine 1TB would probably be necessary for a lot of gamers. I own ~20 PS3 games, and I'm not exactly hard core. I've just had the console since it was released, and I get ~5 games each year. (Side rant, I typically buy the hot games a year after they come out. Preferably when they release the next sequel. It's amazing how many games I've bought for $19.99 that were released a year before for $59.99. Delayed gratification really saves a lot of money. I suppose if I was playing more online gaming, I might be more inclined to get the hottest games).

I see digital downloads as the future of gaming, but I don't think that Sony or Microsoft will make it the ONLY method of getting games until the majority of people buy their games digital by choice.
Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit by halligas · 2013-01-22 05:23 · Score: 1

"Windows is dying"? Windows 8 is already at a higher market % than OSX 10.8. Is OSX dying?

If he does, he's a fool. by jimicus · 2013-01-21 05:51 · Score: 1

The operating system - and, for that matter, Office - is becoming less and less important as more companies transition to web-based services for the bulk of their work and find that they don't need anything like as sophisticated as Office for the odd spreadsheet or bit of word-processing.

Sure, it's not happening anything like as quickly as a lot of us predicted five or ten years ago. But it's happening.

In such a climate - particularly when you're still a profitable company with a lot of cash in the bank - I would think it makes more sense to diversify than it does to concentrate on the two things that have historically made you lots of money but might not continue to do so for very long.

Re:If he does, he's a fool. by turp182 · 2013-01-21 07:31 · Score: 1

I''m a MS developer, in the corporate sphere (internal applications, some Click Once external apps), and I disagree. XP and Windows 7 will generally dominate the corporate ecosystem for the time being.
As well, any developer or manager worth two cents will push Winform (potentially WPF, but I'm very good at Winforms) development for internal applications. It is fast to develop, provides local storage (cache, really fast applications), and MS has a good delivery system in Click Once (even for externally facing applications, with proper security and user authorization).
The move to web based, which it seems every developer and manager is dead set on, is simply the wrong move for internal software. Winform is faster, cleaner, and results in a better product in my opinion (don't get me started on the overuse of Javascript, and don't try globalization or complicated currency manipulations either).
There can be issues with people with poor eyesight and that fact that Winform doesn't always DPI scale well (if at all, WPF is much better with regards to this). The solution in those cases is 36" or larger flat panels as monitors, and users will love you forever (and it's pretty cheap these days).
Now if the general public needs access to you, then the solution is obviously web based. But for internal, I spend my days cleaning up the messes caused by poorly implemented internal web designs with actual applications.

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BlameBillCosby.com

Hon Hai might buy it by Animats · 2013-01-21 05:53 · Score: 1

The obvious company to buy the XBox line would be Hon Hai Precision Industries, the parent of Foxconn. They already make the XBox. Hon Hai's CEO wants to develop a global brand of their own. It would just mean Hon Hai taking over a slightly larger portion of the supply and marketing chain for something they already make.

Let's recap by obarthelemy · 2013-01-21 05:56 · Score: 1

1- build a very mature OS/Office/Entreprise business with slow growth
2- build a faster growth Entertainment business with, at last, OK results
3- sell 2-
4- watch 1- stagnate
5- ???
6- Profits !

MS have a monopoly rent on entreprise OS and software. The only thing they can do is use that rent while it lasts to try and become relevant in the mobile space. Even being an also-ran would be better than the non-entity they are right now. I think their best chance is to pull an Apple, integrate hardware and software, either by buying Nokia outright or keeping them straightjacketed by whatever exclusive deal and right of first refusal they have on takeovers.

The article is wrong in that MS can do *nothing* about Wintel PCs falling out of favor, so *nothing* about Windows on desktops/laptops sales. It's pointless to invest more in Windows. Actually, I'm pretty sure MS could stop doing anything but security updates for desktop/laptop Windows over the next few years, and that would not impact sales. It might even turn out better then pulling another Win8 on users.

MS can try and get more Windows phones and tablets out. They missed their opportunity to preempt competitors like they did in the PC market though, and will never get it back. Android and iOS are good enough and big enough that whatever MS comes up will at best get to par, and OEMs are not dumb enough to let MS once again get all the profits and devalue the hardware business.

I think it's already too late to achieve much success in the general market though, and that the best MS can hope is to milk the market of companies who insist on Windows Everywhere, and can't/won't handle iOS nor Android. Apart from Office, there's *zero* reasons to buy a Windows phone nor tablet these days. RT tablets are inferior to iOS/Android on all scores; and x86 tablets are so expensive you can get an x86 laptop *and* an ARM tablet for the same price.

The Entertainment division is actually one of the few recent MS success stories, had has a lot of similarities to the Mobile market: consumer not entreprise, ecosystem, media-oriented... Getting rid of it makes no sense.

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The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.

Well, personally, by cellocgw · 2013-01-21 05:56 · Score: 1

I think Microsoft should sell off 100% of Microsoft, preferably to some Linux house which will have the common sense to bury Windows* OSs deep in the ground, never to be heard from again.

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https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw

Troll != Analyst. by guidryp · 2013-01-21 06:00 · Score: 1

Don't reward Trolls like this guy.

He is clearly posting outrageous nonsense for page hits, and the /. just gave it to him (I did not follow the link, but many will).

Microsoft Will? by Jmc23 · 2013-01-21 06:00 · Score: 1

Is he like Microsoft Bob 2.0?

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Will Microsoft Will ? by thygate · 2013-01-21 06:00 · Score: 1

Who on earth is Microsoft Will ?

Business user is not dead by goffster · 2013-01-21 06:01 · Score: 1

Microsoft has lost the popular consumer, most likely for good.
It has not lost the business user, and probably never will.

You might find that Microsoft completely spins off Windows OS,
and focuses on products for all OSes, and getting them to
interoperate well. It is business products that make Microsoft IMHO.

Re:Business user is not dead by 0123456 · 2013-01-21 06:11 · Score: 1

It has not lost the business user, and probably never will.
The business user is sticking to Windows 7 and thinking 'WTF are they doing with this Windows 8 garbage? Can we find a sane OS to replace Windows with if they keep trying to turn our desktop PCs into tablets?'

ain't failing business sucky? by swschrad · 2013-01-21 06:03 · Score: 1

you have to sell off the good performers, because the rest of the operation is discounted to pennies on the dollar if you pull in a shylock banker on the sly to value it. so the slide gets steeper.

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if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?

Sell the only potentially growing division? by ThePhilips · 2013-01-21 06:03 · Score: 1

"With that in mind, Hartung believes Steve Ballmer will do anything and everything to save Windows, including ditching entertainment and therefore Xbox."

Twisted logic.

If Windows/Office are on decline, why sell the only growing, and potentially profitable, business branch they have?

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All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Re:Sell the only potentially growing division? by rahvin112 · 2013-01-21 07:38 · Score: 1

Quite simply because the entertainment division makes less than 1% of the revenue of Windows and Office. Would you get rid of $99 to keep a dollar?

they're following Atari to the pot of gold. by swschrad · 2013-01-21 06:05 · Score: 2

uh, wait... http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/01/21/130215/atari-files-for-bankruptcy

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if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?

No all of it by PPH · 2013-01-21 06:06 · Score: 1

Microsoft will continue to produce products in the horror genre. So we can look forward to Windows sequels for the foreseeable future.

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Have gnu, will travel.

Better headline -- by ravyne · 2013-01-21 06:07 · Score: 1

"Forbes analyst Adam Hartung makes wild prediction to drive up add revenue"

Selling Gaming Division Makes Sense by Koreantoast · 2013-01-21 06:07 · Score: 1

The idea of Microsoft selling off their gaming division in an effort to salvage their core products makes sense. Their gaming division does not have any real synergies with the core products, and with consoles entering into the transition phase to the next generation, the next few years are going to require a lot of money, talent and oversight. If they can command a good multiple on the earnings, it would be better to sell now while they can command a premium before having to make that investment. They can then take those resources and investment them into salvaging their core Windows and Office products. This assumes of course that salvaging Windows and Office is possible...

Sniff test by onyxruby · 2013-01-21 06:08 · Score: 1

This doesn't even pass the sniff test. Microsoft has spent literally billions of dollars (estimates from $5-$10) more than they have made on their entertainment division - by design. They did that as a long term strategic investment for the sole purpose of staying entrenched in peoples living rooms and lives. A computer for every desk and an xbox for every living room. They aren't about to walk away from that now that they are starting to get to the point they envisioned a decade ago.

This is a long term strategic vision, and frankly one that is better laid thought out and executed than what they have done with their operating systems during the same time frame. Ballmer is a bloody idiot in many ways, but he isn't /that/ much of an idiot. Frankly someone should put their games division in charge of the OS division, as they have better vision and long term execution.

Link to blog post by lysdexia · 2013-01-21 06:09 · Score: 1

http://www.thephoenixprinciple.com/blog/2013/01/sell-microsoft-now-game-over-ballmer-loses.html
Forbes has pulled it.

I cant say I disagree by jameshofo · 2013-01-21 06:09 · Score: 1

Well I thought it silly for them to sell but FTA Cached on google

Microsoft makes more than 75% of its profits from Windows and Office. Less than 25% comes from its vaunted servers and tools. And Microsoft makes nothing from its xBox/Kinect entertainment division, while losing vast sums in its on-line division (negative $350M-$750M/quarter). No matter how much anyone likes the non-Windows Microsoft products, without the historical Windows/Office sales and profits Microsoft is not sustainable.

To be quite honest he makes a good case.

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Re:I cant say I disagree by kannibal_klown · 2013-01-21 06:19 · Score: 1

Supposedly things shifted recently in the XBox / gaming division... that they're profitable now. I don't recall "how" profitable, though it's still probably small. And I don't know for sure if it was true of just marketing rhetoric.
BUT... even if not, there are indirect profits. Things like "getting your kid used to Microsoft" with something fun. Word Processing and the like don't exactly hook those kids into LIKING your product or even tolerating your product. And with console gaming growing more and more... you can't rely on PC gaming as much as the old days to hook those kids into liking the brand.
Between the techie teens being introduced to *nix, and non-techie teens starting to get into OSX... they need something to keep their name on their minds.
I'm not saying it's going to totally brainwash people to grab MS tablets or anything, but it probably helps a little bit. And in this fragmenting market, every little bit helps.

Because...Win Phone 8 and Surface! by EXTomar · 2013-01-21 06:24 · Score: 1

As others have noted their "gaming strategy" has been schizophrenic and scattered because of contrary goals working against each other instead of concert (promoting consoles erodes PC, promoting mobile erodes consoles, etc). So to answer your question: It does make sense if they decide they want to bank everything on Win Phone 8 and Surface where a future XBox is a distraction or partially erode that goal.

Although Microsoft can claim "we win!" the console generation, it cost heavily and might have been a Pyrrhic victory. If the high execs believe the future is all mobile phones and tablets then Microsoft has a much bigger in to "the living room" than it ever did with consoles. Consoles in this view become an expensive anchor that are fraught with more risk than selling another phone.

Of course this thinking only makes sense if you are an exec who really really really really really believes that Win Phone 8 and Surface are really really really really all of that. If the higher ups at Microsoft believe that then it would be a small step to see how selling off that expensive business "makes sense" for as a boost to the company instead of a disaster.

I can't see it happening by ZeroSerenity · 2013-01-21 06:27 · Score: 1

It's making money and have you ever known Microsoft to sell off anything of theirs? (Excluding MSNBC, it wasn't wholey owned)
And how about analysts predicting that it should sell off Bing?

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It's not a chair. by kurt555gs · 2013-01-21 06:28 · Score: 1

It's the handle of a bailing pump on a sinking wooden ship.

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A far more Microsoft-ie approach to this would be by Shemmie · 2013-01-21 06:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

Well, as I understand it, the 360 did well in the 'longer haul' of this generation. While the clear winner was the Wii, it has effectively been dead for a couple of years, with the 360 making leads over the PS3 in Europe and I believe, the US?

So... if Microsoft see the 720 as being 'potentially a success' on its own two legs, what would MS do? Given recent history, they'd find a way of jamming Metro into it, somehow. I can see the 720 as being some Windows RT inspired device, aimed at being to your living room what your WP8 is when you're mobile, your Windows Surface device when you're semi-mobile, and your Windows 8 desktop when you're at a desk.

The fact that WP8, Surface and Windows 8 are clearly failing (miserably, in the case of WP8 and Surface) is unlikely to deter MS - Ballmer has been one of the most stubborn CEO's in recent history. His strategy to keep doing the wrong thing, no matter what sales, user feedback, OEM feedback might say is quite remarkable. Zune will succeed! Oh. Well, WP7 will succeed! Oh... er... XNA is doing well in the indie market, let's scrap it! .Net's entrenched in business and enterprise, let's suggest it's second class now! Let's buy Skype and just screw it in to everything we do! Let's do the Surface hardware on our own, our OEM partners will be fully supportive!

I seriously believe a Magic 8 Ball running Microsoft would do a better job, as decisions made entirely by random would have a better chance of sometimes being successful.

If Ballmer continues on this route, either MS will win massively in the long run (by being such an incredible visionary that he blind-sided the entire technology market, and all his ideas thus far have been part of some master plan), or (seemingly more likely) he will run them into the ground, until there's nothing left but a software company looking for a buy out.

And I'm fairly pro-Microsoft. For /., I'd actually be a fan boi.

The Real World by SuperKendall · 2013-01-21 06:38 · Score: 1

You can't play real first person shooters on consoles

Halo and COD are far more "real" to more people that play on consoles than any computer based FPS has even been (yes I know COD also works on the PC).

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Will Microsoft sell off Ballmer? by estestvoispytatel · 2013-01-21 06:39 · Score: 1

Will Sony buy him?

Disagree Re:MS's gaming strategy has been by Stone316 · 2013-01-21 06:48 · Score: 2

Personally I love playing FPS games on a console. While I may not be as accurate as on a PC I find it much more relaxing to play.

I've played my share of FPS games on PC's. From Doom, Quake, America's Army and countless others.

It just comes down to personal preference. The only games I have found that really work better on a PC are RTS games. However, after playing C&C on the xbox, once you got the shortcuts memorized it wasn't too bad at all.

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Re:Grammar by ArcadeMan · 2013-01-21 06:53 · Score: 1

It's a weird kind of it's kind of will grammar.

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Amateur games by tepples · 2013-01-21 07:01 · Score: 1

if the only reason you stick with Windows is gaming... then why not just buy a 360?

Xbox Live Indie Games, based on the XNA platform, gives amateurs a route to market for their games. One advantage is that it lets someone new to video game development build up a portfolio of amateur games that demonstrate his skill in order to get hired into the industry. The problem is that XBLIG isn't available in all countries due to censorship laws, and to be able to experience games from promising amateurs from those countries or in those countries, you need a PC.

Sometimes I have friends over by tepples · 2013-01-21 07:06 · Score: 1

Not to mention that many PC games are now coming with support out of the box for an Xbox controller

Are they coming out with support for just one Xbox 360 controller, or two to four Xbox 360 controllers? Sometimes I have friends over who want to join a game but didn't bring their own gaming laptops.

Re:Sometimes I have friends over by tepples · 2013-01-21 10:13 · Score: 1

I've played Castle Crashers with one gamepad using the same laptop as my friend who was using another gamepad. All hooked up to her TV.
Thank you for the suggestion. It's just that there appears not to be very many people willing to do that. Or has that changed in the past several years?
Re:Sometimes I have friends over by MBGMorden · 2013-01-21 11:14 · Score: 1

Not sure. I've never been one for local multiplayer anyways though. If I want multiplayer I'll play online.

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Two gaming PCs vs. one gaming PC and one console by tepples · 2013-01-21 07:07 · Score: 1

A $500 gaming rig for the computer desk and a $500 gaming rig for the living room are still a lot more expensive than a $500 gaming rig for the computer desk and a $200 console for the living room.

Re:Warning: duplicate word at line 1. by war4peace · 2013-01-21 07:07 · Score: 1

Sue me.

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WTF? by Parker+Lewis · 2013-01-21 07:10 · Score: 1

So, as the PC market is shrinking, they sell their only successful non PC device to others?

CBS and Viacom by tepples · 2013-01-21 07:11 · Score: 1

Would you say the split of Viacom into two companies is another good example? Both CBS and Viacom are still controlled by National Amusements, but all the slower-growing lines of business have been consolidated into one entity (CBS).

Re:Warning: duplicate word at line 1. by hackula · 2013-01-21 07:13 · Score: 1

Also, "Lets not forget".

Correcting grammar in the comments section of a message board, may be one of most pathetic things imaginable.

FTFY

Shareholders should sue if they try... by Roogna · 2013-01-21 07:13 · Score: 1

If I was a shareholder I'd be rather pissed off if they tried selling off the one division that seems to be making any progress. If they want to break up, then at least do the world a favor and just spin them off as a separate company entirely. Perhaps than, entertainment can move away from having to rely on other pieces of the MS ecosystem. Might even increase sales of XBox more if they weren't tied to MS so tightly any longer.

But selling them to Sony? Way to kill two platforms with one stone, might as well just burn the shareholders cash.

B17 Ballmer by tepples · 2013-01-21 07:16 · Score: 1

Maybe Microsoft should sell its entertainment division to Mattel. You know, the company that published B17 Ballmer for its Intellivision console way back in the second generation. It'd be a good fit with the "Fisher-Price" look of Windows XP and Windows 8.

Once again ... by tgd · 2013-01-21 07:25 · Score: 1

Windows 8 is selling VERY well.

New PCs with Windows 8 are what isn't selling well... because, you know... it works great on existing PCs.

That's a Lenovo, HP and Dell problem, not a Microsoft problem.

Re:Who is Microsoft Will? by Honclfibr · 2013-01-21 07:32 · Score: 1

Perhaps a distant cousin of Microsoft Bob?

My counter-anecdote by tepples · 2013-01-21 07:32 · Score: 2

We're looking at replacing Office and Notes with Google Apps ... and XP with Linux or Chromebook-style thin clients unless you can come up with a good reason you need a general-purpose PC.

In software development, there are still cases where an essential tool isn't ported to Linux and doesn't work well on Wine.

I can already do all my work in Xubuntu.

I can do almost all my work in Xubuntu 12.04 LTS except for a few things:

I develop for an embedded system whose simulator requires Windows and whose maintainer refuses to fix it to work in Wine.
My video editing workflow requires Windows. Or what Linux counterpart to VirtualDub and AviSynth is widely accepted?
Moving files on and off an Android 4.x device, such as a Nexus 7 tablet, requires Windows or Mac OS X because Google switched from Mass Storage to MTP between 2.x and 4.x, and not only is mtpfs is a hassle to mount and unmount, but when I have tried to copy video files in the hundred-megabyte-plus range onto the tablet, it has ended up with zero-byte files.
One thing I produce is developer tools. Some people have expressed interest in using these tools but are unwilling to download and install Python 2.7 to run them, instead preferring self-contained .exe files designed for Windows. Testing self-contained executables for Windows requires Windows.

Gotchas like these are why a lot of enterprises stay on Windows: it's a known quantity that everything is expected to support.

Re:My counter-anecdote by David+Gerard · 2013-01-21 23:31 · Score: 1

VirtualDub actually supports Wine, fwiw. But yeah, it's that just one app (or two or three).

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Apple has a game console (not the Pippin) by tepples · 2013-01-21 07:34 · Score: 1

Microsoft is the only one with a game console.

How is an iPad mini AirPlayed onto an Apple TV not just as much a game console as a Wii U?

Games division not compatible with MS Culture by gestalt_n_pepper · 2013-01-21 07:35 · Score: 1

After all, the games division is successful, innovative, profitable and they are forced to actually *listen* to their customers, not a cabal of pampered C++ programmers or former C++ programmers who are now middle management trying to protect their turf. Heck, they don't even change from one incompatible "no upgrade" platform every five years or so in order to screw their developers and customers, and their developer's customers in one deft move. Keep them? That's just crazy talk! Now let's all go and try and use our new Windows 8 machines, eh?

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XBox would be spun out to existing shareholders by ejoe_mac · 2013-01-21 07:40 · Score: 1

They would spin off the Entertainment Division into a separate company to existing shareholders, but the risk would be that the exodus of MSFT stockholders after that. XBox is a huge brand that has lots of value that is looking up, not down. It may be a job saving tactic for Ballmer, but I doubt it would work.

Steve Ballmer will do anything to save Windows. by Chas · 2013-01-21 08:11 · Score: 1

Really?

DITCH METRO!

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Re:Steve Ballmer will do anything to save Windows. by TheGoodNamesWereGone · 2013-01-21 16:16 · Score: 1

V. 8, Ballmer's baby, is exactly the thing killing Windows!

I had this dream, lately.... by vikingpower · 2013-01-21 08:13 · Score: 1

... of Microsoft going bankrupt soon. ( I believe it was on New Year's Eve ).

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Re:Warning: duplicate word at line 1. by jimshatt · 2013-01-21 08:16 · Score: 1

Guess what the single most pathetic thing imaginable is...

Who's "Microsoft Will"? by wonkey_monkey · 2013-01-21 08:28 · Score: 1

Will Microsoft Will Sell Off Its Entertainment Division?

C'mooooooon, ffs.

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TFA is nonsense by kimvette · 2013-01-21 08:34 · Score: 1

What TFA proposes doesn't even make sense. Microsoft has diversified into entertainment BECAUSE Windows and Office peaked long ago, and the server market isn't going to offer much of a growth curve for Microsoft thanks to Linux having matured. Even back in the '90s when Linux still struggled with hardware support, it was already showing signs of dominating the server market and even showed promise as a supercomputing platform. Honestly, I'm surprised it has been so successful given the monolithic nature of the kernel compared to some of the BSDs, but even for all of its shortcomings (which are largely idealistic vs. practical) it has proven to be so flexible, so reliable, extensible, and even secure compared to Windows that the negative aspects are practically immaterial

Given Linux's continued dominance and growth in the server sector, and now on smartphones and tablets, Microsoft needs to find ways to continue to deliver returns to investors. Xbox becoming more of an HTPC + video game console + streaming + video conferencing convergence device can continue to keep Microsoft a household name, and keep people coming back to Microsoft.

I honestly don't see Windows phones going anywhere - Microsoft had a GOLDEN opportunity when PocketPC morphed into Windows Mobile and phones were offered on that platform: the browsers worked well (for mobile browsers of the time), the devices were much faster than the competition that existed, they offered FAR more functionality than Blackberry, were expandable (CF, SD and even PC card slots) and were enterprise-friendly to boot. Microsoft REALLY dropped the ball on that and did nothing with the platform, and did little to foster third-party developer support. Initially it was really good - for PocketPC at one point Compaq was making their devices flash upgradable (and also offered a Linux distro for iPaq devices BTW), and Microsoft took note and required that new PocketPCs be flash upgradable. It was good, for one release, then Microsoft let the platform languish for about 5 to 7 years, by which point iPod became more than an MP3/AAC player, to a basic PDA, to a smartphone built on a full-blown BSD platform.

Apple took the smartphone market that Microsoft really created (with the PocketPC phones) and should have dominated, but relinquished to Apple. Now with Windows Phone, and forcing the phone interface on the desktop, Microsoft is nothing more than a "me-too" player, having abandoned all of the features which made Windows Mobile so enterprise-friendly in the beginning, and at the same time by forcing that same UI on the desktop, made the Windows PC totally impractical for actual work.

Microsoft needs to reexamine where they want to be in the marketplace, but abandoning Xbox is the wrong way to go about it. KEEPING Xbox as a center for home entertainment, but focusing Windows and Windows Phone to be enterprise-friendly is the way to ensure that they do not lose out to Linux and Apple, because but Linux and OS X are very usable, very capable, and now more user friendly than Windows 8.

Xbox isn't their problem - Windows 8 and Windows Phone are the source of Microsoft's current ills.

Xbox is an asset which if marketed correctly as more of a full-fledged entertainment device (Hulu + Netflix + Amazon Prime + Vudu client, telephony/video chat, etc) rather than just a game console, can end up being THE dominant set top box, possibly displacing even cable TV if they team up with video providers to offer a basic streaming service in addition to the services I already mentioned. Microsoft could easily make Comcast, Cox, Time Warner, etc. irrelevant as programming providers.

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Proper respect to Adam Hartung by symbolset · 2013-01-21 08:50 · Score: 2

You can still find page 1 of the article in Google cache. Thanks to ~darkeye, who submitted that.

This is the same author who wrote "Sell Research in Motion. Now." That in April, 2011 as it began its precipitous dive from $53 to $6.50. His views are controversial, but he has a better track record than many official analysts.

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Re:Proper respect to Adam Hartung by symbolset · 2013-01-21 09:41 · Score: 2

This is just a followup to the "article deleted" problem. It has been reinstated at the original link (and the original headline in the link) but with the less dramatic headline "Microsoft Still Can’t Find Its Future. Is It Too Late for the Company?"
Apparently Forbes is learning how the Internet works. Now if they would just fix their website.

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Re:Proper respect to Adam Hartung by HappyPsycho · 2013-01-22 02:11 · Score: 2

What's so ridiculous about it?
The core claims can be verified:
- Microsoft makes most of their money from Windows / Office / Server.
- The entertainment division is not making money, hence sucking from the profit makers listed above.
- Windows 8 is not the runnaway success microsoft needed.
The base conclusion seems quite logical:
- If the profit making departments hit a stumbling block and don't produce enough excess to cover the non-producing departments then the business has a problem.
Which leads to two reasonable fixes (maybe there is another option, I don't really see any):
- The simplest / quickest way to fix that problem will be to kill the "parasite" department(s) and refocus so they can come back swinging.
or:
- IF you have enough in the bank to keep things running till you can sort out the issues then go ahead, no need to axe anyone. Hopefully your new bets pay off but in the mean while you are digging yourself into a deeper hole so you really need those bets to pay off.
I'm not going to defend the rest of the article (who it ends up being sold to, etc) but the above seems to indicate bad things for any departement in Microsoft that is not producing (especially if you subscribe to the view of allot of analysts that windows is taking a nose dive that it may never recover from), and the survival of the various departments will most likely depend on how much value they can be seen to add to the company in the future, or worse yet for the entertainment division how likely they are to turn a profit.

Balmer by PortHaven · 2013-01-21 08:53 · Score: 1

Will likely be run over by shareholders befoer that...

The idiotard should have been fired 5 years ago. That would be the dumbest thing Microsoft could do.

I believe this is another case of... by ADanFromCanada · 2013-01-21 09:00 · Score: 1

"I can imagine it, therefore I must write an article about it."

Here we go again by Safety+Cap · 2013-01-21 09:09 · Score: 1

This is an article from 2011

I'll remind you that this is teh interwebs, and using actual references instead of TYPING IN ALL CAPS or hand-waving(!!!!!!) to back up one's point is not only unconventional but rude.

Please refrain from your outbursts in the future. KThxBuy.

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Us time by tepples · 2013-01-21 11:27 · Score: 1

If I want multiplayer I'll play online.

So what do you do for "us time" with your SO?

Re:Argument not completely insane. by Nossie · 2013-01-21 21:50 · Score: 1

ah shit , I claim the AC post in the name of Nossie.

And I guess I can no longer say I've never posted anon on /. balls.

Re:A far more Microsoft-ie approach to this would by MotorMachineMercenar · 2013-01-22 01:57 · Score: 1

PS3 has always been a better seller in Europe than Xbox 360.

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wtf?! by slashmydots · 2013-01-22 02:46 · Score: 1

The ship is sinking! Throw off anything that makes money! Yeah, that makes sense

This post is ridiculous, and I'm a Linux sysadmin. by zbuhrer · 2013-01-22 04:42 · Score: 1

Let's not worry at all about office environments and server software, licenses (and upgrades), not to mention all of the Microsoft certified equipment and peripherals -- no, I don't think they'll be hurting for money so bad that they'll drop one of the biggest cash cows they have left. The Xbox is safe, no doubt.

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