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 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

--
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
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 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 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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I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
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 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 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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You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
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 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 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 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 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 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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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.

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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Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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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...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
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

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.

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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"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
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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Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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 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.

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.

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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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

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.

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!

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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The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.

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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http://rocknerd.co.uk

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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Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.

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.

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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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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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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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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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 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 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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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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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.

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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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.

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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Help stamp out iliturcy.
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.

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Will Microsoft Sell Off Its Entertainment Division?

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