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Why Microsoft Shouldn't Worry About Cannibalizing Their Userbases
New submitter coyote_oww writes "A ComputerWorld analysis article suggests that Microsoft should stop worrying about one product cutting into another product's sales, and concentrate on putting their best foot foward regardless of the impact on product lines. The big impact would be the price of Windows: '... Microsoft must, at least in the main, sell devices based on lower prices. And the only significant component of a Windows-powered device that can be cut further — hardware margins are at or very near the bone, and have been for years — is the Windows license.' It's still possible they could sell Windows versions at different rates for different devices, but that could get hard to justify to consumers over the long haul."
You know what I want? A lower-cost Windows targeted at gamers. I don't need drivers for scanners, printers, fax and other unnecessary crap if all I do is play games on it.
A Windows with less processes running would also mean a faster computer able to dedicate more resources to the games instead of crap I don't need.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
from the article: "As part of the reorganization, Microsoft will consolidate all of its client OSes, including Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, Windows Embedded and Xbox, into a single engineering group [...] The Windows desktop client and mobile have a lot of common functionality, and a combined group could have a lot of synergy".
I fully agree, that's a good strategy (and it was about time)... oh, and one o the few times the word "synergy" makes sense!
The important thing to remember is in a competitive economy, someone is going to disrupt your business. It might as well be you. Fighting against it only postpones the inevitable.
Cannibalize your own product line before the competition does is an obvious necessity, yet it is the hardest thing for managers to actually do.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The article talks as though Microsoft is a monolithic entity that will like a single intent. Like any large organization there it is a conglomeration of parts and they mostly act in their self interest than the interest of the whole organization. Most of the time there is a large overlap between the self interest and interest of the larger body. But Microsoft has some perverse incentives like giving part of the revenue stream from a product line as compensation to the top managers of that line. Sounds great in theory as a motivation factor but it can backfire too. These people in top management well versed in the palace intrigues have to let some other part cannibalize their revenue stream for the interest of the organization as a whole. The track record is they won't. Only when the "partner level" managers' bonuses (or is it bonii?) are tied to the over all performance of the company, not the individual parts under their control, they will let internal cannibalization. But letting their bonii depend on large parts of the company they have no control over is a tough sell too. It is a problem that developed over a long time. It won't be solved in short time.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
WGA stopped the wholesale OEM piracy from the organized crime shops. They were even producing holograms, shiny boxes, "certificates of authenticity" etc. Palates of this counterfeit software would be shipped through quasi-legit channels into serious software retailers for realistic prices.
Casual piracy of Windows doesn't affect MS. Your PC probably shipped with the OS anyway. The high volume of XP licenses out there are businesses who were hoping for something better than Win7 before XP began to disappear. Few people are running machines old enough to have shipped with original XP licenses. Who wants a 256MB of RAM, 20GB HDD machine from 2002 anyway?
MS is dying because Ballmer is an f-ing idiot.
Release windows for free, and we will finally see how it competes.
TFT (the fine title) suggests that they can still charge for windows as long as they keep eating the windows users (or only their bases?) without worry - and this "without worry" is somehow the miraculous key to the solution.
Not for free but they need to understand that as you suck harder and harder on the udder of a cash cow the less friendly that cow will be to you and will dry up or kick you in the head.
At this point it is difficult to believe that MS has not realized an honest profit from the honest investments it has made. They have done a lot of service but there is a point when the business model must change.
Worthy computers can be had for yuppiy pocket change and free software has gotten well beyond the experimental stages. Especially in server land.
The home computer model has changed, and there will be less and less need for WindowZ. My smart TV has more compute power than my early on desktops. Which were well beyond my 6502, MC14500 and 8080 processor based projects. It is a new day, MS and many others need to take stock or see their financial models fall apart.
Servers and server farms will grow.... but be in the hands of a small number of companies. In the price range of a UPS delivery van small companies will have local computer resources than can be installed and serviced by folk at an equivalent level of a USP van driver. Yes the Brown UPS vans are a marvel of technology but they make money delivering packages shipped for sub $10... that is astounding.
Chromebooks and the new XO tablet are showing that the old models are fragile and new ideas are welcome.
Raspberry-Pi and project boards like the pandaboard and Beaglebone Black are showing that sufficiently interesting hardware need not cost a lot of $$. Invest $100 in these school and development boards and revisit your education.
The future is at hand -- yet again.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.