a) Those that use a little Office lightly. b) Those that use Office along with the full suite of server solutions: Lync, Dynamics, SharePoint
b's aren't moving and a's aren't that profitable. If 80% of the a's leave and 20% become b's that's a very good trade. Microsoft is finally dropping the bottom of the user barrel, the low margin customers so they can move their ecosystem more quickly.
I don't think that's true. Microsoft office offers a rather good feature set at a lowish cost. There are better solutions for much more money. There are slightly worse solutions for an individual that lack the integration features for $0. They might just be at the right compromise point.
Are we supposed to feel sorry that Microsoft can't hit their sales targets? Maybe if they stopped "innovating" their UIs and overall UE, they'd find more eager and rapid corporate adoption.
OK lets test that. We just had a release of Windows 8 which was a major UI shift. During the period of the shift there was a huge opportunity for people to stock up on Windows 7 which kept the Aero interface. There was no spike in sales.
All that costs money and time, and I definitely don't blame businesses for not wanting to upgrade...
Now that's a different issue and far closer to the truth. Businesses trying to spend as little as possible. Microsoft obviously has to make sure they fail in that objective.
That's likely too. I don't know about how Microsoft ordered capacity for Surface but I doubt they wanted to do huge numbers of units, rather they wanted to set the bar on the next generation of touch systems. Nokia could really really use the money though, so I doubt they are playing games.
They aren't making Symbian anymore. Symbian sales have been crashing since mid 2010. All sales stopped this quarter. And even when there was a Symbian, the factories for Symbian and Lumia weren't the same.
Yes. Minix was an academic operating system with a hobbyist fan base. Linux evolved from the Minix community. Very quickly, by around 1994 Linux was already being used professionally while Minix never was.
I think that's very likely true as well. I agree we'll need to have to see numbers. My assumption was that Steam sales are stable based on the article. Given your comment and other evidence since I wrote this post that assumption seems off. If Steam sales are unstable and prone to surges....
Windows Phone right now has sold out the manufacturing capacity of Nokia on the Lumia an HTC on the 8X. If the players are selling every phone they can make at good margins the OS is doing its job. My opinion is that right now it is fairly successful. It has helped two manufacturers regain footing and it has gotten Microsoft to the point of being able to credibly offer an alternative to companies migrating to Apple.
As far as Linux's failures. I'd say that Android more or less is someone taking a Linux and shielding end users from the details, and that's been rather popular.
I don't fault the Linux community too much for losing on the desktop. Linux was supposed to beat Microsoft on the desktop. But with Windows NT 4.0, 2k they locked up enterprise and with XP Microsoft really created a quality system for home. That left only price. Microsoft's willingness to forgo profits for market share at the low end cut the market off. 2013 is really the first year where Microsoft has been willing to allow a void for in their lineup and we'll have to see if Linux mainstream or Android fills it.
Conversely in areas where the competition hasn't been as tough: server -- Microsoft wanted margin badly so Linux could compete on price embedded -- configurability really mattered mainframe -- open source really mattered supercomputing -- configurability really mattered ARM -- price and configurability really mattered.
I understand. There is a real question as to whether Steve Job's belief that different interfaces necessitate different interfaces is correct or Steven Sinofsky is right about ubiquitous computing. KDE is going with Steve Job's keep them separate. Gnome is more mixed. Unity I don't know what they are doing.
Nokia said this during official investor conference calls. If they are lying it is fraud. Besides: LG, HTC, Apple and Motorola have all indicated they've had problems with this generation of phones. Factories like Foxconn have complained about this generation of phones and construction problems. The Ashas and the Nokia dumb phones are made in the factories you are talking about, and no Nokia doesn't have any supply problems there. But yes the targets are:
2012- 35m 2013 - 55m 2014 - 85m
and assuming that all goes well that's what Nokia is capable of doing.
Me thinking you are thinking too much like an user. Take the boss of the 100 people in front of the Microsoft 9 version and tell him that his entire: document management, email, collaboration, vertical solution will migrate over at no cost. Tell the boss of the 100 people in front of Ubuntu that he's looking at 500k in server / software replacements including consulting time.
The equivalent GUI for Linux is Gnome 3. Gnome 3 is arguably better for non touchscreen because the Gnome developers weren't quite as aggressive as Microsoft, but shifting the balance once everyone owns Metro / Touchscreen will not be hard. KDE also has some touch enabled stuff though I'd say they are lagging a bit.
OSX has commanded more much more than single digit market share during that time either, and usually itself single digit. It has commanded huge profit share but market share, no.
Proves that more intelligent people are gamers... as more computer illiterate people use Mac than linux.
Almost ever single OSX users who is someone who rejected a platform where gaming is great (Windows) to move to a platform where gaming was so/so. Given the capacities are not hugely different and price leans higher that means that anyone who picked OSX over Windows probably doesn't game much. Moreover the Apple crowd in general has been aging and I suspect Steam type gaming is much more popular ages 10-30 than ages 30-50.
In the case of Linux the capacities are hugely different. The more advanced Linux window managers have no Windows or OSX equivalents. There are no GUI desktop environments with the level of configurability of KDE for Windows or OSX. Many of the applications for Linux have no equivalents, though they have competitors which are vastly more expensive. ETC...
I think it is not unreasonable you are looking at two very different populations.
What else can you do on OSX that you can't do on Windows or Linux?
Darwin Streaming Server (a particular type of Quicktime streaming).:)
_____
Seriously for SMB there are a lot of mac specific features. I can imagine for a small business things like unified Time Machine backups are useful. Basically what OSX can do is support Mac and Mac specific protocols for small business.
Yeah there are a few unique features like being able to run the old Quicktime streaming server (now the open source Darwin Streaming Server). But not many advantages. Apple is not in the generic server business.
What? Apple makes a huge chunk, on the order of 90% of all the x86 profits for the entire industry. They've been fairly consistently getting between 28-30% margins. They are looking at selling 18m consistently for the next 5 years and making $300+ for each and every single one of them. No, they aren't getting out of the business.
Slashdot Mirror
No it isn't planned obsolescence. Microsoft needs to start moving changes through their ecosystem much faster.
Bill if they bought Office 365 for the enterprise (E3 / E4) that includes Outlook licenses.
Methinks you should look at the server side like: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/default.aspx
There is a lot that 2003 doesn't do that the modern versions do. 2003 is more or less on par with LibreOffice.
There are two types of customers that use Office:
a) Those that use a little Office lightly.
b) Those that use Office along with the full suite of server solutions: Lync, Dynamics, SharePoint
b's aren't moving and a's aren't that profitable. If 80% of the a's leave and 20% become b's that's a very good trade. Microsoft is finally dropping the bottom of the user barrel, the low margin customers so they can move their ecosystem more quickly.
I don't think that's true. Microsoft office offers a rather good feature set at a lowish cost. There are better solutions for much more money. There are slightly worse solutions for an individual that lack the integration features for $0. They might just be at the right compromise point.
Are we supposed to feel sorry that Microsoft can't hit their sales targets? Maybe if they stopped "innovating" their UIs and overall UE, they'd find more eager and rapid corporate adoption.
OK lets test that. We just had a release of Windows 8 which was a major UI shift. During the period of the shift there was a huge opportunity for people to stock up on Windows 7 which kept the Aero interface. There was no spike in sales.
All that costs money and time, and I definitely don't blame businesses for not wanting to upgrade...
Now that's a different issue and far closer to the truth. Businesses trying to spend as little as possible. Microsoft obviously has to make sure they fail in that objective.
That's likely too. I don't know about how Microsoft ordered capacity for Surface but I doubt they wanted to do huge numbers of units, rather they wanted to set the bar on the next generation of touch systems. Nokia could really really use the money though, so I doubt they are playing games.
I've never met someone who believed that and I know a lot of mac users.
No there isn't. There is probably less than 2 mo, and that's 2 mo where Symbian was underselling Lumia 2::1.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/World_Wide_Smartphone_Sales_Share.png
They aren't making Symbian anymore. Symbian sales have been crashing since mid 2010. All sales stopped this quarter. And even when there was a Symbian, the factories for Symbian and Lumia weren't the same.
Yes. Minix was an academic operating system with a hobbyist fan base. Linux evolved from the Minix community. Very quickly, by around 1994 Linux was already being used professionally while Minix never was.
Things change.
I think that's very likely true as well. I agree we'll need to have to see numbers. My assumption was that Steam sales are stable based on the article. Given your comment and other evidence since I wrote this post that assumption seems off. If Steam sales are unstable and prone to surges....
Exactly right on my post unixisc.
Windows Phone right now has sold out the manufacturing capacity of Nokia on the Lumia an HTC on the 8X. If the players are selling every phone they can make at good margins the OS is doing its job. My opinion is that right now it is fairly successful. It has helped two manufacturers regain footing and it has gotten Microsoft to the point of being able to credibly offer an alternative to companies migrating to Apple.
As far as Linux's failures. I'd say that Android more or less is someone taking a Linux and shielding end users from the details, and that's been rather popular.
I don't fault the Linux community too much for losing on the desktop. Linux was supposed to beat Microsoft on the desktop. But with Windows NT 4.0, 2k they locked up enterprise and with XP Microsoft really created a quality system for home. That left only price. Microsoft's willingness to forgo profits for market share at the low end cut the market off. 2013 is really the first year where Microsoft has been willing to allow a void for in their lineup and we'll have to see if Linux mainstream or Android fills it.
Conversely in areas where the competition hasn't been as tough:
server -- Microsoft wanted margin badly so Linux could compete on price
embedded -- configurability really mattered
mainframe -- open source really mattered
supercomputing -- configurability really mattered
ARM -- price and configurability really mattered.
Linux was done well.
I understand. There is a real question as to whether Steve Job's belief that different interfaces necessitate different interfaces is correct or Steven Sinofsky is right about ubiquitous computing. KDE is going with Steve Job's keep them separate. Gnome is more mixed. Unity I don't know what they are doing.
Nokia said this during official investor conference calls. If they are lying it is fraud. Besides: LG, HTC, Apple and Motorola have all indicated they've had problems with this generation of phones. Factories like Foxconn have complained about this generation of phones and construction problems. The Ashas and the Nokia dumb phones are made in the factories you are talking about, and no Nokia doesn't have any supply problems there. But yes the targets are:
2012- 35m
2013 - 55m
2014 - 85m
and assuming that all goes well that's what Nokia is capable of doing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/nokia/9793624/Nokia-admits-Lumia-supply-problems.html
(specific to China, only able to build 30k of the 920T first quarter of sales):
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-02-06/nokia-china-stumble-risks-delaying-rebound-from-1-percent-share
If you are Finnish: http://www.taloussanomat.fi/informaatioteknologia/2013/02/23/triplamyynti-sivu-suun-lumia-920aa-saa-yha-heikosti/20132750/12
Just do a web search on lumia supply constraints there are thousands of links.
Me thinking you are thinking too much like an user. Take the boss of the 100 people in front of the Microsoft 9 version and tell him that his entire: document management, email, collaboration, vertical solution will migrate over at no cost. Tell the boss of the 100 people in front of Ubuntu that he's looking at 500k in server / software replacements including consulting time.
The equivalent GUI for Linux is Gnome 3. Gnome 3 is arguably better for non touchscreen because the Gnome developers weren't quite as aggressive as Microsoft, but shifting the balance once everyone owns Metro / Touchscreen will not be hard. KDE also has some touch enabled stuff though I'd say they are lagging a bit.
So Linux will be fine.
Lumia is supply constrained, has been for months and looks like it will be through all of 2014.
HTC with the 8X is supply constrained.
Microsoft OEMs are selling as many Windows phones as they can make. What more do you want from a phone OS?
OSX has commanded more much more than single digit market share during that time either, and usually itself single digit. It has commanded huge profit share but market share, no.
Proves that more intelligent people are gamers... as more computer illiterate people use Mac than linux.
Almost ever single OSX users who is someone who rejected a platform where gaming is great (Windows) to move to a platform where gaming was so/so. Given the capacities are not hugely different and price leans higher that means that anyone who picked OSX over Windows probably doesn't game much. Moreover the Apple crowd in general has been aging and I suspect Steam type gaming is much more popular ages 10-30 than ages 30-50.
In the case of Linux the capacities are hugely different. The more advanced Linux window managers have no Windows or OSX equivalents. There are no GUI desktop environments with the level of configurability of KDE for Windows or OSX. Many of the applications for Linux have no equivalents, though they have competitors which are vastly more expensive. ETC...
I think it is not unreasonable you are looking at two very different populations.
Ouch. OK then you have the SMB server solutions but no reason at all for a webserver solution.
Looking at the howto you need to find an old VC++ 6.0 (pre .NET) to compile DSS for Windows.
How so?
What else can you do on OSX that you can't do on Windows or Linux?
Darwin Streaming Server (a particular type of Quicktime streaming). :)
_____
Seriously for SMB there are a lot of mac specific features. I can imagine for a small business things like unified Time Machine backups are useful. Basically what OSX can do is support Mac and Mac specific protocols for small business.
Yeah there are a few unique features like being able to run the old Quicktime streaming server (now the open source Darwin Streaming Server). But not many advantages. Apple is not in the generic server business.
What? Apple makes a huge chunk, on the order of 90% of all the x86 profits for the entire industry. They've been fairly consistently getting between 28-30% margins. They are looking at selling 18m consistently for the next 5 years and making $300+ for each and every single one of them. No, they aren't getting out of the business.