Microsoft is not doomed for the simple reason that they are so strong on the enterprise side of the equation. Even if their consumer business went to $0, they'd be a $4 billion/quarter EBITA company which would put them at #2 in the tech industry behind Apple forever. Not bad, and I don't think Microsoft is going to $0 on consumer, more likely to billions by 2014.
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Microsoft is DOOOooooooommmed.....#
- Thread starter PracticalMac
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Maybe I'm old but I just don't get the whole fanboy thing. Apple, MS, Oracle, etc. are companies that make technology tools - not belief systems. I work for a large tech company now and the number of koolaid drinkers I come across is mind boggling. The problem with adopting an ideology, be it political or technological is that you lose the ability to be objective.
I wouldn't buy an Alienware if you paid me.
I dunno, man. It's been a bit since I've built a PC myself, but I remember pricing an i7 machine with a high end consumer graphics card, top of the line motherboard, nice case, a goodly amount of brand name ram, and a stout PSU for around $1400 or so.
It had an oldschool magnetic drive, which is probably the one biggest thing that drove down the price. Depending on when you got it, that 128GB SSD might've cost you $3-400 not even 2 years ago.
Cuz Windows 8 is MS' most divisive release since Windows 3.1. It's not so much that it's good or bad or not, it's that it's different. Computer geeks are a weirdly conservative bunch of people. They screamed about the introduction of the GUI, and are now screaming that we're all moving towards a touch based paradigm. The real opinion of Windows 8 will come 3-4 years from now, once Win9 is out and the fervor has settled down a bit.
The opinion on Windows 8 has been decided. It's deemed as a disappointing failure. Everywhere you look you hear sales are down and PCs are stagnate. Nothing will change that. If you can't sell it on Black Friday and holiday time then it flat out failed. 3 months from now people won't just have a change of heart and start snatching it up.
Surface RT has failed.
Windows 8 has failed.
Steven S. the head Windows Chief was fired.
Windows 8 has only been out a month. Kinda early to call it failed, isn't it? Course the Surface RT hasn't flown off the shelves or anything, but it's a new product in a market with plenty of competition. Give it all time.
Also, Black Friday sales haven't been tallied yet. That 40 million Windows 8 licenses sold quote from Ars Technica was made beforehand.
Also, Black Friday sales haven't been tallied yet. That 40 million Windows 8 licenses sold quote from Ars Technica was made beforehand.
Yea, put the preview and RTM have been out for quite some time. Bloggers and the media doomed it very early in the process.
The worst thing is technology shouldn't have an ideology behind it. They're tools. You can have a favorite, a preference, but why take it to the extreme and make it into an us vs. them affair?
It's like some people can't enjoy their own things without desperately hoping the other guys things fail. It's stupid. I don't want Apple to fail. Don't want MS to fail. Why should I? They all make pretty good stuff, and the more that's out there, the more options I have.
Vista killed MS for me and many others. I know they still have some good products but my ecosystem is now ios, android and google and thats it.
Yeah, and I think a lot of the complaints about Windows 8 are overblown attempts at link baiting at best, and bandwagoneering at worst.
No, Metro isn't the best fit for the desktop. But guess what? Metro apps are optional. You never have to use a single one The start screen still functions exactly like the old start menu, just full screen now. And much like the old start menu, if you're using the desktop, you'll only spend a very small amount of time using it. Mostly to do searches and launch programs you don't have pinned to the taskbar. Otherwise everything is exactly the same as it was before.
Windows 8 isn't perfect, and MS could've done a much better job of explaining the new interface. It's very obviously the first shaky step towards something potentially maybe hopefully bigger and better. But it's also not that bad. Yeah, it could use some work, but it's not deserving of all this geek wailing, crying, and gnashing of teeth it's been getting.
People have opinions. That's all it is. We are all different. This isn't a massive drum circle where everyone thinks the same way and everything is equal. It's called life. We could be talking about shoes or cars but it comes down to the same thing. Opinion.
Everything is not equal and that is the spice of life.
Microsoft has brand recognition.
Xbox has been a stellar success
Office is the bomb
Bing is the second largest search provider
Windows 7 was fantastic
The only issues are that the Surface tablet is not competitively priced to the iPad. It's more expensive. I guess we'll see on that tactic.
Xbox has been a stellar success
Office is the bomb
Bing is the second largest search provider
Windows 7 was fantastic
The only issues are that the Surface tablet is not competitively priced to the iPad. It's more expensive. I guess we'll see on that tactic.
Defined "failed", how many Surface RTs were supposed to be sold by now? Define "failure" for Windows 8 - 40 million licenses sold? Steven S leaving will be good for the company, he held things back.
XBox is nice. I hate paying for Live Access but it's hard to complain when its so good.
Office is good and has no real competition. Not sure why it hasn't gotten better competition in all this time.
Bing? I don't agree but I can't think of any other search providers so you maybe right by default.
Windows 7 is fantastic.
Windows 8 isn't that bad. It's truly Windows 7 with enhancements and Metro. I dont care for Metro at all and the flat color schemes take some getting used too. I miss aero. It's not a complete trainwreck but I understand why people aren't lining up to buy it.
I'm also tired of formatting and starting from scratch. As I get older I value my time more. I don't want to have to reinstall all the programs and such. On my MacBook Pro, I update and lose nothing. I like simplicity. You could do that with Windows Upgrades but if you been in the industry long enough you know better.
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40 Million licenses sold to OEMs not consumers snatching them off the shelf.
Ballmer stated that the Surface sales were "modest". If that isn't a glaring omission by a PERSON who would know I don't know what is.
Steve S getting fired surely has to be considered a failure. I wouldn't call that a success either.
I will flip the question on you though. Are you saying that the Surface and Windows 8 are a success?
XBox Live is a phenomenal success no matter which way you cut it. It's probably the #1 revenue stream in E&D.
Libre Office, Open Office, iWork, Google Docs
With Windows 8 going forward you will be able to update the OS to 8.1, 8.2 in the same fashion of OS X. Essentially Windows 8 is Microsoft's re-booting of the platform like OS X was for Apple 11 years ago.
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40 million is a number that adds up volume licensing, OEM sales and retail upgrades. Latest net usage indicates actual home upgrades to be in the vicinity of 12 million so far.
What is wrong with Ballmer not lying about Surface sales? Did he ever guarantee Surface would sell mega-millions right away? Or is it only a failure in a strawman sort of way?
Steven S. did a great job with Office and Windows 7, but he became a divisive figure that pissed off too many people and partners. He had to go.
I just googled Windows 8 sales. Not one article stating that its rainbows and butterflies for MS. Here is one link: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-windows-8-sales-data-is-in-and-its-horrible-news-for-microsoft-2012-11
That should satisfy the Windows 8 sales deal. It is failing.
Surface sales you ask? http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20121128PD215.html
and http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57554073-75/a-black-friday-tale-of-two-stores-apple-vs-microsoft/
That says it all. Dispute it if you like but I think this drives the point home. Failure.
I agree with your Steve S. comment. All the insider articles state the same.
Here is a follow up video that ties in with a link above that I posted earlier:
http://www.macweekend.com/BlogMW/index.php/apple/black-friday-apple-store-vs.-microsoft-store-video/
If you look closely, you can see tumbleweed rolling through the MS store on BLACK FRIDAY.
I don't want to piss off the MS lovers as my humor can be stale but I think you would find the video interesting.
http://www.macweekend.com/BlogMW/index.php/apple/black-friday-apple-store-vs.-microsoft-store-video/
If you look closely, you can see tumbleweed rolling through the MS store on BLACK FRIDAY.
I don't want to piss off the MS lovers as my humor can be stale but I think you would find the video interesting.
Except that MS is pricing the RT for $499, and the $129 keyboard which is must-have, and that sets you back $628, with a questionable new OS, and scant apps to go against the established. And that's not even a full-fledge Windows machine! THAT'S NOT FOR CHEAPSAKES.
Ballmer has to go. He's said himself Microsoft doesn't take risk, they wait until somethings hit, THEN they jump on the bandwagon. That's not going to work.
I look at a MS tablet and really, that looks more like a Zune than an iPad killer.
I like Win7 just fine, and would had stayed with it, but the Ultrabook camp messed up royalty with their pricing and they --finally-- pushed me to the Apple camp, which I had always felt over-priced, but are now competitive$.
I don't think MicroSoft would do badly... corporations have so many ties to MicoSoft products that they will probably continue to invest in MicroSoft products.
Azure isn't an enterprise solution. It is just their HyperV cloud hosting services that is targeted more towards smaller and medium sized businesses. Also, word on the Internet is that Apple uses Azure (and Amazon) to host iCloud, so it can also work as a consumer solution for the apparent fact the Microsoft has data centers around the world that are built to handle the capacity of many iOS users. It is kind of funny to think that for every iOS device sold, Microsoft is getting paid since every new iOS user gets a 5GB iCloud account.
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Of course it makes sense for Microsoft to align with Apple (against Google). Apple is not a direct threat to Microsoft. Even before Windows 8 (and Surface), Microsoft made sure they did a cross-licensing agreement with Apple, so that the new MS products would not be targeted for Apple lawsuits. The two companies have already been "playing nice with each other" for the past few years.
And even Microsoft knows that with their new products and OS, they are generally competing against the huge base of Android OEMs and manufacturers (e.g. Samsung, Google-Motorola, etc). Even Microsoft realizes that all those loyal Macintosh and iOS fans are rarely going to defect away from Apple products just to get into the Win8 bandwagon.
Microsoft could care less about the legions of Apple loyalists. MS knows that their best and readily-captured audience are all those fanboys that currently use Google Androids, Samsung phablets, Nexus tablets, users of aging Nokia and Blackberry phones, and an occasional Amazon Kindle user, etc.
I'm not sure I agree with anything else you said, however. Microsoft is doomed? Bah. Microsoft has released disastrous operating systems before (e.g. Vista), and those failures did not kill Microsoft. They are too big and too wide to simply die any time soon.
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And what if in the next couple years Google began seriously getting into Enterprise/Business software? Google has the billions to invest and release enterprise software that could seriously compete with the likes of Microsoft or even Oracle software.
Fortunately for Microsoft, Google is way too stupid to realize that Enterprise/Business software is where Microsoft makes its "easy money". And today, Google is simply stuck in making cheap/free/adware software "for the masses", for the proles (which is what Android is, since it leads to cheaply licensed Android hardware).
Once Google has enough engineers, focus and talent to create enterprise solutions and industrial-strength business software.... then Google can finally put a nail on Microsoft's coffin.