Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7

[steveza]

At this point, Microsoft has made much more innovations and technology advances than Apple in the Business World. They cater to a larger amount of people so it's takes more time for Microsoft to stabilize. It's the same argument as why Japan has 100Mbps internet connections while the US has something like 25Mbps. It's because US has more infrastructure to handle.

That is a good analogy I think.

Anyone who says that OS X is better than Windows isn't looking at the big picture that is the corporate market. I have about 1000+ servers in one of the datacenters I use: around 900 of those are Windows and the rest are Unix/Linux/HPUX. Except for 1 Xserve running OS X. Windows has the corporate market locked up and currently there is nothing that does the job better.

Back to the SLvW7 debate I think SL will make some good inroads in the consumer side of the market but the corporate world has been holding out for the improvements that Vista should have delivered is going to take up W7 by the truckload.

 

[tubbymac]

Good point on the corporate world / Japan analogy.

Looking back at history though, remember that before Microsoft came into corporate dominance the company it dethroned was IBM. IBM used to be the big behemoth in the world of business and because they had so much infrastructure to support they became incredible slow to adapt and change.

Microsoft came along as this little upstart company that was able to quickly adapt. They had a much better consumer desktop than IBM could offer (remember IBM's failed desktop, what was it called, OS2 or something).

And look where we are today. Seems now Microsoft has become the new IBM behemoth and Apple has become the upstart Microsoft.

If Microsoft doesn't seriously rethink things and become more agile they could see even more reduction in market share versus not just Apple, but Google, and Linux.

 

[whitefang]

Good point on the corporate world / Japan analogy.

Looking back at history though, remember that before Microsoft came into corporate dominance the company it dethroned was IBM. IBM used to be the big behemoth in the world of business and because they had so much infrastructure to support they became incredible slow to adapt and change.

Microsoft came along as this little upstart company that was able to quickly adapt. They had a much better consumer desktop than IBM could offer (remember IBM's failed desktop, what was it called, OS2 or something).

And look where we are today. Seems now Microsoft has become the new IBM behemoth and Apple has become the upstart Microsoft.

If Microsoft doesn't seriously rethink things and become more agile they could see even more reduction in market share versus not just Apple, but Google, and Linux.

Microsoft doesn't need to rethink it's strategy. Technology/Innovation wise, it's ahead. All these software that's being used in the medical, accounting, government are not written in php, c++, or objective-c. Their written in .NET. In fact, they are converting legacy apps written in classic asp, C++, php into .NET apps. With the web-eccentric apps, .NET is more important.

 

[ryannazaretian]

I'm personally looking forward to both. Both operating systems fix some of my main gripes with both OS's

 

[tubbymac]

Microsoft doesn't need to rethink it's strategy. Technology/Innovation wise, it's ahead.

That's the same thing that IBM thought, and look what happened.

If you look at what's actually happened to Microsoft in the last few years, it has pretty much lost market share in every single industry. The only one I can think of where it won a battle, competitive wise, was in the netbook industry where XP seems to have won out over Linux (at least for now).

Not rethinking it's strategy and constantly losing market share? Go ahead Microsoft, be my guest. I won't weep any tears if they go down that path and become increasingly less relevant.

 

[whitefang]

That's the same thing that IBM thought, and look what happened.

If you look at what's actually happened to Microsoft in the last few years, it has pretty much lost market share in every single industry. The only one I can think of where it won a battle, competitive wise, was in the netbook industry where XP seems to have won out over Linux (at least for now).

Not rethinking it's strategy and constantly losing market share? Go ahead Microsoft, be my guest. I won't weep any tears if they go down that path and become increasingly less relevant.

Lost market share in every single industry? Sources? If anything, it should have gained especially where server technology is concerned. Most of the "Microsoft will end up like IBM" is based on pure hype and myths.

In the corporate world, it's Windows or NOTHING and with reason too. Office 07 works better, for professionals that want to get stuff done. I tried using Pages, NeoOffice, and OpenOffice for technical documentation? Guess what? I went back to Office 07 immediately.

 

[jav6454]

Lost market share in every single industry? Sources? If anything, it should have gained especially where server technology is concerned. Most of the "Microsoft will end up like IBM" is based on pure hype and myths.

In the corporate world, it's Windows or NOTHING and with reason too. Office 07 works better, for professionals that want to get stuff done. I tried using Pages, NeoOffice, and OpenOffice for technical documentation? Guess what? I went back to Office 07 immediately.

You are in every mac vs pc thread. Seem to be every time bashing others while praising MS. Not to insult you or anything, but keeping that attitude up will label you here as an MS fanboy.

Yes, the poster you quoted has no sources, but it is very true MS has lost market share in everything.

Look at browsers, IE has been bleeding out market share to either FireFox, Opera or Safari.

Look at the mobile software industry. They can't match up, even Ballmer admitted in Barcelona that the rest of the mobile industry is trying to copy Apple. Windows Mobile is getting a revamp, not because MS wants too, but because mobile OS like, iPhone OS X and Web OS based Palm Pre and Android Open Source are seriously taking a beating at feature and development lacking Windows Mobile. (also these at the same time beat down Symbian OS)

Look at the Server market in the commercial Internet. Its either Linux based or Mac OS based. A company can't have the luxury of using Windows and risking its virus attracting nature to something as important as a web site or for that matter a web site that carries out check-outs (eBay, Visa, MasterCard for example).

Look in the consumer notebook and computer world. MacBooks are the top sellers every time, and in PCs, OS X is rapidly gaining market share despite the hefty price tag of Macs.

The Internet search business? Live.com can't gain any market share at all. It wins a bit one quarter just to lose it next quarter. This is despite MS having rolled out the cashback program.

People don't want to frustrate themselves over, they don't want last years advancements in a buggy or unstable environment when another company (either Apple or Google or some one else) can offer them long ago and better developed.

I will not argue with you in terms of Office, because basically that is MS flagship application suite. Sure, its great, but it is starting to become outdated by many standards. Word is losing its ground when it comes to pages. Excel is very good, and I will admit, Numbers is a joke. However, Keynote is seriously improving at such a fast rate in very little time, it will oust PowerPoint, if it hasn't already.

Sure people will complain to adapt to something new, but once they see how much better it is, its just a matter of time before Office (if the case is MS falls behind) gets replaced or starts bleeding market share also.

 

[skaertus]

You are in every mac vs pc thread. Seem to be every time bashing others while praising MS. Not to insult you or anything, but keeping that attitude up will label you here as an MS fanboy.

Yes, the poster you quoted has no sources, but it is very true MS has lost market share in everything.

Look at browsers, IE has been bleeding out market share to either FireFox, Opera or Safari.

Look at the mobile software industry. They can't match up, even Ballmer admitted in Barcelona that the rest of the mobile industry is trying to copy Apple. Windows Mobile is getting a revamp, not because MS wants too, but because mobile OS like, iPhone OS X and Web OS based Palm Pre and Android Open Source are seriously taking a beating at feature and development lacking Windows Mobile. (also these at the same time beat down Symbian OS)

Look at the Server market in the commercial Internet. Its either Linux based or Mac OS based. A company can't have the luxury of using Windows and risking its virus attracting nature to something as important as a web site or for that matter a web site that carries out check-outs (eBay, Visa, MasterCard for example).

Look in the consumer notebook and computer world. MacBooks are the top sellers every time, and in PCs, OS X is rapidly gaining market share despite the hefty price tag of Macs.

The Internet search business? Live.com can't gain any market share at all. It wins a bit one quarter just to lose it next quarter. This is despite MS having rolled out the cashback program.

People don't want to frustrate themselves over, they don't want last years advancements in a buggy or unstable environment when another company (either Apple or Google or some one else) can offer them long ago and better developed.

I will not argue with you in terms of Office, because basically that is MS flagship application suite. Sure, its great, but it is starting to become outdated by many standards. Word is losing its ground when it comes to pages. Excel is very good, and I will admit, Numbers is a joke. However, Keynote is seriously improving at such a fast rate in very little time, it will oust PowerPoint, if it hasn't already.

Sure people will complain to adapt to something new, but once they see how much better it is, its just a matter of time before Office (if the case is MS falls behind) gets replaced or starts bleeding market share also.

Perhaps Microsoft hasn't lost market share in everything. It has lost market share in operating systems and web browsers, that's true. In fact, it lost 5% of OS market share in the last 2 years. That's not huge, because it had 93% of market share, and it now has 88%. But IE had 78% in 2007, and it has 67% now - that's much worse. And it cannot penetrate web search, but it's trying to.

But Microsoft keeps being the dominant force in office suites - Office 2007 was a great improvement over 2003 (even with the 4-year gap) and it is still unmatched by rivals. Keynote is perhaps better than PowerPoint, but Word and Excel are still unbeatable - Pages is equal to Word, or even better, when it comes to page layout and DTP functions, but Word is still the best overall word processor. Microsoft's DirectX is winning the war over OpenGL; and XBOX 360, Microsoft's console, is stronger than the previous generation XBOX.

Microsoft will still dominate the market for operating systems - Windows Vista has a bad reputation, but it made Microsoft lose only 5% of market share. Most people can't just afford MacOS, and Linux is not an alternative these days. Windows 7 shows signs of being much better, and it won't drive people away like Vista does. And Microsoft is learning how to advertise its products...

 

[skaertus]

Look at browsers, IE has been bleeding out market share to either FireFox, Opera or Safari.

Not to Opera. Perhaps to Google Chrome, but not Opera...

 

[NT1440]

<snip?

You seem to be downplaying the significance of a 5% marketshare loss in a market this huge in such a short time.

 

[tubbymac]

In the corporate world, it's Windows or NOTHING and with reason too. Office 07 works better, for professionals that want to get stuff done. I tried using Pages, NeoOffice, and OpenOffice for technical documentation? Guess what? I went back to Office 07 immediately.

Yeah I'll concede Microsoft Office. Most of the corporate world still is locked into Office and that is in large part due to Excel being way ahead of it's competition. Word is feature packed but I'm starting to see good competition in word processors, so who knows how much longer Word will be able to be relevant. Powerpoint is nice but there are a lot of capable alternatives these days. Getting slides onto a projector really isn't rocket science, so I don't see Powerpoint being that important for much longer.

I remember a few years ago though a lot of corporate types were heavily reliant on Microsoft Outlook for their email/contacts. These days I think Google gmail and other mail programs / web apps have really cut into the Outlook market. Yeah I don't have any sources, and am too lazy to find them on a topic about Microsoft losing market share. I think unless you want to be anal about it most people will admit that Microsoft has had more than a few failures in a lot of key markets recently.

Windows 7 is a good attempt to stop the bleeding. Vista is bleeding users to Apple, to Linux, to even Windows XP. When users are picking an age old operating system over a new one, and not just a few users at that, you know Vista was a marketing failure.

 

[FX120]

You seem to be downplaying the significance of a 5% marketshare loss in a market this huge in such a short time.

Microsoft has lost about 4% of it's market share in the US in the last two years, globally it's been just over 1%, and most of this is due to low-cost netbooks running Linux, not Apple.

 

[jav6454]

Microsoft has lost about 4% of it's market share in the US in the last two years, globally it's been just over 1%, and most of this is due to low-cost netbooks running Linux, not Apple.

No one said that market share was picked up by Apple. 1% loss worldwide is still a very large number considering the number of computers out there. Much more important is the 5% MS lost here in the US.

Not to Opera. Perhaps to Google Chrome, but not Opera...

Used Opera to set an example, but I do realize Chrome is clearly a greater browser than Opera.

 

[AlexisV]

I wonder how MS will market v7?

Seems stupid to shout about it because I think people are a little more cynical now. They've heard it all before - "our most secure OS since, well, the last one" won't wash again.

 

[Saladinos]

I wonder how MS will market v7?

Seems stupid to shout about it because I think people are a little more cynical now. They've heard it all before - "our most secure OS since, well, the last one" won't wash again.

To be fair, Vista is a much harder OS to crack than XP. The benefits are real.

I know how they'll market it - "Mojave 2 - We swear it's not Windows 7!"

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Microsoft came along as this little upstart company that was able to quickly adapt. They had a much better consumer desktop than IBM could offer (remember IBM's failed desktop, what was it called, OS2 or something).

OS/2 was actually created by IBM and Micrsoft. However, the two split. OS/2 2.0 was sold and developed by IBM and OS/2 3.0 was developed by MS and renamed Windows NT 3.1 (to match Windows 3.1).

IBM continued with OS/2 and OS/2 3.0 was branded as OS/2 Warp and I believe the next version was branded as OS/2 Warp 4.

So, the basis of Windows NT 3.1-NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 dates back to the OS/2 years. So while the versions of OS/2 soley developed by IBM failed, OS/2 in itself hardly failed.

 

[steveza]

So while the versions of OS/2 soley developed by IBM failed, OS/2 in itself hardly failed.

But it was rubbish though I can remember the first time I used NT4 and how happy I was that it was better than 3.1/3.5/3.5.1.

Edit: For those who haven't had the pleasure of NT3.51 just look at the screenshots in this how-to guide http://support.3com.com/infodeli/tools/isdn/impact/iq/win-nt/win-nt.htm

 

[whitefang]

Yeah I'll concede Microsoft Office. Most of the corporate world still is locked into Office and that is in large part due to Excel being way ahead of it's competition. Word is feature packed but I'm starting to see good competition in word processors, so who knows how much longer Word will be able to be relevant. Powerpoint is nice but there are a lot of capable alternatives these days. Getting slides onto a projector really isn't rocket science, so I don't see Powerpoint being that important for much longer.

I remember a few years ago though a lot of corporate types were heavily reliant on Microsoft Outlook for their email/contacts. These days I think Google gmail and other mail programs / web apps have really cut into the Outlook market. Yeah I don't have any sources, and am too lazy to find them on a topic about Microsoft losing market share. I think unless you want to be anal about it most people will admit that Microsoft has had more than a few failures in a lot of key markets recently.

Windows 7 is a good attempt to stop the bleeding. Vista is bleeding users to Apple, to Linux, to even Windows XP. When users are picking an age old operating system over a new one, and not just a few users at that, you know Vista was a marketing failure.

No sane corporation will use web-based third-party mail apps or "other" mail programs. Microsoft Exchange is the industry standard.

 

[jav6454]

No sane corporation will use web-based third-party mail apps or "other" mail programs. Microsoft Exchange is the industry standard.

Juts its because its the standard doesn't mean its good.

 

[whitefang]

Juts its because its the standard doesn't mean its good.

There is a reason it's a industry standard, it's proven especially where ROI analysis goes compared to other platforms. Just like .NET is the new industry standard.

 

[NT1440]

There is a reason it's a industry standard, it's proven especially where ROI analysis goes compared to other platforms. Just like .NET is the new industry standard.

Industry standard is NOT what is best. Many of MS products remain the standard simply because it is so engrained into the market that people just go with it. Yes it works, but its not the BEST.

 

[whitefang]

Industry standard is NOT what is best. Many of MS products remain the standard simply because it is so engrained into the market that people just go with it. Yes it works, but its not the BEST.

You're biased plus you have no corporate experience to even give an opinion about this topic. Industry standard is a gold-standard, only the best can be a industry standard. Microsoft Exchange server time-after-time beats the competition, there is just no competition. Yeah there are some major gripes about Exchange, but overall, it beats the competition.

 

[jav6454]

You're biased plus you have no corporate experience to even give an opinion about this topic. Industry standard is a gold-standard, only the best can be a industry standard. Microsoft Exchange server time-after-time beats the competition, there is just no competition. Yeah there are some major gripes about Exchange, but overall, it beats the competition.

Actually industry standard can be biased. What one company may think is standard, another one may disagree. So you see, Exchange may be standardized all over the place, but its doesn't make it the "Gold" standard. Far from it, it just makes it the most common thing. Some companies just use it because its been here for the longest time implementing a new system is too complicated for some (adapting to new ways) or cost prohibitive in some cases.

[snip baleeted because of confusion]

So you see, even though Exchange is everywhere, it doesn't make it better. Saying Exchange is gold standard because its everywhere is like saying IE is best browser because everyone uses it, and we all know how untrue is that.

 

[whitefang]

Actually industry standard can be biased. What one company may think is standard, another one may disagree.

No, there is no ONE SINGLE company in an "industry". It's a collective analysis and the analysis is the industry standard.

New start-ups are not using Exchange because they cannot afford it or their not a Microsoft solutions provider/partner (like a university). Microsoft-based solution providers/partner are ALL using Exchange. And in the industry, where Microsoft solutions are becoming more and more, many companies are becoming Microsoft certified providers. You must be insane if you think Senior-Level IT executives are letting graduates make the decisions in a corporate world where accountability matters. Again, you're talking about the small start-up companies, they don't matter.

 

[NT1440]

So you see, even though Exchange is everywhere, it doesn't make it better. Saying Exchange is gold standard because its everywhere is like saying IE is best browser because everyone uses it, and we all know how untrue is that.

I think this sums up my point perfectly. Just because something is the most widespread does not mean its the best. Thats a flawed thought process at best.

Internet Explorer for example has a massive marketshare yet it seems people everywhere hate it.