Posted on 01/06/2015 8:51:33 PM PST by Swordmaker
The long reigning king of the desktop OS is in trouble. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, is rapidly steering the company into the back office and service spaces, while their nascent mobile and desktop platforms are crumbling around them. Microsoft is putting on a brave face continuing to heavily advertise the 2-in-1 Surface debacle, but Nadella is only buying time, as he must surely know that Apple and Google is the two-headed beast that Microsoft can not stop. In less than a decade, Microsoft will be associated with IBM or Oracle, not Apple or Google.
Apple’s iOS is poised for massive world-wide growth in 2015 and beyond, while Android is finding its way into embedded systems, cars and medical devices. Android is free, it is customizable and is a platform which is easy to develop upon. C for microcontrollers, Linux and variants of, are being replaced by Android. And while Google pushes Android onto smartphone hardware that has no Apple logo on it, its permanent home may reside within your next generation cars, boats, microwaves, ovens and smart-fridge. The adoption rate of Android may be subtle, and Google is not able profit from the solutions their software empower, but it will be almost everywhere without anyone even knowing it is there. Microsoft has no ability to play where Google's Android is headed.
Apple’s iOS and associated devices continue to lead the way as the mobile platform for the world. With over 1 billion iOS devices sold to-date, and 60-70 million iPhones sold in the December quarter alone, iOS has become the consumer, business and general purpose mobile computing platform on a global scale. Nadella appears to be embracing this truth, laying off all but a small remnant of their Nokia team. Microsoft hangs onto the beloved Xbox console franchise, but this endeavor rarely produces the profits that justify it as a long-term solution worth keeping. With Dish Network announcing a near al-a-carte EPSN cable TV bundle for only $20 a month, a revamped Apple TV and available services cannot be far behind. Apple only need deliver UHD (4k) gaming, video playback/streaming, and an Apple TV App store and Microsoft will likely sell or spin off their Xbox entertainment division.
The last area of consumer dominance Microsoft owns continues to slip for the software giant. Apple claimed 25% of the U.S. desktop OS market during the September quarter. Along with an ever growing iCloud and mobile devices that provide a seamless Apple solution, purchasing a Windows OS computer that does not provide a fully integrated hardware and software ecosystem makes less sense by the day.
Nadella’s Microsoft is showing little resistance to Apple’s device dominance. The company could hope for the middle to low-end market, but Google continues to siphon that space with ad sales effectively enough to leave Microsoft less room for costly OS licensing. Without Bing driving dollars, Microsoft is forced to license their operating systems, and Bing by all accounts in relegated to a distant second place, without shiny earnings to show for it's mammoth efforts since launch. The lowest end Windows powered desktops are also getting nibbled on by Google's cheaper Chromebook options.
Nadella is smart to move Redmond’s software giant back into the corporate services market, where margins still exist and trends move far slower than in the consumer space, because Apple and Google are simply killing them on every other front. Microsoft's mobile and desktop offerings have landed squarely in the middle of Apple and Google, and that's a sandwich Microsoft simply cannot live between much longer.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Hell, I’m gonna open a popcorn concession stand!
Of course, nobody is killing Microsoft because nobody plays as well in Microsoft’s prime space, the enterprise. MS simply has to learn the hard lesson that Ballmer never learned, that you can’t own every single market.
Does the author know how many times Microsoft has been declared dead and buried already?
Last report I saw the debacle was outselling the Apple Macbook Air...
> Apple claimed 25% of the U.S. desktop OS market during the September quarter.
Says who? I haven’t hears any such thing, and it would be huge news...
these liberals are idiots . cause competition and the free market is killing Microsoft . the only way a monopoly can be created is by government . Apple and Google made better products so that's the way to kill a near monopoly.
A “double debacle” according to the author, who never explained what he meant by it.
Can’t wait for Windows 10
Got a 7750 radion graphic card hooked it up to my $380.00 39” Seiki TV using it right now as my monitor.
So tell me more about what the red fruit would cost me for this rig?
Forgot to state that this TV/Monitor is 4K
It’s all about your money...Just wait till Windows 78 comes out...It’ll have all the cool stuff you want and need.
From my recent experiences, it seems more like Microsoft is committing suicide.
Meanwhile Microsoft has windows on 91% of the worlds computers and apple has it’s OS on about 7%. Linux is 3rd with about one or two percent. Google isn’t even listed. Handheld devices are not the only things that are used to do work and play!
The only company that can kill Microsoft is Microsoft. I doubt they are that stupid, unless they hire Ballmer back.
If they would leave the stuff that works alone and concentrate on the parts that don’t work...
Can I be honest?
I’m looking forward to the day when my cool high end bells whistles intrusive “smart phone” is replaced with a dumb phone....It breaks or gets any more obnoxiously intrusive, it’s gone.
Very much looking forward to that.
It’s a stupid article. Unless Apple fags come up even with a substitute for MS Office for example, MS will still be king in it’s court. Apple and Google have their own niche and so does MS.
You’re not making any sense at all. Explain please?
Their smart technology will eventually hit the wall and only the fatcorp lackeys and gofers will be required to have one, to keep um on a short leash...Pager boys...
By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report, August 20, 2014, ZDNet
If 6.4 million MacBook Airs sounds unimpressive for a full year’s sales, put it in perspective: Gartner estimates that only 22 million premium ultramobiles were sold in all of 2013. That gives Apple nearly 30 percent of this fast-growing market, which Gartner forecasts to grow by roughly 50 percent this year and more than 70 percent in 2015.I estimate that Apple sold roughly 6.4 million MacBook Airs in its 2013 fiscal year, compared to about 6 million MacBook Pros. (I based that calculation on two variables: First, I estimated that portables made up 76 percent of all Mac sales in 2013. Second, I estimated an average selling price of $1,050 for MacBook Airs and $1,500 for MacBook Pros.)
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