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.
you are the Wal-Mart type of user Microsoft thrives on.
Quality is lost on you. You are all about the large tub of stuff, at roll-back prices
(Not that there is anything wrong with that)
Apple is the boutique store.
Google is like the telephone company
Amazon is like Sears Roebuck Catalog.
In truth, FedGov only goes after putative monopolists if they aren’t paying enough tribute to FedGov.
Your point is spot-on, though.
Nowhere near as much as the tie you spent getting it all to work then maintaining it. I have better things to do with my time that keep all the junk working.
If only I could stop staring at the damned alerts “Please wait while Windows attempts to fix XXX...”
Not once has it ever fixed any of the damned app crashes (Win 7 Enterprise). Windows + Dell = complete junk. After all these years, they can’t even make a trackpad work well or reliably. Cursor continues to jump wherever it damn well pleases and a cross-eyed look at the mouse pad makes it think I clicked. Yes, all the settings to turn off pad clicks are made, but it doesn’t make any difference. Happens to all my colleagues’ Dell + Win 7, too. How, in 2015, can they make such crap?
I don’t bother with handheld devices. Their performance is terrible compared to a desktop. I can easily get through the day at work without having to rot my mind with facekook, wikipedia and tweaker. And when we go out on the town the morons sitting in restaurants and theaters with their devices just make me want to frag the place. This whole apple, andrioid, whatever crap just passes me by. Guess I’m just a luddite because I just have a dumb phone and don’t have a huge data/phone bill each month.
Absolutely, all this crap is garbage...No one needs all their complex latest and greatest new cowflop gizmos.
Most will eventually get wise and cut their chains and leash’s to this most of this whizbang crap.
Not from what the analytic statistics report:
"Microsoft has never disclosed unit sales of the Surface, but most analysts believe it sold fewer than one million in the most recently-reported quarter (July to September-2014, emphasis mine — Swordmaker), its best ever revenue-wise. Nor does Apple reveal the numbers of its MacBook Air notebooks sold; instead, it publicizes sales of Macs overall, which in the September quarter totaled 5.5 million, a record."Apple stopped disclosing the split between notebook and desktop sales in late 2012, but during the two years before that, the former accounted for 73% of all Macs. If that same fraction is applied to the September quarter sales, Apple sold approximately 4 million laptops. The MacBook Air is Apple's bestselling notebook, so by that reckoning it sold more than 2 million, or at least twice the number of Microsoft's Surface." — Source: "Microsoft expands anti-MacBook campaign with switching tips", by Greg Keizer, Computerworld,com, December 27, 2014
Those are the facts. Apple is estimated to sell 5.8 million to 6.0 million Macs in the 1st Quarter of Apple's 2015 Fiscal year which runs from Saturday, September27, 2014 to Saturday, December 27, 2014. Time will tell if that prediction is true. . . but analysis of sales looks like it probably is. . . along with 70 million iPhones. There is no way that Microsoft will sell anywhere near 3 million Surface Pros in a single quarter, when they have not sold that many in a year.
That sounds good
But the upcoming Windows 10 is a different story. With its desktop-centric user interface for desktop and most laptop machines, Windows 10 will be far more accepted by Windows 7 users, and that could spark a major upgrade cycle, making a lot of money for Microsoft even if the upgrade cost if US$49.95 per machine (I expect Microsoft to offer a much cheaper upgrade cost this time around).
I have to laugh at uppity people who push the apple line with so much conviction.
They won’t come out and say they’re apple stockholders, why is that?
I've seen it reported in several places. . . but can't nail it down. I think they may be a typo referring to the notebook market. I know that figure is correct for several states. . .
Quality is gaming at 4K on my TV just now. Something no game console can, but my PC does pretty well with ;-)
I’m actually not biased for either platform. I manage both.
I’ve already made the decision our enterprise will move to Win 10 within 2 years or so.
No, I making total sense. They got an entire generation now gawking at screens and menus 24/7....chasing the latest wiz-bang BS, thinking they’ve gotta have it. It’s become a bad joke...
You’ll figure it out.
I almost busted out laughing.
Apple's new 27" iMac is 5K. . . and sells for exactly same price that Dell sells just their 5K monitor, without a computer.
OoooOh, now you did it, the infamous linking of Apple users to homosexuality.
That said, my two nephews that my uber-liberal sister managed to raise as homos are both Apple users by unswerving devotion.
Why, I have no idea since I cannot communicate with their species, suspect that the early days of DOS were just too much for their sensitive little psyches.
I bought a Surface Pro 3, because I needed a Microsoft laptop for work. I have always used Apple laptops in the past and still have one.
I like the Surface. It works well and is super light. Much more convenient than schlepping around with a laptop. The app store sucks, but you can run full programs anyway. Microsoft finally got something right.
Apple seems to be self destructing though through their updates. Everything works until you update and their updates are constant, same with Google. They seem more to “down date” than update.
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