Posted on 01/06/2015 8:51:33 PM PST by Swordmaker
The long reigning king of the desktop OS is in trouble. Microsofts 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.
Apples 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.
Apples 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.
Nadellas Microsoft is showing little resistance to Apples 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 Redmonds 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.
“From my recent experiences, it seems more like Microsoft is committing suicide.”
Indeed. Google and Apple are not killing Microsoft: Microsoft is killing Microsoft, first with Windows 8, and probably with Windows 10 as well, because there’s no business case to convert from Windows 7 to Windows 10 unless Windows 10 offers guaranteed compatibility and MUCH better productivity for the millions of users and applications supported by Windows 7. Cortana and Microsoft clouds and Microsoft Stores and unified platforms and all the rest are either gimmicks or things that MICROSOFT cares about, and not things that their current installed base cares about.
I strongly suspect that Microsoft has not learned the lessons that they should have learned from the Windows 8 debacle.
Sounds like a pipe-dream to me. I prefer to go with something that has been 17 years in the wild and has not had a successful virus or worm invade it in those years.
Most are starting to recoil at this never ending lastest and greatest new updates and OS’s and on and on....All for a fee...Jump through more hoops, for a small or big fee.....You’ll like it, it’s just what you need....Ya gotta have it....Suzi and Bobby have it, and you’ll need it too. It’s make everything perfect for you and your life will be whole once again...
gak...
But, but, but, they were saying that about Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8, and Windows 8.1. . . just wait until the next version and everything will be great, unicorns will be real, and Windows will work perfectly!
Frankly, we will believe it when we see it.
You are only counting traditional desktops/workstations.
Most people access the Internet via smartphones and tablets.
Android will pass windows in numbers of devices within a few years.
Linux is doing very well in the Server space and in on the Internet.
Excellent analogy...
No complicated analysis required. Microsoft = Mopar. Apple = non-Mopar, especially rice burners, but including Fix Or Repair Daily and General Maintenance. Using Windows puts hair on your chest, especially from tearing it out topside over a particular BSOD. It's a jalopy, but it's MY jalopy.
The Windows phone works amazingly well. I’ve had one since it first came out and it’s been completely problem free.
Apple has 5-6% last time I saw a recent graph.
I think Microsoft’s intent is to not own every market, but be like Wal-Mart and have a significant action in every market. If, in every tech market, Microsoft had 20% of the action, it would probably be the largest tech company on earth.
Heh - I don’t have room for a 39” TV, but a 4k 32” dual duty (TV / computer monitor) for under $370 or so (I could wait for Black Friday) would be of interest, a little down the line. Is there anything out there? I took a look on Amazon and the closest options I saw were 28” 4k Monitors (only) at a little over $400. Viewing distance would be pretty typical for computer work - I sometimes need to have multiple windows completely displayed & multiple monitors are not practical due to the space limitation.
Really nice would be capability to display TV in one window and the computer’s output in one or more other windows, simultaneously...
i see. And you have experience with this, or are you just parroting what you have read? I have multiple iOS devices and manage multiple Macs in an office environment and could not disagree with you more. There are always glitches with updates because there are millions of devices out there that do have a mix of components that Apple cannot test adequately across all models, but they have solved the majority of the problems on iOS 8.1.2.
Apple does not send out "constant" updates. . . In the almost two years that OS X.4 Tiger was out, only 11 updates were provided, including security updates. OS X 7 Lion and Mountain Lion only had 7 revisions each. . . hardly constant.
>> And yet I haven’t heard of Google or Apple making a Type-safe OS.
>
>Sounds like a pipe-dream to me.
Did you read the paper?
> I prefer to go with something that has been 17 years in the wild and has not had a successful virus or worm invade it in those years.
I prefer to go with things that can be formally proven: cannot happen is much better than “hasn’t happened yet”.
Indeed, I think XBox has pretty much cannibalized the PC market for games.
bttt
If MS “simply” came out with a Win 7 upgrade that ran faster and more reliably (possibly dumping some of the bloatware in return), upgraded security, and would be around for a while, I’d not need anything more / it would be a worthwhile upgrade.
Win 8 for desktops is just plain annoying - I have it on one machine and it’s neither efficient, fast running, or reliable.
Devices with small screens are basically useless for me, tho’ I do have a 10.1” screen netbook for times I get desperate in terms of portability. Generally, I need the biggest monitor practical (see my post above!)
Bingo!
Clinton’s threat to break up Micro Soft was a shakedown for “campaign contributions”.
Not in the US. After IDC originally missed their 3rd Qtr 2014 guesstimates placing Apple Mac sales at a record 4.6 million and 13.4% of the US Market Share, when Apple released their actual 3rd quarter 2014 Mac sales at 5.5 million, IDC placed Apple at just under 18%. . . which made Apple the number 3 manufacturer of PCs in the US.
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