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.
Car makers and tech companies won't make cars that are connected or self-driving unless and until their liability is limited by law.
So lawsuits and liability simply aren't a factor.
Just as vaccines don't get made unless the makers are insulated against suit.
That's a pretty funny post. It's almost as if you are taking criticism of Apple personally. Are you?
No, not at all. But our friend thinks his PC with two OSes is more powerful than any Mac. I just demonstrated how wrong he is. There are so many PC users who are so certain of the superiority of their computers and the poor quality and crippled nature of Apple products. I popped his mythical bubble.
And I was doing the same thing on my Amiga 3000. So what. That is not a virtual Machine, but was a software emulation. The Amiga would do it faster than the Atari because of the eight co-processors that handled a lot of what the processor on the Atari had to handle by itself. Your VirtualPC was a software emulation.
As to the running Virtual Machines in a Mac, they are running natively in sandboxes and are not software emulations. I do put this into the context of reality. I DO what I said I do and have been doing it professionally for years. . . that is reality.
And your vast industry knowledge leads you to believe an Apple OS is going to run a car.
Yeah, that’s an “expert.”
I agree with you for the most part, with a few exceptions:
1. I have a remote control app on my tablet that enables me to log in to my clients’ PCs. This is much preferable to lugging around my laptop.
2. There’s a mobile website called nextbus.com that tells me when the next bus or streetcar will arrive, updated in real time using my location and GPS data from the transit system. On a cold morning like today it’s a godsend.
3. My tablet has an ebook reader app that is awesome- I can download titles for free from the public library.
For less than $50 you can get a TV tuner that plugs into the USB port. I paid $35 for mine, includes an FM tuner.
The pressure Microsoft has in the enterprise is pricing/value. In a non-manufacturing company of 2,000 employees using Microsoft products end-to-end, the single largest check (Op-Ex) they write each year and every year is to Microsoft. That makes Microsoft a pretty big target for innovators.
Linux has closed the gap and is taking datacenter market rapidly in the enterprise space. In many industries like tech, healthcare, financial, etc., that are very information systems centric, I’d say Linux is already dominant (from the perspective the I see the overall market. )
Apple OS X is closing the gap on a lot of their enterprise weaknesses and are taking market share in desktops. In the typical tech and knowledge worker enterprise, you sill see at least 20% OS X adoption and sometimes as high as 100% adoption. Average currently around 30% I’d say. Up significantly from 0% as recently as 3 years ago. One way I have developed this perspective is by counting how many lighted Apple’s I see on laptops in business meetings.
Google Apps for Enterprise is also moving quickly into the enterprise space. Perhaps pressing more than moving at this point. Google still has a ways to go to sway the Information Security staff and have a feature gap to close.
The Surface Pro is an attractive tool in the enterprise. The Surface Pro 3 is the most sought after device in the Enterprise at present for those using/loving Windows. The long term drag on this product is the annual Windows and Office license costs.
I’d put HP and Dell in the Dead Pool ahead of Microsoft. Laptop PC’s as we know them today are going to disappear (in this decade would be my guess) and give way to tablets and smartphone like devices that dock at your desk and use cloud resources for compute and store.
That said, market momentum is clearly moving away from Microsoft. As an industry insider, I’ll be surprised if Microsoft can once again be innovative and turn the tide. The comparison to IBM is apt I think..
I’ve worked in Tech selling or hands-on since 1983. The above are just perspectives and opinions from my viewing perch. Our strategic planning horizon is 5 years and a lot of things can change in that time. Your mileage may vary.
The PC is king of the MMOs and they are BIG money makers. Persistent world gaming is becoming the future in the gaming industry. So far console gaming systems have not been much of a factor in this particular market.
The downside to the console gaming world is the secondary market. So they are moving to a digital download system and doing away with physical media. Customers are realizing they can't buy a game for 60 bucks beat it quick then trade it in for 35 and buy the new hot game for 60 bucks.
The reason console games are so popular is they have stunning graphics and complex combat interfaces. But the MMO games are catching up because more and more gamers are getting high speed Internet connections which allow MMOs to get closer and closer to the graphics and combat complexity of the console games.
It will be interesting to see if Console Gaming systems adapt to the fast growing market of MMOs. I have my doubts because its seem the business model of Consoles is to constantly change the system so gamers need to purchase new hardware every 3 or 4 years and they don't make them backwards compatible with the established games of the prior system. Where as MMOs last years. WOW, EVE and EQ2 are now all over ten years old.
The financial problem for Msoft is that many enterprise users are (rightly) conservative about rolling out upgrades (our company went to Office 2007 in 2012 and Win 7 in 2013), whereas the iOS using public are mostly jackdaws who can't resist buying the newest shiny thing.
Correct. When people understand it is security that matters, QNX will be the only choice.
What a slob!
Saw Swordmaker mentioned this to ya, thought I would include a link:
http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/imac-retina
Here is the ‘base’ model for $2500:
27-inch: 3.5GHz with Retina 5K display
3.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i5
Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
8GB (two 4GB) memory
1TB Fusion Drive1
AMD Radeon R9 M290X with 2GB video memory
Here is a link to benchmarks of your video card:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+7750
The ‘m290’ is on that chart, about 10-15 spots from the top.
I had seen these before, but hadn’t really looked into them...dang...that is quite a box. With corporate discounts, I could max out the processor(4 ghz i7), get 16 gig of ram and up the hard drive (magnetic & ssd hybrid) to 3tb, and still be under $3000...good thing I don’t have 3k burning a hole in my pocket...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824005634
that is what you want. Ultrawide 34” monitor. Can have 2 inputs at the same time, split-screen (called ‘dual linkup’ on that newegg page).
I have seen this monitor as low as $550 or so...and at least 1 reviewer that was gaga over 4k monitors ditched it for this monitor when it came out...can’t remember where that link was...
What I think is amazing is that even with XP going EOL, they still couldn't push the pig that is Win 8.
I'm just hoping that they manage to make windows less virus-friendly with Win10. I'm not betting on it though.
Appreciate that and thank you. I have no use for a store bought apple system or pc system for that matter.
Long retired, upgrade my own systems. Want the challenge to refresh what cells are left in my brain.
Still use a old high end Linotype-Hell Scanner with great software on an old XP PC.
Use Phase-One Software, PS CS6, plus others.
It’s the journey not the destination.
I have built dozens of PC’s in my time. There were a couple of straws that broke the camel’s back for me:
1. You don’t own that copy of the operating system - You can build a PC, but if you want Windows on it, you “officially” have to buy a new copy for each machine at considerable expense.
2. When something doesn’t work, blame someone else - The software people blame the hardware people and the hardware people blame the software people.
3. Update hell - not only does the Windows operating system need constant updating, but it seems that every update causes some software or hardware to require an update as well.
4. Virus/Malware Protection Extortion - while there are plenty of “free” anti-virus programs out there, those are constantly bugging you to upgrade to their “pro” version. Keeping such software up to date on the seven computers at my business and the four computers at home was costly and time consuming.
I still have a few PCs floating around for special uses and gaming (for my son), but day by day they are used less and less. My Macs now do over 90% of our work and play and soon I hope it will be 100%!
“I’m just hoping that they manage to make windows less virus-friendly with Win10”
they won’t. the only way to do that is to make all but one login account a “limited” account by default and disallow execution of programs from anywhere but the “program files” and “windows” directories for limited accounts.
It’s pretty easy to do that, so I think the vulnerabilities are deliberate, so that after 3 years or so, it’s cheaper to buy a new PC than repair an OS that’s had 3 years worth of virus accumulation, meaning both Microsoft and the PC vendor’s get to sell new stuff.
“whereas the iOS using public are mostly jackdaws who can’t resist buying the newest shiny thing. “
Or in the case of Windows users, there’s essentially a retail conspiracy to offer no choice but to buy the latest POS Microsoft operating system if you need a new PC, taking advantage of the vast ignorance of consumers that they can buy online better PCs with better versions of Windows than buying retail.
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