[Hodar]

Windows 7, is essentially a patched Visa - but at full price.

But, honestly; do consumers ‘really’ have a choice? My PC at work is going to be a Windows machine. That is a fact of life, I don’t get a vote on that. The momentum behind Windows is tremendous; try to order a PC without Windows installed. This is where Apple is ‘finally’ getting some momentum.

MSFT has garnered a great deal of ‘ill-will’. People hate MSFT, it’s a passion and it is indeed ‘personal’. Why is that? Why do Apple users love and fawn over their OS X; while MSFT users swear that they will never buy another Windows machine?

Bing? Sorry, it’s not a tremendous success. People, when given a choice - are opting for Google.

Server products - again, with market momentum and IT staff trained for all things Windows - this is a market that MSFT has sewn up nicely. Is it sewn up on the merits of the Server OS, or the fact that it is what Corporations chose? Why is the Apple equivalent, less than $100 more than Lion; while the MSFT server OS retails for several hundred dollars more? They both do the same thing?

XBox and Kinect - granted; those are two successful devices. But, is it due to the hardware (which had nearly 100% failure rates associated with it for the first 3 years of release), or due to the tremdous software provided by Bungee and other developers? Software-wise; the XBox reigned supreme. Hardware wise, it’s a distant second to the PS3 (I own the Wii, XBox360 and PS-3); for day to day operations, the PS3 plays my CD, DVD and Blu-Rays; it streams video from my network, runs silently and serves it’s purpose well. The XBox360 (first edition) is noisy, is on it’s 3rd motherboard, and generally is used only as a gaming console.

So, what does MSFT have, really? A 50/50 chance of supporting your given product? If it’s immediately successful; MSFT will support it. If it’s not immediately accepted by the market, historically speaking - it’s quickly abandoned.

Now, compare this support record to the competition. Apple is STILL supporing the iPhone 3GS, and even older generations of the iPod.

[dfwgator]

The question is, with increasing power of mobile devices, how much longer will PCs be as prevalent as they are now? Not saying they’re going away, but certainly their numbers will begin to decline steadily over the next few years, as tables and smartphones begin to take their place, and Microsoft will pretty much be shutout of that.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Here's my take. Microsoft got to where they are (or more precisely were) but taking a very fragmented PC market in the 80s and 90s and made it orderly which was a clear benefit for consumers but at the cost of a Microsoft monopoly. Before Microsoft came along there was no promise that a given program would work with a given printer or a given modem or what have you. Once the Microsoft monopoly was established they continued to print money by ruthlessly exploiting that monopoly.

What they haven't done much of in last, say, 15 years, is to significantly innovate.

Now, faced with an entirely separate market - the one for Mobile OS - they have none of their previous advantages. Say what you will, it's not a market in chaos either economically or technologically. And it's certainly not a Microsoft owned monopoly - far from it. So neither of their previous two strategies show any promise of working in this new space.

Can they come up with a winning strategy by providing a compelling technology for carriers, manufacturers, developers and users - and then forge those relationships based on a compelling technology with great customer service and innovative marketing? It's possible, but seems quite unlikely to this observer.

[wbill]

My PC at work is going to be a Windows machine

Without turning this into another PC vs Apple thread (to me, a computer is a tool. People might as well argue over which brand of garden rake they prefer. It would make as much sense to me....)

I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to computers. I firmly believe that - when it comes to home use - you should use whatever the heck works for you.

But, when it comes to work, I can understand why companies select MS. It provides a level of standardization, while simultaneously allowing a diversity of non-standard components to be added -and this is important - cheaply. And, usually, it works. To use a car analogy, you can't (easily)buy a Chevy, put a Ferrari engine in it, couple it to a Ford transmission, put 4 retread, mis-sized tires on it, run it without lights, or brakes, then expect to get anywhere in one piece. But, MS manages to pull off running on hardware setups like this every day.

MS also makes tech support pretty ubiquitous. 20 years ago (when I got into IT), all computers were total witchcraft and the IT guys were worshipped, or reviled.....but they were always well-compensated. "I don't know how you make these things work, but I know they gotta work for me to stay in business", was something that I heard on occasion.

Now? My pre-schooler uses computers to design and play his own video games. Lower-level Computer techs are completely interchangable, as are the lower-level programmers. And everything is cheaper - so long as you're on MS.

Apple and Linux may have better products, but they've still got that "Witchcraft" mystique to them. People to work on them - from my experience at least - are harder to find and more expensive - both huge drawbacks from a business perspective.

With their inroads to the consumer market over the past 5 years or so, Apple may eventually break this paradigm. Their IPad is a game-changer, no doubt. But, inertia within business is massive (hell, mainframes are ancient technology, but there's still plenty of money to be made in that business.....) and I'll unlikely ever see that shift occur, if it ever does.