Posted on 11/30/2012 8:52:10 AM PST by SeekAndFind
NPD research published some horrible news for Microsoft yesterday.
* Despite releasing an entirely new operating system on October 22 of this year, Windows PC sales shrank 21% between 10/21 and 11/17 versus the same period last year.
* Windows 8 tablet sales during that period were "almost nonexsistent" – just 1% of all Windows 8 sales.
“It hasn’t made the market any worse, but it hasn’t stimulated things either,” Stephen Baker, an analyst at NPD, told the New York Times. “It hasn’t provided the impetus to sales everybody hoped for.”
No kidding.
Yesterday, we reported other bad news:
Asus CFO David Chang's comment that "demand for Windows 8 is not that good right now."
Microsoft cut its order of Surface tablets for the year to two million units, down from four million.
This is a very scary time for Microsoft.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Sounds like New Coke.
Could it be that the Microsoft Business is starting to fall apart?
Consider:
1. The iPad eats the consumer PC market.
Apple sold 14 million iPads last quarter, which is more than the top PC maker, Lenovo which shipped 13.7 million PCs. Throw in Apple’s 4.9 million Macs, and it’s the top computer maker by a mile.
As the personal computer market goes ...
2. Employees gradually switch away from using Windows PCs for work.
This trend has not played out that dramatically in 2012. However, British bank Barclays bought 8,500 iPads at employees insistence this year.
And, a recent survey showed that the iPhone has overtaken RIM as the smartphone of choice for enterprises
3. Windows 8 fails to stop the iPad.
It’s still early, but every single data point says Windows 8 is not going to make a dent in the iPad.
4. Loyal developers start to leave the Microsoft platform.
Not sure if this happening or not. So far, the early signs are actually positive for Microsoft. It has over 20,000 apps in its Windows app store. Windows 8 is only a month old. At the same time, Microsoft doesn’t have a Facebook app for the Surface, and one of the biggest complaints from reviewers was the lack of good apps for Windows 8.
The .NET development platform seems to have a huge loyal following individually and at the corporate level.
5. Windows Phone gets no traction despite the Nokia deal and RIM’s collapse.
This has happened. Despite everything Microsoft has tried in mobile for the last two years, consumers aren’t buying it.
6. Could Microsoft Office lose its relevance?
7. Microsoft’s other business applications start to erode.
If Windows continues to fade, and if Office starts to fade, then corporations have less reason to adopt Microsoft technologies on the back end like Exchange Server for email, SharePoint Server for collaboration, Lync for videoconferencing and real-time communication, and Dynamics for CRM and accounting.
8. Could the platform business collapses?
For the last decade, Microsoft’s fastest growing business segment has been Server & Tools, which did $7.4 billion in sales last year.
A lot of these sales come because Microsoft business apps — Exchange, SharePoint, and Dynamics — require these products. But as companies stop buying these apps, they will have less reason to buy the Microsoft platform products that run them, and the System Center ($1 billion+) products used to manage them.
I bought my daughter a new laptop last month. We made sure we got one with Windows 7. The Win7 machines were on sale because Win8 was coming out.
Windows 8 sucks.
PERIOD.
It’s funny but it’s not funny. Microsoft going the way of RIM will cause a lot of grief and economic loss.
These loons need to get a grip. It may already be too late.
Ballmer needs to go.
They also need to stop with the mind numbed mantra of “The PC is dead!”
Our Corporate software will not run on a 64bit platform. We are using older SAP, SAS and Siebel.
Microsoft created a customer base that expects failure and frustration with new Microsoft products. Even what’s left of the Microsoft loyal will wait a year or two for Microsoft to get the bugs worked out. It’s they way of the company (or at least is understood).
I’m surprised Microsoft has been so successful considering their track record.
Has there ever been a Windows OS release that wasn’t going to be “the death of Microsoft”?
I spent the $40 to load it onto my old Vista desktop.
It’s like a new computer. Very fast. Boot up only takes about 30 seconds. Used to be almost 10 minutes with Vista.
The start button is gone, replaced by a start screen (metro interface). Get to have apps like on phones and tablets.
People will get used to it. It will do fine. It is cheap. It is better.
they came to late to the party..
too bad.. .Windows 7 really rocks.. I like in on my home desk top
RE: Has there ever been a Windows OS release that wasn’t going to be “the death of Microsoft”?
My personal policy — Always buy the ODD numbered version of Windows, not the even numbered version :)
Ashton-Tate, Lotus, WordPerfect and Novell said that too, IIRC.
RE: Windows 7 really rocks.. I like in on my home desk top
My personal policy — Always buy the ODD numbered version of Windows, not the even numbered version :)
As a Mac user from way back who clearly recalls the “Apple Deathwatch” so gleefully maintained by Microsoft zealots for over a decade, there should be a measure of freudenschade (FR spelling mocking DU, yes it’s intentional).
But, there’s not. They’re in a bad way. Irrelevancy is looming large.
As a standard that the industry could consolidate around Windows has always been an unqualified success (up until now).
As a pure OS - looking at Windows just as a pure engineering achievment
it’s always been mediocre to poor. Whether you want to look at performance,
efficiency, security, reliability, advanced capabilities or other metrics,
it’s never been all that good.
Windows 8 is probably the same turd just polished up a bit with tiles.
Ultimately, the market I think has voted on the quality of the OS as an OS, and probably doesn’t care *that* much about tiles, no tiles, or whatever.
Windows is OK but it ain’t great - and I suspect the market is merely
reflecting that fact.
Nobody buys an OS for the OS. They buy the OS for the apps.
I’m willing to give it a try. Actually, I’ll probably see it at work before I see it at home.
The fact is that the PC IS dying, but it will be a very slow & gradual death. Kind of like saying a healthy looking 60 year old is dying. People are doing more and more on tablets as they become increasingly capable. That trend will only accelerate. Windows 8 is MSFT trying to catch that wave.
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