Replies

Bill Gates, figured out a long time ago that the profit was in software not Hardware.

Now look, he is losing money on X-Box (hardware) LOL.

Anyway, here is my most recent MSFT story and it has a good ending. I recently bought a computer that was a Clone built by a local computer shop, it came with XP pre installed, it was complete with the license and all that.

I got home with it, and hooked it up and logged in maybe 3 times and the OP system froze and would not let me in.

Called MSFT Tech Support they said that the OEM (builder) had probably used it to install to another computer, and the time ran out on the license registration, therefore I was out of luck, (I paid the builder $59 bucks to unlock it).

I went back to MSFT tech support and they said there was nothing they could do to reimburse me, but I finally talked to a Call Center Supervisor and they gave me XP OFFICE finally.

Bottom line, Microsoft did me a good turn, and I appreciate that.

Bill Gates, figured out a long time ago that the profit was in software not Hardware. Now look, he is losing money on X-Box (hardware) LOL.

Microsoft never considered making money on the Xbox hardware. They planned to take a hit on the cost of hardware in order to get the price down and make sure plenty of units were sold. Xbox is a longterm project. Where the money on that venture is going to come from is licensing of software for it and subscription fees to the WAN multiplayer. Console and PC gaming don't get the press of Hollywood, but they bring in more loot. Bill just intends to ride that wave.

The facts about MS are simple, they dominate a static market, and all attempts to expand out of it have failed, and will continue to fail. Their core is desktop OS and Office....there is little reason to update office or your OS, so vast majority of sales are with new machines, and people and more importanly companies are starting to wisen up to this fact. I mean lets be honest with ourselves, what really new features has Office had in years? What about the OS? What Killer feature would warrant a company to upgrade? None... and with new machines now far faster than even the average business user can push, lease trade in will be only reasons for upgrading, not forced obsolecense.. This does not bode well for MS.

Secondly, the world today is about free information exchange, its the DATA.. The web exploded because of what? DATA!!! Fast, endless and useful/useless data. Format/OS independent data! The same movement will happen in other data formats.

The writing is on the wall and every attempt for MS to escape from those basic fundamental facts has to this point failed. Tried to go into gaming, and blew it in the all important Japanese market, losing money and not gaining market share but will keep fighting the mod chip guys... handheld attempts are doing about the same.

There is a huge thing to be said for places like Europe right now where the governments have conciously chosen to go all opensource... all documents, data etc is common.. the applications used to access and change them is free, as is an os they sit on. Anyone in the community can get a CD with all the software on it for free, or virtually free, and then install on their machines. Any government agency, and the people themselves are now all free to exchange any info they want, with anyone else that they want and have reasonable expectation that every one will be able to use or view the information.

The day of the proprietary solution for the general case application are coming to an end, its not going to happen overnight, and its not going to kill companies in that industry, but they will become less and less important. And every attempt by MS to keep forced proprietarianism will make it more and more irrellevant. MS suffers from IBMitis... WE KNOW BETTER THAN YOU DO HOW TO DO THINGS.. ITS OUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY.... IBM had that same mentality in the 80s, we do EPSIDIC not ASCII... etc etc etc.

MS is not going anywhere, but they still don't realize the fundamental shift that is happening, or maybe they realize it, but have no idea how to deal with it.

I am sure the usual suspects will show up to tell me I'm wrong, but I do believe its going to happen, and its not because I hate MS, and love Linux. Though portraying me as such may make good fodder. Computers are commodities, and as the base model price point continues to DROP I just don't see MS keeping its margins, and I have yet to see MS effectively expand its operations outside its core, it keeps trying, but just haven't seen it manage it yet.

Now look, he is losing money on X-Box (hardware)

Don't count Microsoft out yet with the X-Box. Microsoft is willing to lose a lot of money up front in order to gain long term market share. If I were Nintendo or Sony, I'd be worried.

Bill Gates, figured out a long time ago that the profit was in software not Hardware.

I'm not sure if it still is, but the most profitable division within Microsoft (by # of employees) for a while was was group that makes Microsoft Mice, Joysticks, and Keyboards.

There was something like 20 employees in the division and it was responsible for millions in hardware sales.

Bill wasn't giving anything to Logitech :)