[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Long articfle.

[kevkrom]

Meh. I’m admittedly no big fan of Microsoft, but I’d take the label of “failure” if I had their balance sheet. Even if they are on a long decline, it’s going to be a LONG decline, and plenty of profit to be made in the meantime.

And that assumes that the trend is real and never changes.

[SeeSharp]

Balmer, a.k.a. “Monkey Boy”, cannot hold a candle to Bill Gates and his entire tenure as head of M$ has been a story of decline.

[Vendome]

My next computer will not be using Microsoft Office.

I’ll be using “OpenOffice”.

It has everything I need, the interface I like and icons/commands that make more sense than the current version.

Best part? It’s free.

Not adverse to spending money on things but Microsuck has mad the latest version of their Office Suite confusing to use as I look for the advanced commands in spreadsheets and formatting in Word.

F em...

I’m a simple caveman, their ways frighten and confuse me...

[qam1]

All someone has to is come up with an OS that equivelent to XP SP5 64bit before 2014 and Microsoft will be done in the desktop & laptop market.

Since XP it’s been,

Vista: Sucks
7: Doesn’t suck as bad as Vista
8: WTF @#&@#&!@#(&*@#!(&@#)(@#&@#

[for-q-clinton]

and if this link is accurate then this whole article is just wishful thinking
http://www.mis-asia.com/resource/operating-systems/microsoft-office-to-arrive-on-ios-and-android-in-early-2013-—report/

[discostu]

I’d love to fail like MS has failed. The fact is MS has positioned themselves quite effectively as a necessary evil. Yeah almost nobody actually likes their apps or OS, but you’re gonna use them, you’re company will buy them and you work with them at work, and if you do work at home you’ll buy them too, and now if you want to work on a mobile you’ll but buy them there too. They’re kind of like a gas station, nobody likes going there either, but we drive.

[Brookhaven]

xbox

That’s my reply to every “Microsoft is dead” article.

Microsoft was late to the game console market, and the product the first delivered was laughed at by many. Today the xbox is the #1 selling console, and they hold 25% of the video game industry—an industry that is LARGER than the movie & TV industry. All of Microsoft’s other product lines could end, and they would still be a major company based on the xbox/video-game sales alone.

They also believe the xbox PLATFORM is the future of the company. That’s why they bought Skype, to extend their xbox platform. They see the xbox as the center of a home entertainment/communications/management/internet system.

Microsoft asked “how can we integrate phones, touch-pads, and other devices with our xbox system (so they will work seamlessly together). Their answer was Windows-8.

Microsoft is late to the touchscreen OS, but isn’t that true of every company but Apple? Does that mean their doomed? Hardly, because they have one great advantage: Microsoft has always been a developer friendly company. Their development tools are easy to use and their product platforms are easy for developers to develop on.

[Sergio]

Just got a new laptop with Windows 8. HATE IT!!! If Dell cannot downgrade the OS to Windows 7, I will be returing the laptop for one that does run 7 or for my money back.

[Future Snake Eater]

The entire military still uses MS products. That’s gotta be a healthy chunk of change right there. My assumption is that other FedGov branches do, too.

[Rum Tum Tugger]

Good article. I think the author nails it.

IMO, the end started about 10 years ago. It was then that it became difficult to find anyone at MS who knew what he was doing.

[Kirkwood]

I’ve been downloading older MS business and specialty solution software in the last 2 weeks just in case it disappears forever. Already many links are dead at the MS support site. Even though I’m mainly using Win7 64 bit, I’m collecting copies of all of the XP solutions that I still use on my older 32-bit computers. Some are very useful and yet never made it into Vista or Win7. It is a shame that a wonderful resource is crumbling apart. Part of the kiddiefication of MS.

[Dr. Sivana]

The problem is that if you are locked in with a choice of 100% Microsoft or 0% Microsoft, once someone goes, it isn’t a baby step, they are gone. Once you start using Google Docs and the related suites, you have no need for Office. That means you, or likely your company, saves several hundred dollars a head. No need for Office means no need for Exchange. No need for Exchange means no need for Windows Server. No need for Office means no need for Windows. Once the snowball starts rolling, it picks up speed a frightening pace. And that is where we are. The barriers to exit are now even more potent barriers to entry.

Every sentence in the above paragraph is untrue.

First, even though who go with, say, OpenOffice or Google Docs, will still need the full blown Microsoft version to communicate with the rest of the world. I say this as someone who oversaw IT within a company and kept it 80%WordPerfect, 10% MacOS, 10% Word.

There's plenty not to like about Microsoft, but other companies are not without their "treacle". Apple treats the corporate environment like gum on its shoe. A lot of important hardware does not have Linux drivers or worse, very poor ones. There are entire categories of software (ERP, for instance) where not only the best of breed, but the five or six best of breedrun either on Windows only or on a mainframe. The MS Exchange server coordinates with a lot more than MS Office and has features of its own that make it a viable choice, MS Office notwithstanding.

The fact is for a company that doesn't innovate, Microsoft still has the best of breed spreadsheet despite the #$%%^ ribbon, a word processor that works a lot better than the free competition for corporate purposes, two database packages that do well in their spaces (SQL Server and, still, Access, even though I greatly prefer FileMaker Pro), a very good (if corruptible) organizer/e-mail client with Outlook. Niche business products that are still top tier (Visio, Project), stuff that brings it all together, (e.g. Sharepoint), and a whole bunch of marginal and bad apps that still draw in support from consumers and businesses that don't want to spend more for a better product (Publisher, Expression).

The fact is that MS Office is actually priced competitively enough to lock out the next Lotus Office/Novell Office/Star Office. WordPerfect is relegated to niche player status for those who do heavier formatting or legal-oriented stuff, and the rest, which miss useful features, are free.

In the enterprise space, Microsoft is committed to providing server products and development tools that will keep it in play, because their developers' products HAVE been innovative and competitive. Yes, they try to corrupt every standard (HTML5, Java, XML) that comes along, but in the meantime they have built a loyal raft of programmers, and Microsoft is willing to mostly stay out of the hardware game, ensuring that there will be a very wide range of suitable computers for its products to run on.

They ain't dead, or close to it, in the corporate realm. Most of the other big players HAVE to do business with them. That's not a bad place to be.

[RightOnline]

A good buddy of mine (recently retired AF O-6) just bought a new HP laptop with Windows 8. We had breakfast the other day and he brought it along to show me. Boy, did he show me.

He HATES Win8, and now I see why. It’s the most miserable, clunky, UN-user-friendly P.O.S. of an OS I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been in the computer biz for nearly 30 years). Just jaw-droppingly stupid design. Try to do just simple things, I dare you. It is openly hostile to users with a mouse....yet touch versions (i.e. Ultrabooks) really aren’t out in volume yet. Even then, as the article points out, what enterprise is going to switch to an OS that is CLEARLY touch-centric?

Answer: None.

I’m sticking with Win7 Pro, which I happen to actually like.

[adorno]

Contradictory statements all over the place, like: Microsoft has failed

followed by:

Sooner or later, someone will come along and do a better job than the treacle that Microsoft, offers.

If MS has failed, then, "sooner or later" sounds like it hasn't happened. And in fact, it hasn't happened and is likely to never happen.

This is an article written by someone who absolutely hates Microsoft and would like nothing more to have it fail. This is an article where the author wishes to help make the failure happen, while at the same time, failing to point at all of the positives that Microsoft has going for it, like, the biggest variety of software on the planet, and the biggest user base on the planet, and the most used office package on the planet, and the most used OS on the planet, a huge presence on the internet with Bing and other major properties, a huge presence on the cloud with its many different services, a new OS for mobile platforms and which is, despite what the author above says, doing quite well in sales, and a new OS which (whether the author likes it or not) is being included with most new PC purchases and which is also very low cost for those who wish to upgrade from any previous Windows version.

MS is also the company with the mobile platform which threatens to take away huge sales from Android and Apple's mobile platforms, and that has already started to show in sales figures. What MS takes away in sales from Apple or Google, is something that will affect the bottom line of Apple and Google. Apple's outlook for sales have had to be lowered since Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT were released to market.

The author brags about the sales of WP8 being slow, but the strategy on he part of MS is not to make huge sales on a week-end and then brag about in on Monday to its user base, which is what Apple is all about. MS's strategy is long-term, and the figures they care about, are the ones reported on a quarterly basis. If weekly or monthly or quarterly figures were to be the determining factor for a failure, then MS would not have persisted in building its XBox system and the accompanying ecosystem.

The author of the piece above is one who wishes to see MS fail, and is divorced from the reality on the ground.

[asinclair]

Nobody ever got fired for specifying IBM

It wasn't that long ago that IBM held a lock on the computing industry. Then things started to slip...and slip...and now where are they? (I know, they sell "service" exclusively now.)

And Microsoft is going down the same chute, and for pretty much the same reasons. The second generation of computing monopoly is withering. Wonder who will pick up the gauntlet?

[familyop]

But Microslut produced...marketing...lots of marketing...and lobbying...and lawsuits...and suits.

[Behind the Blue Wall]

I recently picked up a Chromebox to replace my home computer. It’s basically a Linux OS computer that is designed to run the Chrome browser very well, and not much else. It works for my family though. Even before we bought it, 95% of what we did on our home computer was somehow connected to the Web. The Chrome browser has a buttload of great applications and extensions that are all free, everything I’ve needed so far, I’ve found. The clincher for me was the HTML5 remote desktop extension; if I ever find myself needing any Windows-based programs, I just remote into my work network, and everything’s there.

I like that I no longer have a nagging worry in the back of my head about: have I downloaded the right virus protection? have I properly backed up all of my hard drive files? have I messed up my computer by visiting this or that website, or downloading this or that file? am I current on the latest software updates? etc. All of that is handled automatically by people who know far better than me what the hell they’re doing. As far as it being useless without an internet connection, on the rare occasions that internet is out at my house, it’s more productive for me to do almost anything else other than try to work on my computer without internet.

I think Chromeboxes and Chromebooks could be a threat to a Microsoft along the lines presented in this article. Acer recently announced a Chrome laptop for $199, and Samsung has one for $249. Both come with storage and internet access freebies that are worth more than the purchase price. It’s still a bit of work in progress, but soon there will be a 4G LTE version, and if it has a good hardware/price package, that would be pretty compelling. Corporate IT is already moving to cloud computing; Chrome computers fit perfectly into that.

So, for the time being, at home, I’m free of Microsoft and Apple, and it feels good! Of course, now Google knows everything about me . . .

[DesertSapper]

Microsoft has failed

Failed? If only more companies could 'fail' this well.

Even the much-maligned Vista sold a couple of hundred million copies. Though the uptake of the new GUI will probably reduce sales from Win7 levels, I expect Win8 to match Vista's numbers. Win9 will 'fix' some shortcomings and push the 'pseudo-metro' GUI to even larger sales. Win7 will be hard to beat - it's the fastest selling OS in history.

[jrp]

I almost didn’t buy a laptop I wanted because it was a newer model running Win8. But after viewing a few Win8 tutorials, I went ahead with the purchase.

A familiar desktop is one key away after start up. I don’t miss the Start menu, but there are free and low-cost utilities to bring it back if desired. Touch gestures like swipe and pinch work fine on the track pad. I don’t use Metro much, but it’s there if I want it. The thing boots from sleep in 3 seconds. All my XP software installed with no problems. So far, I don’t have any complaints. To me it seems like Win7 with Metro grafted onto the side.

One anecdote that tends to support the authors story - the salesman at Best Buy said they’ve had a number of PCs returned due to frustration with Win8. They were offering a free Win8 tutorial, I assume to help prevent these types of returns. I can see how trying to operate the GUI upon first firing up the PC, sans tutorial, could be challenging.