Posted on 01/07/2014 7:50:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Regardless of how stalled Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) MSFT +0.69% business seems to Wall Street analysts, the fact of the matter is that this company powers 90.73 percent of the Desktops and Notebooks around the world. Its nearest competitor at second place is Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) AAPL +0.14% Mac operating system which has only 7.54 percent market share.
Microsoft released its latest upgrade to the much discussed Windows 8 operating system, Windows 8.1, in October of 2013. Last month, during December, devices running the Windows 8 and 8.1 crossed over 10 percent market share for the first time. A month earlier, in November, it only had a 9.30 percent market share. Effectively, last month Windows 8.x versions gained over 1.49 percent market share, reported The Next Web.
The gain represents a fundamental shift in the Windows userbase, as Windows XP users were forced to abandon the platform as Microsoft is discontinuing support and security updates for XP from April 8, 2014.
As Windows 8.1 was offered as a free upgrade, it will not provide Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) MSFT +0.69% with any revenue gain. However, discontinuing Windows XP will eventually drive the sales of Windows 8.x operating system further up over the course of next few quarters. Back in the first quarter of 2013, Microsoft’s revenues went up 24 percent (in the first three months) compared to the previous year’s first three months; as Windows 8 sales pushed revenues of the Windows division alone to US$ 5.7 billion from US$ 4.633 billion. However, overall as a company, Microsoft’s revenue has been declining since the start of 2013.
In the third quarter of 2013, Microsoft generated only US$ 18.53 billion revenue from its operations, indeed a sharp decline.
However, Microsoft has maintained profitability since the sharp decline it observed during the first two quarters of 2012. As of the third quarter of 2013, its EBITDA has gone down amid declining operating revenue but earnings per share is still at US$ 0.63.
However, sales estimates are looking good for Microsoft this year, the current estimate is set at US$ 25.05 billion by the end of 2014. Microsoft has a lot of new guns to fire this year in order to generate revenue instead of solely relying on its Windows division. The Surface line of products is doing well, as its sales doubled in the third quarter of 2013. Moreover, Microsoft is partnering up with various low cost phone manufacturers in the emerging market segment to sell Windows Phone 8 based cheap phones. Rumors include a deal between Microsoft and Micromax, an Indian phone manufacturer, and even Sony may have joined the bandwagon.
Based on the growth forecast, Zacks just upgraded the company from “underperform” on December 19, 2013. If anyone is looking for investing in an established blue-chip company with growth in mind during 2014, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a good option right now, as the 1 year forward P/E is only at 12.86.
Windows 8 continues to SUCK even with 8.1 upgrade. I see NO significant improvement other than a version number change.
Way to go Microsoft, you have succeeded in alienating even more of your base.
RE: Way to go Microsoft, you have succeeded in alienating even more of your base.
Then why is Windows 8.1 gaining ground as per this article?
I disagree. I didn’t go to 8 right away, but just moved to 8.1 from 7 and I’m loving it. I know there are plenty of problems with the deploy of 8.1 that the common non-techy will not enjoy. Once you get there and configure it to your liking this system is just as good as Win 7 and blows XP out of the water.
I run a home built machine (as I have for 15+ years) with a Intel i7, 16gb, 240gb SSD, two 512gb RAID 0, discrete graphics and audio. The only incompatibility I had was with an Intel driver.
They added a FAKE start button to Windows 8.1 so that they could say that they put the start button back. But the fake start button is missing just one little thing... the start menu.
Microsoft is putting a stick in the eye of serious desktop users.
Why do you need a Start Button? Just start typing the program name you want... Or is using a mouse to point click, point click better for you?
I like it too.
Meh. I’ve been a sysadmin for 14+ years and I have no issue with 8 or 8.1. You just need to spend a bit of time setting up the start page and then it’s actually faster than the old menu.
Yay Linux! I’ve turned on some of my family elders to Ubuntu. I built my M-I-L an Ubuntu desktop and she absolutely loves it. My grandfather is in the same boat, and he was completely entrenched with XP until he had some serious system issues.
Seriously, people, if you’re still using XP, you NEED to upgrade. You WILL be affected at some point soon. Win7 is an amazing OS and no prone to the BS of Win8. You can still buy Win7 OEM licenses for $99. But then, Ubuntu is free.
That's exactly the problem, no one wants to learn. Except the *ix fellas who demand you learn a whole new O/S...
Win 8 (or 8.1) is a horrible version. It’s opaque, frustrating and not good at all for business users. They wanted the interface to be similar to the Windows phone (touchscreen), wanted to drive everything to the cloud, and completely dumped the business users are who doing more than social media but actually want easily accessible programs that work all the time. MS is also trying to drive Office Suite users to its cloud-based Office 365.
In a lot of ways, MS jumped the gun. I don’t think people are demanding total cloud-based services quite yet, and making everything cloud based at a time when many areas still do not even have stable or sufficient internet service or bandwidth for users to be able to connect reliably or steadily is a mistake. Also, doing away with things in their Office Suite that are still essential for most users (such as the ability of Outlook to get POP based e-mail, something it can no longer do even though the majority of e-mail in this country goes through ISPs that use a POP3 system) is a big mistake. This is particularly true since the users of Windows 8 are generally working at a desktop or a large laptop, using big complex programs, and are not the unemployed Pajama Boy sitting around using a phone or tablet to text his friends about Obamacare in between sending out the occasional selfie.
So MS is now suggesting complicated work-arounds or additional non-MS add-ins that can restore some very basic functionality (the start button, for example), and generally floundering.
It’s a pity. Windows 7 was good, stable, if not very fast, and they shouldn’t have tried to make such a radical change, especially to technologies that are less than developed.
Gone are the days when Microsoft can bully OS competitors out of the market. Linux gaining ground, Chrome will continue with incremental improvements, and Steam is pushing a linux gaming platform.
Home computing will revert to the ‘thin client’ model.
>>Why do you need a Start Button?
That seems to be Microsoft’s attitude in a nutshell.
“We don’t care if you want it. And while you’re wasting your breath explaining to us why you think you need it, that’ll give us time to work on changing your mind to the new thinkspeak method.”
I don’t need a start button. button<>menu
As someone who has a Nokia Lumia 1520 Windows Smartphone and Microsoft Surface Pro Tablet-PC, I love Windows 8 and 8.1.
I can do things with my tablet nobody can do with an iPad or Android tablet. I run all my PC software I want. I use One Note to write notes, share files and do far, far more than anyone else.
Windows 8 is a lighter OS that is more stable, boots up faster and gives you the best of all worlds.
The only reason to oppose Windows 8 is to resist learning something new.
Well... I’ve been one for 24 years and I find a touch screen OS on a desktop to be horribly inefficient. And I have no interest in social media, or logging into Microsoft’s servers, or purchasing things from their store.
I’ve now installed Zorin OS on two client’s laptops and they’re very happy with it. Zorin isn’t going to take over the world, but the point is this.... Zorin has a “Look Changer.” The Look Changer lets you change your desktop to look and act like either Windows 7, XP, Vista, Ubuntu Unity, Mac OS X or GNOME 2. They wish to give the customer what the customer wants, which is the type of business that I choose to give my business. I am losing my loyalty to Microsoft in the same way as I have lost my loyalty to the Feds.
I agree with you. I’ve had a w8.1 system for a month. I replaced a 10 year old xp laptop. It takes a little while to learn all the features of the Metro GUI. I.E. you can put shortcuts to desktop programs on the start page.
The only confusing thing for me was there are three ways to play audio. Media player on the start page and the desktop and a Music app on the start page. The Music app is set to be the default player and is tied in to X Box. I was ripping some Christmas CDs and had no idea about the Music App.
Win 8 is Win 7 with improvements that is designed for TOUCH technology. As more tablets come into the market as well as touch tech PCs and laptops win 8 will make further gains. MS did the same thing with Vista which was made for processors that were not yet in widespread use when the OS was released. As a power user at home and at work, I never had any issues with Vista, Win 7 and so far none with Win 8.
“Why do you need a Start Button?”
In business, it’s bad practice to ask your customers “why do you need this feature?”, when all you really need to ask is “do you want this feature?”
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