Posted on 07/28/2010 10:40:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's easy to bash Microsoft.
From its CEO, to its massively popular operating system, the company does not exude the cool, hip style of Apple. Nor does it exude the wide-eyed optimism or Google.
For these reasons, and others, Microsoft is regularly bashed by the tech-set who drool over Apple and Google.
It's not just the tech scene. Wall Street is cool to Microsoft. After crushing earnings, Microsoft's stock is underperforming the market.
Well instead of piling on, we're going the other way. Of all the major tech companies out there, Microsoft is one of the most successfully diversified, exciting companies going.
It has two major cash cows, but it's also grown 8 billion dollar businesses in the last decade. Does anyone think Google, or even Apple, could do that?
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Just because they don’t know what the OS is doesn’t mean it’s not there and isn’t necessary. The smart phone will never become the computer, they’re too small for real work. Try typing or even reading a 30 page document on your smart phone.
There’s still going to be an OS under that Palm software.
No it’s a myth, you might not need to know how to tweak your OS, but OSes do a lot more than what users think it does. All interaction with the hardware, all output and all input, come from the OS.
I didn’t say no one uses the cloud. I said they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Clouds sound great all the way until you lose your connection and that document you absolutely have to see to do your work is gone, not to mention what happens when that cloud company ceases to exist. Local copies will always be more stable and useful than clouds. Look at the problems WordPress has had lately, imagine if your vital documents were there instead of on your computer and you needed them that day to close a million dollar sale, oops, too bad. The cloud is nothing more than trying to bring back the dumb terminal, there’s a reason computing moved away from the dumb terminal.
Nope it is Vista and it was real buggy. Worse than ME , I wanted to go Mac( just kidding) but I was sorry I didn't just get an XP like my old one, when I got this computer. They just kept sending updates, and now it works great.
Politics, religion, and operating systems are all the same subject.
Everything has a use, but as computers, ie smart phone usage accelerates, desktop usage goes down. OSes shed function and must get lighter weight and respond to user inputs fast.
I built my first computer before there was a PC ... We first did it with discrete components, yes it took lots of cabinetry, and then used the 4004 ... then the 8080 ... And now well it’s too much trouble to build.
In a few years, I doubt there will be many desktops being sold. Have you looked in Best Buy lately? Almost all lot-tops and smart phones. People want to do things ... The next big step, away from laptops, appliance computing on the go, is on the horizon.
Try yodlee.com
OS were originally designed as general purpose. I know I was there when UNIX was born. And general purpose brings baggage that is not necessary in the age of mega-chips and specialization.
The next stage is staring us in the face ... Everybody I meet has a smart phone and likely a kindle, or laptop. I don’t find lap tops generally useful for full-time work and much prefer a desktop to do real work. But then again I am not the mass market. And there is the rub, the smart phone for better or worse has taken the market by storm. Just look at what Apple iPhone and iPad sales are doing compared to their desktops and laptops.
So while writing the book may require more resources, Kindle has shown reading it is cheap and easy. Kindle books on Amazon has already outsold regular books.
Desktops are near gone at Best Buy, and laptops have become standard. But everybody is now working on the next generations of iPad knock offs. Apple sales of iPhones is looking to top 100 million soon.
This Christmas may be the one ...
Hey servers will still need OSes, just not the average mass market Joe, they have already switched to laptops sometime ago and are moving on ....
Think the nightmare you would have managing large numbers of users, and then the cloud becomes very attractive.
“Misconception, a properly patch XP or Win 7 box is actually a very secure computer.”
That’s the problem. Those computers are no more secure than the users that use them. I did some consulting work for a business whose computers were acting slow and “funny”. Every computer there ran Windows XP but nothing had been kept up to date, including the antivirus programs. Every last one of them had multiple viruses, spyware and adware. Most Windows users are not technical and are not mindful enough of security and what I found is probably very typical outside of corporations with active IT departments.
OSes provide integration between the hardware and the software. They might have other tools for resource management but those are really applications. The actual OS itself is the layer between hardware and application, and that will never go away.
The smart phone has taken the phone market by storm. It is not a desktop replacement, it’s not good at anything desktops are actually needed for. The screen is too small for long term working, the keyboard is too small for long term working, the memory and storage are too small for large scale functionality. Actually iPhone and iPad sales are negligible compared to desktops and laptops.
Kindle is only outselling hardbacks, which account for about 5% of book sales.
Windows is on 1.1 BILLION machines. 100 million iPhones still puts them 91% of the market away from taking over.
EVERYTHING needs OSes, read what I said. Your precious smart phones ALL have OSes. 4.0 of the iPhone OS came out at the same time as thenew hardware, and can be applied to previous versions of the hardware. Average mass market Joe might not KNOW about the OS, but there’s still an OS on every single device he’s using, PC, smart phone, DVR, Garmin, laptops, Kindle. They all have OSes.
You still have to manage large numbers of users. Nothing really changes with the cloud, they all still have machines that will be configured and updated. The only difference is that when something happens to the company’s network those machines become completely useless. In the current world when the internet connection fails productivity goes up because people lose a major method of screwing around. In a cloud world when the internet connection fails productivity ends.
For businesses, there's a full range of offerings. Hosted email is the most popular but it's possible to use Microsoft Office tools completely on the web as well. Companies can deploy applications on the web via Azure and even some or all of their computing infrastructure in managed datacenters. Major enterprises have already signed up to do just that.
For consumers, they can use the new and improved Hotmail or Live email and even create their own domain name for free. Your favorite Office applications are also available as web applications.
While Google gives you a their cloud or nothing proposition, Microsoft allows business and individuals to chose where they want to use their applications and where they want to store their data. Companies can even deploy a Microsoft based cloud infrastructure within their firewall and integrate their in-house datacenter with a Microsoft or partner (think HP/Dell/IBM/Accenture/Etc) datacenter.
Here's some links to the above:
Microsoft On-line offerings for business: http://www.microsoft.com/online/
Microsoft Infrastructure and Development for the cloud: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/
Microsoft Office in the cloud for consumers: http://www.officelive.com
I don’t own a smart phone, don’t want to talk on my computer ... But I don’t buy them other people do.
Yes, but I remember when the same was said about the PC. It’s too small, the processor is way too tiny, the processor couldn’t do anything blah blah blah ... it’s not good for nothing real computers do ... and then times changed.
Who needs quad core when one core is hardly ever maxed out. Times change. Nowadays most computers do not take advantage of the power they have.
So long old friend but your days are numbered as the mass market darling you once were. But if I wanted an OS, why would I buy one? Most of the MS sales are from the Lappy market where windows comes preloaded. There is a reason investors are thinking MS is a has been stock — As the ‘pads’ take over.
FU Jay Yarrow.
Microsoft destroyed my career by breaking the law. And their products are inferior.
“As the need for an OS disappears into the sunset .......”
OK I’ll bite... so if you don’t have an OS running locally, how will computer users do any of the following:
1. Create home movies
2. Photo Processing using Photoshop
3. Programming in the language of your choice
4. Rip DVDs, store files on an HTPC
5. Play PC games
6. Store sensitive data locally, on an encrypted drive
The list goes on and on.
“That’s the problem. Those computers are no more secure than the users that use them. “
Thats true for any computer.
Whats Vista? Never used it as it didn’t make it through QA.
XP SP3 is still secure if properly patched. Win 7 is obviously the new OS and so far has been extremely stable.
No , I dislike them because the company was founded on a fraud perpetrated on IBM and that a few years after that they purposely delayed completion of a version of OS/2 for IBM while they rolled out their newest O/S .. That and Gates had a habit of stealing entire product lines , bankrupting the creators of the products by incorporating others peoples work into windows and then throwing the rightful owners a few bones when MSFT inevitably lost in court.
Really and whats you computer going to run on, the "Ether" (Over the ethernet)?...So call Cloud computing nor browser based computing does not replace an OS on the local system...It just changes the location of the resource the OS on the local system is calling
1) The servers and tools division is now a $15 billion business
True, Microsoft has come a LONG way in the last decade. Their server platforms and tools are now pretty good. There are still some headaches, but nothing's perfect.
3) Xbox and Xbox Live are a big money makers now
Good, then maybe you can cut the costs for us. But big money makers = continued platform support, so that's good. And the quality control and defective design issues are long solved, which makes the Xbox a good buy now.
4) Windows is expected to keep blowing the doors off
Yep, After almost a decade of trying, Microsoft finally got a worthy successor to XP, and one that's almost as good as its target, OS X. Microsoft needs to remember to lead a moving target, not shoot at where it is now.
5) Bing is making Google look bad
Ain't competition great?
8) Microsoft is about to get back into the phone business
Please, no, unless it's worlds better than before.
6) Microsoft treats its employees amazingly
As an aside, this is true as long as you're actually a full employee, which isn't so easy. Microsoft loves to use and abuse temps though.
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