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Sun setting on Microsoft?

Tags:
  • Corporate
  • Future
  • Prognostication
  • Microsoft
  • Business Computing
Last response: in Business Computing
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October 3, 2013 6:05:01 AM

Just read an interesting article: http://www.zdnet.com/the-death-of-microsoft-7000021495/
Much of it makes a lot of sense, although predicting the future is always a risky endeavor.

One section from the article:

Tomorrow
Operating systems are commodities that are free or almost free - like device drivers are today. Say goodbye to Windows revenue.
>>Agreed. This can't happen too soon.

Servers and tools will become more important as apps, computes and storage move to the cloud - public or private - to enable powerful mobile user capabilities. But MS has to move cross-platform or lock themselves out of the fast growing Linux server space.
>>Half-truths here. "Private Cloud" is an oxymoron, and a useless buzzword. MS has a pretty robust range of business-related servers. I don't think the platform is particularly relevant. Windows-based and Linux systems run on the same classes of hardware, although Linux scales a little better into some more powerful systems.

MS isn't going to win the ad battle against Google. Stop trying.
>>True enough, except that advertising is the bane of users everywhere, and will only get worse. I've already personally stopped using Google over privacy concerns.

Office will be the 8-track tape of business apps in 10 years. Few people need what it does - file compatibility is the sales driver, not features - and as Google Docs and other apps proliferate at much lower cost, more people will leave. Solution: make Office a brand with Office/Easy, Office/Business and Office/Extreme versions - and put at least O/Easy on every platform.
>>Mostly agree. File compatibility is key. Businesses who have been chanting "We. Must. Have. Microsoft. Office...." are going to wake up to the expense, the bloat, and release this emperor has lost his clothes. Still, putting your data in "The Cloud" just guarantees that sooner or later, whatever agreements or laws may exist at the outset, that data will become available to advertisers, Government, and/or others.

Games? Really? Grow up.
>>WRONG! People will always want to be entertained, no matter how bad things get, or how good. Consider the relative success of companies like Zynga, and how many genres of games there are. While this comment may be apt for tiny subsets of the gaming community, overall it's holier-than-thou rubbish. I do believe Microsoft should focus a lot more on casual and classic-style table and card games if they want to grow their share of a market.
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Thoughts? Comments?

More about : sun setting microsoft

October 3, 2013 7:07:04 AM

Very interesting input here, and currently we are going through a pretty big changing technology revolution. Years ago software was developed to chase the ever increasing performance benefits of faster and more robust computer hardware. Costs fell, meaning that computers were able to be had for not just business work but also casual play or home office work as well. We saw operating systems, software, and computer hardware being designed and built primarily for the business space, which would then trickle down into the consumer side. However, today that development is completely reversed. Looking at Microsoft Windows 8 and the great majority of computer systems and hardware being released and it is all focused on the consumer market, with hopes that the business sector will adapt to it. It won't work that way.

Businesses are changing how they use technology because we have access to technology differently today then we did ten years ago. Microsoft is starting to realize this fact in a major way. In a lot of things, we have been hearing the big companies repeat one line: "The desktop computer is dead." Well, no, it's not. Will it ever be? No. For most all business use and still a great number of consumers, there's going to need to be an actual computer system there. Having a cheap tablet device which can't be easily fixed, and runs a dumbed down operating system isn't going to fit the bill for everything. But without a doubt there is a broad range of mobile technology, form factors, and platforms that consumers have access to. Much more so than ten years ago. And as Microsoft is working to change their direction to address this, I think it will be interesting to see what comes of it. Microsoft was kind of late to respond to the trend, with companies like Google and Apple making the first push into that market, but it's quite understandable when you look at the huge amount of business technology Microsoft is involved with compared to the other two companies.
October 3, 2013 8:15:49 AM

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He's ill informed and speculating based on his personal opinions.

The online services are extremely popular and growing. Yes, they are taking a loss while everything is getting setup, but in the long run it will pay out nicely. For example, for $25/seat you can get the full Office suite and Exchange hosted. Nothing even remotely competes against that pricing for what you get.

Windows, sure, Win8 wasn't that great, but in a Citrix realm, nearly everyone is using Windows for their VDI.

Cloud. Hyper-V is dominating. This guy still doesn't understand cloud yet. Hyper-V even under Windows 2008 R2 version took a huge market share especially from VMware. Under 2012 which has been out just over a year, over 25% of the market is now running Hyper-V. Microsoft's entire Azure system is setup running Hyper-V.

The comparison against Hyper-V 2012 and VMware is dead even. The biggest difference is that Hyper-V is roughly 10x cheaper to and functions as well, if not better than VMware. The only thing Hyper-V doesn't have that VMware has is Fault Tolerance, but if you're a virtualization guy, you know FT is crap in VMware.

What I found interesting is that he focuses on Microsoft's downfall. Did anyone know that Cisco UCS (cloud hardware essentially) has gone from .2% of the market nearly 3 years ago to close to 40% of the market? HP lost 20% market share in 3 years selling solid products.

Regarding consumers, sure, Microsoft will slip there because people want their cool phones and tablets, etc. It's consumer grade, there is money there and they'll continue to bring in revenue, but right now it's so cut throat between companies everyone is going to lose until a few top tier companies outshine the rest.
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October 3, 2013 8:19:09 AM

I should also note that while Amazon has their cloud service.. since what, 1993? Many companies are still running private, hybrid, and some go public. I haven't seen a full public cloud hosted company yet though. Most are going private or hybrid. Amazon will host it.. who cares what they use to host it, the question is what are you going to be running on their cloud? Most likely Windows.
October 3, 2013 8:29:56 AM

Interesting points. I thought Riser's about the swap in direction of innovation was particularly apt, and I think it's a bad idea. Businesses generate value; consumers do not.
October 3, 2013 12:37:37 PM

Well, you'll certainly get a lot of responses to this post, including some very partisan ones.

I've always thought it amazing that so many businesses, esp small ones, continue to use Windows now that Linux is viable, and Office, now that LibreOffice/OpenOffice and Google Docs/Apps are so good. But so far MSFT has held onto its dominance in these sectors just fine.

And MSFT certainly bobbled its recent foray into handhelds, with a $1billion US write-off for their failure. But MSFT muffed gaming when they first went into it and eventually came up with the wild success of the xBox. So you just never know.

I personally want what would be best for the consumer -- the end of MSFT's desktop/laptop monopoly, and MSFT's successful emergence as a competitor in handhelds. This would give us consumers wider choices in both realms.
October 3, 2013 1:03:49 PM

I definitely agree about businesses continuing to show a willingness to pay, and pay, and pay, for applications that have become sufficiently well-known that they DO have support, and that are otherwise almost free.
I don't see any business that deals with confidential data (e.g. attorneys, accountants, and healthcare) having anything to do with GoogleDocs or other cloud-based services, if they have any inkling what is good for them in the long term.
October 4, 2013 6:30:11 AM

As a consultant, I see a lot of small companies. People are familiar with Windows. Everyone knows it. Linux is a pain point for most people. Step outside the IT realm. Windows is just a quick and dirty tool for them to do their job. In IT, we see the tools people are using and think "this is better." I love Linux Fanboys who say Linux is always better. I get a lot of work fixing those issues. They go into a place, install Linux, and walk out the door leaving the customer clueless on how to do things or frustrated with the names of items that aren't professional to their small business.

The consumer market changes so fast that everyone is going to lose money until a clear winner comes out. Microsoft is releasing Surface 2 here shortly.. next step into proprietary hardware for running their solution. They'll get some market share.

iPads.. oh man do I hate those. Everyone in a company wants to use their iPad. Great for limited, specific uses, extremely painful to setup and make work securely and ideally in an environment. But then, what do you do? You fire up your iPad, connect to Citrix or your VDI solution and... you get your Windows desktop. Maybe you get a Linux Desktop instead. But we're going for ease here.

Most companies want to keep control of their documents. It's great for early adopters but you're not going to see a lot of companies jumping to Google docs because of what it is. The reality is people know nothing is free and are willing to pay $25 a seat to have Office and Exchange hosted along with having the support required. Companies don't want to use Gmail as their main email; they want their own internal stuff.

I look at businesses because the consumer market is changing at least once a year. It's still being vetted out.. the problem is so many consumers are willing to buy whatever latest greatest item is. When you look at it.. it's nothing that great.. but they're willing to buy it. That makes it difficult to keep up on that cycle, whereas the Business realm you have about a 3-5 year steady stream.

Touching back on Linux, the number one complaint I hear about it being used for a business is that while it's "free" the support is just as expensive, if not more than, Microsoft. The perks you receive along with Microsoft often outshine Linux's cost. Plus a simple thing: Domain controllers.

Microsoft is cheaper to support than Linux. Plain truth. I live it daily. In fact, in a month or two I will switching a customer off REH/VMware over to Hyper-V and Windows. To switch from VMware and Linux support to Windows and Hyper-V, they cost will be about 6% of what they're currently paying!
October 4, 2013 7:07:37 AM

A lot of what Riser is saying is stuff that I see and handle as well daily in my small business, as I work with other small businesses on their needs. I have a tech that works with me who is amazingly talented at Linux and can do just about anything you want with some flavor or setup of a linux distro. But we never really use it at any customer's office. Why? Useability. Even if it is free, and even if you can set up all the software free that does the same thing as a Windows desktop with all the Office apps, it's a big learning curve for people who are computer illiterate. I think a lot of times technicians have a habit of rolling out changes because it's easy for them, without considering the hours or frustration the end users may have trying to learn something as simple as relocating a couple buttons in your program.

This is the exact reason why Windows 8 has had difficulties getting picked up. It's such a huge navigation departure from the normal that it takes people forever to figure out how to even shut down their computer if they aren't very technically capable. And yes, the majority of your user base out there is going to be that way.

This is why Microsoft still has the hold it does on the market. I think as more and more mobile devices introduce more and more operating environments that people are getting exposed to, it opens up the chance of people learning new things, but that's the biggest challenge in the business environment. Even if it does save you tons of money on licensing, switching to LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office is going to be challenging for many people because of the differences in program layout and functions.

On the server side I really am not an expert with VMWare I know that. I've been using Hyper-V for years because 1) it is easy to learn and set up, 2) it's based on the familiar Windows platform that non-IT trained personnel are still able to work with because it's similar to what's already familiar. And 3) I can run two virtual machines of Windows Server 2012 Standard, plus the physical host running Hyper-V, all for $750. High availability features and live migration features are already included within Windows Server 2012 Standard, so there's no additional cost for licensing on those features, so that's much cheaper than purchasing a $3,000 package from VMWare to run your virtualization PLUS $750 for licensing two VMs of Windows Server 2012 Standard. It just makes so much more sense for cost.
October 4, 2013 7:52:54 AM

While I might be willing to learn Linux, I don't expect end-users to share that attitude. The next generation coming up may be a lot more familiar with it though, and may be less tied to Windows. For now though, Wintel isn't going anywhere.
My earlier comments about paying were directed more at the application layer, where OpenOffice is no more difficult than MS Office, and learning one is no more difficult than learning the other. As many changes as Microsoft makes with each new version (2003->2007 was especially onerous), it would be just as easy at that point to switch.
People often want to use at home what they've got at work, and at least there MS has the sense to have a decent Home Use Program, making that essentially free. Someone who uses LibreOffice at home will be a lot more willing to switch at work, and to be an advocate for doing so, so MS is wise for making it easy for business users to use their software at home too.
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