MS is getting left behind they are going the way of IBM, Xerox and Western Union, well maybe more Xerox and Western Union since IBM did re-invent itself.
This just proved MS does not get it, they are in the same boat apple was 15 yrs ago, Mac OS ran it course and need something new, Jobs comes in kill everything old and brings in the New.
150+ million Windows 7 licenses, god knows how many copies of Office and revenue and profits way ahead of Apple.
Things are certainly changing perhaps, but with Microsoft rolling in money with Windows + Office sales and not really making a killing in any other markets one could make an argument that things haven't changed that much yet.
When Bill Gates left and Balmer took over, microsoft's market cap was around 580 Billion. Today, after 10 years of Balmer microsoft's market cap is down to 201 Billion.
Microsoft is not going to go out of business. They will be successful and profitable for many years to come. However, they are looking more and more like the next IBM. In business, profitable, but not really making an impact on the course of technology.
What has changed is the image of Microsoft as a company. Microsoft used to bridge the gap as a consumer friendly, yet business savvy company. Now, MS is only pretty much thought of as a enterprise company.
I don't think Microsoft have ever been seen as particularly "consumer friendly". At least by the people in the mobile market at the moment. It's not like the perception in the marketplace has changed, but the marketplace itself has changed... and Microsoft haven't.
I'm of the opinion that Microsoft could turn their mobile stratagy around. I've got no idea if they will actually do it though. The consumers that Microsoft need to target aren't fanboys... the loyalties for the average mobile owner only last as long as the phone contract. If they can create a good phone, something that actually competes with the iPhone, then people will buy it.
I'm also of the opinion that Microsoft have the potential to create a better mobile device than Apple. They seem to be the only company around that could tick all of the boxes for a complete end-to-end solution.
Once again I've got no idea if they will actually do it though. Looking at them at the moment one would have to assume the smart money is on "no".
It's almost like they are the only ones will all of the pieces in the mobile strategy jigsaw puzzle... but they don't have a single leader on board who can start putting them together.
This should serve as a warning to Apples board- What to do when Steve is gone?
In fairness to MS, Win 7 seems pretty good.
But gosh that Office 'ribbon' menu interface drives me nuts.
Anyone know how the well the new 'web' office works, especially on the iPad?
Pretty good compared to Vista maybe ... but Windows 7 is what should have been out a decade ago! Compared to using Snow Leopard (I have to use both) it is torture.
msft as bought and killed scores of fine companies
for many reasons
like rome burns while nero plays
msft killed web tv
they killed quarter deck
on and on
what happened here is that msft had every thought to make a great phone and intergrate it with the ever growing zune empire
some days passed and msft kinda forgot all about danger
some one moved to something else
google did something else and other msft left to attack that new problem
in the end no one at msft had any idea what or who danger is
no idea why they bought
happy with a great tax break
they simply took out the garbage and waited for their lunch order's to arrive
billion flow in from their monopolies
except for xbox
every other msft project fails badly from lack of will or lack of attention
at msft days have turned into decades
nothing ever changes
nothing
except apple rules the world now and bill gates is left with his original theft and the monopoly that sprung from its loins
msft will never die
no matter how many times i stab it
9
Don't worry, it may not die overnight but it will become irrelevant one day not too far away. Then the billions will ebb away. They are a monolith based on a particular technology. Once that technology is an 'Eight Track' player they are toast.
Microsoft may be bloodied, but I don't think you can count them out yet.
You are right, in as much as Windows 7 is not a bad product. And Microsoft can continue to be profitable in these areas.
But what Microsoft seems to have lost is the capacity to grow into new markets.
Windows Phone 7 seems an odd catching-up move, that few think will restore MS into the Smartphone space. Zune was a dud.
XBox has a lot of users but the product is permanently on a knife edge between profitability and loss-making.
So what MS relies on is revenue from Windows and Office. Pretty much the same as ten years ago. It's that lack of progress into new markets that people find disturbing.
You are right, in as much as Windows 7 is not a bad product. And Microsoft can continue to be profitable in these areas.
But what Microsoft seems to have lost is the capacity to grow into new markets.
Windows Phone 7 seems an odd catching-up move, that few think will restore MS into the Smartphone space. Zune was a dud.
XBox has a lot of users but the product is permanently on a knife edge between profitability and loss-making.
So what MS relies on is revenue from Windows and Office. Pretty much the same as ten years ago. It's that lack of progress into new markets that people find disturbing.
C.
I think MS's virtual lack of a presence in the mobile market will really hurt them in the long run. It *could* be fatal.
There are now plenty of users out there that can envision a future without a MS product. Most people I know now don't even bother to fire up there computer to check their email. Just do it on the phone. Now that I have an iPad I use it instead of my laptop for quick and casual web browsing. Sure iWork for the iPad (iPhone in the future?) may be flawed now but as it gets better people may very well consider Apple products especially if they continue to stitch them together in simple and attractive way.
Within five years your computer *should* be your phone. By then we will have multi-core ARM cpus that will be as powerful as a circa 2006 Core 2 cpu. 128 GBs of flash should be affordable and commonplace by then. Apple are have now made it possible to sync your bluetooth KB to your iPhone. All that's needed is a way to hook a display and possibly a mouse(that ought to be trivial to do) up to the iPhone for it to basically be your computer.
While I can understand the sentiments against Microsoft regarding this I'm surprised no one mentioned Verizon. They basically required a full smartphone data plan to use some crippled "social network" phone.
They did Microsoft no favors here. Something with that phone's capabilities should have had a dedicated plan that cost less since, in the end, it does much less than a regular smartphone while not being able to do anything strikingly better. I can imagine any person entering a Verizon store/kiosk and looking at the kin, crunching the numbers and walking out with an Android based phone which would allow them to do all they would have with the kin and much more.
You are right, in as much as Windows 7 is not a bad product. And Microsoft can continue to be profitable in these areas.
But what Microsoft seems to have lost is the capacity to grow into new markets.
Windows Phone 7 seems an odd catching-up move, that few think will restore MS into the Smartphone space. Zune was a dud.
XBox has a lot of users but the product is permanently on a knife edge between profitability and loss-making.
So what MS relies on is revenue from Windows and Office. Pretty much the same as ten years ago. It's that lack of progress into new markets that people find disturbing.
C.
Some think that XBox is their path to the future. I'm no expert but I understand that it's morphing into a media centre in its own right with a huge web presence and potential to interconnect a raft of mobile appliances.
But heck, whadda I know.
I think I'll be dead before Microsoft is no more though.
So? It's a fairly basic phone, what did you expect? And really the weakest design you've seen in the last decade? I'm sure it at least had a working antenna.
The Kin just didn't have a place in the market, not with WinMob7 around the bend, and definitely not with Verizon's pricing plan - no one wants to have a smartphone data plan ($30/month) on a dumb phone.
Verizon is as culpable in this matter as Microsoft. Heck for my $30 data plan on Verizon, I get free mobile wifi too. The Kin just never should have come to market.
The XBox team is the only part of Microsoft that "gets" how to combine great design with great hardware and software.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chopper
Some think that XBox is their path to the future. I'm no expert but I understand that it's morphing into a media centre in its own right with a huge web presence and potential to interconnect a raft of mobile appliances.
But heck, whadda I know.
I think I'll be dead before Microsoft is no more though.
So? It's a fairly basic phone, what did you expect? And really the weakest design you've seen in the last decade? I'm sure it at least had a working antenna.
I expected something more from the Kin after seeing better designs from other cheap phones.
PS: Your attempt to start an argument because some are having antenna issues isn't going to work. Nice try , but my antenna on my iPhone 4 is fantastic.
I think the relative success of the Xbox is a big part of what's gone wrong at MS.
At heart they're a pretty button down operation, as befits their bread and butter operations as a provider of commodity solutions for business. Windows, Office and server products account for essentially all of the money:
Entertainment and devices have struggled just to break even, and it's been that way for years.
Now the Xbox, while losing money for most of its existence, at least has given MS credibility in the consumer space. But that's where the problem comes in: Microsoft's soul legitimate consumer product is a game console. That means that Microsoft's soul experience with making and selling successful consumer products derives all of its mojo and demographic cues from an industry based on adolescent boy iconography and design.
So you have this polo shirt wearing golf course lurking sort of middle management nerd company (not that there's anything wrong with that) having some success with a bit of skate boarding teen drag, and now they can't think of any other way to approach the market.
Look at their advertising: the Kin campaign was just terminally urban hip douchebag, way way worse than the posturing that Apple gets accused of. Which was exactly like the Zune campaign, which there's a pretty good chance will be exactly like the Windows Phone campaign. Compare that to the borderline insane, beyond parody lameness of thing like their "Windows 7 House Party" or the bizarre videos for that automatic music thing they were touting a while back.
The whole thing is embodied in the embarrassing J Allard makeover-- a frumpy software executive was re-launched as a cool urban hipster, the better to serve as point-man for their "relate to kids" initiatives.
I think what MS needs is some solid, friendly, easy to use consumer products that don't come with so much predetermined market segment baggage. Apple does this all the time, why can't MS? iPad and iPhone ads don't hammer you over the head with the idea that you have to be a sweaty club kid to use them, but they also don't succumb to that weird Stepford wife vibe.
Microsoft seems to be under the impression that the consumer market is divided between wooden suburban white people and some ad agency's idea of gritty youth, with is exactly in line with their experience to date with Windows and the Xbox. The two poles are just too far apart, and it seems pretty clear that MS has a hard time, internally, telling the cool kids from Steve Ballmer in drag. Whatever good design work they do seems to always be in danger of being swamped out by grotesque pandering-- again, IMO, because when the only thing that's ever worked for you is a game console, you perhaps get some funny ideas about what that "living room" everybody's gunning for actually looks like.
They should probably just spin off the youth market stuff as its own deal-- call it "X Labs" or something-- to get it out from under the Windows Everywhere deathray. Then the folks at the mainstream, makes money Microsoft could think about making some consumer products pitched at average people, without the pounding techno coming from the E&D wing unduly clouding their minds. It's pretty clear MS can't figure out how to do independent pirate operations within the belly of the beast in a way that actually survives the digestive juices, and the results typically seem to be a really unfortunate conflation of of tone deaf hipster posturing and a fundamentally beige corporate culture. It makes them both look bad, maybe they should try going their separate ways.
Comments
This just proved MS does not get it, they are in the same boat apple was 15 yrs ago, Mac OS ran it course and need something new, Jobs comes in kill everything old and brings in the New.
150+ million Windows 7 licenses, god knows how many copies of Office and revenue and profits way ahead of Apple.
Things are certainly changing perhaps, but with Microsoft rolling in money with Windows + Office sales and not really making a killing in any other markets one could make an argument that things haven't changed that much yet.
When Bill Gates left and Balmer took over, microsoft's market cap was around 580 Billion. Today, after 10 years of Balmer microsoft's market cap is down to 201 Billion.
Microsoft is not going to go out of business. They will be successful and profitable for many years to come. However, they are looking more and more like the next IBM. In business, profitable, but not really making an impact on the course of technology.
What has changed is the image of Microsoft as a company. Microsoft used to bridge the gap as a consumer friendly, yet business savvy company. Now, MS is only pretty much thought of as a enterprise company.
I don't think Microsoft have ever been seen as particularly "consumer friendly". At least by the people in the mobile market at the moment. It's not like the perception in the marketplace has changed, but the marketplace itself has changed... and Microsoft haven't.
I'm of the opinion that Microsoft could turn their mobile stratagy around. I've got no idea if they will actually do it though. The consumers that Microsoft need to target aren't fanboys... the loyalties for the average mobile owner only last as long as the phone contract. If they can create a good phone, something that actually competes with the iPhone, then people will buy it.
I'm also of the opinion that Microsoft have the potential to create a better mobile device than Apple. They seem to be the only company around that could tick all of the boxes for a complete end-to-end solution.
Once again I've got no idea if they will actually do it though. Looking at them at the moment one would have to assume the smart money is on "no".
It's almost like they are the only ones will all of the pieces in the mobile strategy jigsaw puzzle... but they don't have a single leader on board who can start putting them together.
This should serve as a warning to Apples board- What to do when Steve is gone?
In fairness to MS, Win 7 seems pretty good.
But gosh that Office 'ribbon' menu interface drives me nuts.
Anyone know how the well the new 'web' office works, especially on the iPad?
Pretty good compared to Vista maybe ... but Windows 7 is what should have been out a decade ago! Compared to using Snow Leopard (I have to use both) it is torture.
What is amazing is that the product was released at all.
Companies don't just put products out there and see what happens, they should know with some confidence how many units are going to sell.
What on Earth happened here?
C.
msft as bought and killed scores of fine companies
for many reasons
like rome burns while nero plays
msft killed web tv
they killed quarter deck
on and on
what happened here is that msft had every thought to make a great phone and intergrate it with the ever growing zune empire
some days passed and msft kinda forgot all about danger
some one moved to something else
google did something else and other msft left to attack that new problem
in the end no one at msft had any idea what or who danger is
no idea why they bought
happy with a great tax break
they simply took out the garbage and waited for their lunch order's to arrive
billion flow in from their monopolies
except for xbox
every other msft project fails badly from lack of will or lack of attention
at msft days have turned into decades
nothing ever changes
nothing
except apple rules the world now and bill gates is left with his original theft and the monopoly that sprung from its loins
msft will never die
no matter how many times i stab it
9
msft as bought and killed scores of fine companies
for many reasons
like rome burns while nero plays
msft killed web tv
they killed quarter deck
on and on
what happened here is that msft had every thought to make a great phone and intergrate it with the ever growing zune empire
some days passed and msft kinda forgot all about danger
some one moved to something else
google did something else and other msft left to attack that new problem
in the end no one at msft had any idea what or who danger is
no idea why they bought
happy with a great tax break
they simply took out the garbage and waited for their lunch order's to arrive
billion flow in from their monopolies
except for xbox
every other msft project fails badly from lack of will or lack of attention
at msft days have turned into decades
nothing ever changes
nothing
except apple rules the world now and bill gates is left with his original theft and the monopoly that sprung from its loins
msft will never die
no matter how many times i stab it
9
Don't worry, it may not die overnight but it will become irrelevant one day not too far away. Then the billions will ebb away. They are a monolith based on a particular technology. Once that technology is an 'Eight Track' player they are toast.
Microsoft may be bloodied, but I don't think you can count them out yet.
You are right, in as much as Windows 7 is not a bad product. And Microsoft can continue to be profitable in these areas.
But what Microsoft seems to have lost is the capacity to grow into new markets.
Windows Phone 7 seems an odd catching-up move, that few think will restore MS into the Smartphone space. Zune was a dud.
XBox has a lot of users but the product is permanently on a knife edge between profitability and loss-making.
So what MS relies on is revenue from Windows and Office. Pretty much the same as ten years ago. It's that lack of progress into new markets that people find disturbing.
C.
You are right, in as much as Windows 7 is not a bad product. And Microsoft can continue to be profitable in these areas.
But what Microsoft seems to have lost is the capacity to grow into new markets.
Windows Phone 7 seems an odd catching-up move, that few think will restore MS into the Smartphone space. Zune was a dud.
XBox has a lot of users but the product is permanently on a knife edge between profitability and loss-making.
So what MS relies on is revenue from Windows and Office. Pretty much the same as ten years ago. It's that lack of progress into new markets that people find disturbing.
C.
I think MS's virtual lack of a presence in the mobile market will really hurt them in the long run. It *could* be fatal.
There are now plenty of users out there that can envision a future without a MS product. Most people I know now don't even bother to fire up there computer to check their email. Just do it on the phone. Now that I have an iPad I use it instead of my laptop for quick and casual web browsing. Sure iWork for the iPad (iPhone in the future?) may be flawed now but as it gets better people may very well consider Apple products especially if they continue to stitch them together in simple and attractive way.
Within five years your computer *should* be your phone. By then we will have multi-core ARM cpus that will be as powerful as a circa 2006 Core 2 cpu. 128 GBs of flash should be affordable and commonplace by then. Apple are have now made it possible to sync your bluetooth KB to your iPhone. All that's needed is a way to hook a display and possibly a mouse(that ought to be trivial to do) up to the iPhone for it to basically be your computer.
How is MS positioned for this potential outcome?
They did Microsoft no favors here. Something with that phone's capabilities should have had a dedicated plan that cost less since, in the end, it does much less than a regular smartphone while not being able to do anything strikingly better. I can imagine any person entering a Verizon store/kiosk and looking at the kin, crunching the numbers and walking out with an Android based phone which would allow them to do all they would have with the kin and much more.
Have you guys seen the Kin teardown on iFixit. It's probably the weakest HW design I've seen in the last decade.
You are right, in as much as Windows 7 is not a bad product. And Microsoft can continue to be profitable in these areas.
But what Microsoft seems to have lost is the capacity to grow into new markets.
Windows Phone 7 seems an odd catching-up move, that few think will restore MS into the Smartphone space. Zune was a dud.
XBox has a lot of users but the product is permanently on a knife edge between profitability and loss-making.
So what MS relies on is revenue from Windows and Office. Pretty much the same as ten years ago. It's that lack of progress into new markets that people find disturbing.
C.
Some think that XBox is their path to the future. I'm no expert but I understand that it's morphing into a media centre in its own right with a huge web presence and potential to interconnect a raft of mobile appliances.
But heck, whadda I know.
I think I'll be dead before Microsoft is no more though.
At least they make enough profit in other areas so they can make these mistakes over and over.
Have you guys seen the Kin teardown on iFixit. It's probably the weakest HW design I've seen in the last decade.
So? It's a fairly basic phone, what did you expect? And really the weakest design you've seen in the last decade? I'm sure it at least had a working antenna.
The Kin just didn't have a place in the market, not with WinMob7 around the bend, and definitely not with Verizon's pricing plan - no one wants to have a smartphone data plan ($30/month) on a dumb phone.
Verizon is as culpable in this matter as Microsoft. Heck for my $30 data plan on Verizon, I get free mobile wifi too. The Kin just never should have come to market.
Some think that XBox is their path to the future. I'm no expert but I understand that it's morphing into a media centre in its own right with a huge web presence and potential to interconnect a raft of mobile appliances.
But heck, whadda I know.
I think I'll be dead before Microsoft is no more though.
LOL
So? It's a fairly basic phone, what did you expect? And really the weakest design you've seen in the last decade? I'm sure it at least had a working antenna.
I expected something more from the Kin after seeing better designs from other cheap phones.
PS: Your attempt to start an argument because some are having antenna issues isn't going to work. Nice try , but my antenna on my iPhone 4 is fantastic.
At heart they're a pretty button down operation, as befits their bread and butter operations as a provider of commodity solutions for business. Windows, Office and server products account for essentially all of the money:
Entertainment and devices have struggled just to break even, and it's been that way for years.
Now the Xbox, while losing money for most of its existence, at least has given MS credibility in the consumer space. But that's where the problem comes in: Microsoft's soul legitimate consumer product is a game console. That means that Microsoft's soul experience with making and selling successful consumer products derives all of its mojo and demographic cues from an industry based on adolescent boy iconography and design.
So you have this polo shirt wearing golf course lurking sort of middle management nerd company (not that there's anything wrong with that) having some success with a bit of skate boarding teen drag, and now they can't think of any other way to approach the market.
Look at their advertising: the Kin campaign was just terminally urban hip douchebag, way way worse than the posturing that Apple gets accused of. Which was exactly like the Zune campaign, which there's a pretty good chance will be exactly like the Windows Phone campaign. Compare that to the borderline insane, beyond parody lameness of thing like their "Windows 7 House Party" or the bizarre videos for that automatic music thing they were touting a while back.
The whole thing is embodied in the embarrassing J Allard makeover-- a frumpy software executive was re-launched as a cool urban hipster, the better to serve as point-man for their "relate to kids" initiatives.
I think what MS needs is some solid, friendly, easy to use consumer products that don't come with so much predetermined market segment baggage. Apple does this all the time, why can't MS? iPad and iPhone ads don't hammer you over the head with the idea that you have to be a sweaty club kid to use them, but they also don't succumb to that weird Stepford wife vibe.
Microsoft seems to be under the impression that the consumer market is divided between wooden suburban white people and some ad agency's idea of gritty youth, with is exactly in line with their experience to date with Windows and the Xbox. The two poles are just too far apart, and it seems pretty clear that MS has a hard time, internally, telling the cool kids from Steve Ballmer in drag. Whatever good design work they do seems to always be in danger of being swamped out by grotesque pandering-- again, IMO, because when the only thing that's ever worked for you is a game console, you perhaps get some funny ideas about what that "living room" everybody's gunning for actually looks like.
They should probably just spin off the youth market stuff as its own deal-- call it "X Labs" or something-- to get it out from under the Windows Everywhere deathray. Then the folks at the mainstream, makes money Microsoft could think about making some consumer products pitched at average people, without the pounding techno coming from the E&D wing unduly clouding their minds. It's pretty clear MS can't figure out how to do independent pirate operations within the belly of the beast in a way that actually survives the digestive juices, and the results typically seem to be a really unfortunate conflation of of tone deaf hipster posturing and a fundamentally beige corporate culture. It makes them both look bad, maybe they should try going their separate ways.
When Bill Gates left and Balmer took over, microsoft's market cap was around 580 Billion.
Half a trillion dollars?
Are you sure about that?