robgendreau
Explorer
I own as many Windows/MS products as Macs.
But seriously? I've never seen anyone young with a MS mobile device. They've got a whopping 2% of the mobile market. That's somewhere south of fail. Palm probably has more. And he says Apple isn't innovating? MS LOST market share when they introduced Win 8, and have yet to make that up. And they can't even convince their XP base to upgrade. It's like changing the menu in a retirement home. Sheesh. And they've lost tons of the server market, down from like 60% to 30%. For years they focused on crushing opposition rather than innovating, and because they had such a large market they didn't have to. And I swear they leave their OS insecure so they can hold their poor customers in thrall to security upgrades; it's a big market. And then they missed the boat on phones, tablets, search engines, the cloud, you name it. I love XBox, but they even had a bit of a misfire when they force bundled the kinect with it.
And they don't seem to have learned much from any of this. They've got some killer office software, but even with Word there are problems; fewer folks need to word process documents every day.
I still keep Windows around since there's a bunch of ham software and GPS software that needs it...but that's often cuz it's using serial ports and XP. That should tell you something about the future of MS. Can anyone name a MS offering in the last 5 years that was cutting edge? Check out this article:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/05/microsoft-please-dont-give-up-on-the-future/
One irony is that the consequences of their business practices of the past has now made them slaves to their user base, rather than vice versa. They got more ink for ending support for a decade-old OS than anything new they've come up with. And as the article notes, now are in back pedal mode. I don't see Apple having to pay much attention to PowerPC users or Newton fans.
But. They are getting their rears kicked so bad in mobile that if they started giving away the OS, and just went for it, they might have a chance. The OP mentioned tablets, but I've recommended to people that instead of getting a tablet buy a touchscreen Win 8 netbook...you can get them for less than many tablets. If MS chopped the price of Win, then they might use that to eat back into the mobile market. Meanwhile, I'm thinking there's some kid in China right now thinking hmm, we already manufacture all the hardware...can I come up with a better OS for all this stuff???
But seriously? I've never seen anyone young with a MS mobile device. They've got a whopping 2% of the mobile market. That's somewhere south of fail. Palm probably has more. And he says Apple isn't innovating? MS LOST market share when they introduced Win 8, and have yet to make that up. And they can't even convince their XP base to upgrade. It's like changing the menu in a retirement home. Sheesh. And they've lost tons of the server market, down from like 60% to 30%. For years they focused on crushing opposition rather than innovating, and because they had such a large market they didn't have to. And I swear they leave their OS insecure so they can hold their poor customers in thrall to security upgrades; it's a big market. And then they missed the boat on phones, tablets, search engines, the cloud, you name it. I love XBox, but they even had a bit of a misfire when they force bundled the kinect with it.
And they don't seem to have learned much from any of this. They've got some killer office software, but even with Word there are problems; fewer folks need to word process documents every day.
I still keep Windows around since there's a bunch of ham software and GPS software that needs it...but that's often cuz it's using serial ports and XP. That should tell you something about the future of MS. Can anyone name a MS offering in the last 5 years that was cutting edge? Check out this article:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/05/microsoft-please-dont-give-up-on-the-future/
One irony is that the consequences of their business practices of the past has now made them slaves to their user base, rather than vice versa. They got more ink for ending support for a decade-old OS than anything new they've come up with. And as the article notes, now are in back pedal mode. I don't see Apple having to pay much attention to PowerPC users or Newton fans.
But. They are getting their rears kicked so bad in mobile that if they started giving away the OS, and just went for it, they might have a chance. The OP mentioned tablets, but I've recommended to people that instead of getting a tablet buy a touchscreen Win 8 netbook...you can get them for less than many tablets. If MS chopped the price of Win, then they might use that to eat back into the mobile market. Meanwhile, I'm thinking there's some kid in China right now thinking hmm, we already manufacture all the hardware...can I come up with a better OS for all this stuff???