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No, they will not recover. Microsoft's fate is tied very tightly to the personal computer, and that type of computing is coming to end. Microsoft knows they'r

by dstein 15y ago

No, they will not recover. Microsoft's fate is tied very tightly to the personal computer, and that type of computing is coming to end. Microsoft knows they're in very serious trouble and they're not pumping billions of dollars into Bing, Azure, Skype and Windows Phone for the hell of it. They're doing it so that the company will still be around (in its current form) 10 years from now. But Microsoft has already lost the mindshare of developers. That's what really matters. Developers are moving en-masse to mobile and cloud computing and leaving Microsoft's platforms behind. And if they aren't using Microsoft technologies to write software, then nobody is writing software for personal computers, which means every way that Microsoft currently making money is a shrinking market. Microsoft can still make money in a shrinking PC market the same way Phillip Morris makes profit as the last big tobacco company. And I think they may have no choice but to accept that fate.

salman89 15y ago
Just to play devil's advocate: Who says the PC industry is doomed? I think with Apple's recent announcement on what they envision cloud computing to be, I think that one can still argue that OS is still in the forefront. If PCs were doomed, we would not see a huge uptick in tablet sales (most data points to that consumers want iPads, not tablets)? What are your criteria for saying that PCs are doomed?
- dstein 15y ago
  The PC is doomed the same way mini-computers became obsolete. The PC was simply a transition from mainframe enterprise computing toward smaller, mobile, thin-client devices. Mainframes -> Mini-computers -> personal computers -> mobile computers The operating system and software is irrelevant with respect to the hardware-side of things. From the software perspective, I see everything eventually going full-on network-dependent, thin-client, web apps. Apple might still be pushing native mobile apps because they make lots of money at it, but long term that phenomenon will not last.
  - salman89 15y ago
    I'd be interested to hear from software developers what can actually be done at a web app level. Can we eventually have a fully functional Photoshop webapp? Take a look at a company called Kaviza (recently bought by Citrix). They have been doing some good work in terms of deploying VMs onto thin clients. Lets be honest though. Google Docs sucks compared to the Office suite. I've tried to use Google Docs for serious work, but a lot of functionality is still missing. Even if the world moves to web apps, I don't think Microsoft is doomed. An OS still has to run on the thin client, and Microsoft can develop web apps. I'd be very interested to try out Office 365 when it goes live. Cloud based apps don't have to be web apps. Just ask Apple.

by dstein 15y ago

salman89 15y ago

Just to play devil's advocate: Who says the PC industry is doomed? I think with Apple's recent announcement on what they envision cloud computing to be, I think that one can still argue that OS is still in the forefront. If PCs were doomed, we would not see a huge uptick in tablet sales (most data points to that consumers want iPads, not tablets)? What are your criteria for saying that PCs are doomed?

dstein 15y ago
The PC is doomed the same way mini-computers became obsolete. The PC was simply a transition from mainframe enterprise computing toward smaller, mobile, thin-client devices. Mainframes -> Mini-computers -> personal computers -> mobile computers The operating system and software is irrelevant with respect to the hardware-side of things. From the software perspective, I see everything eventually going full-on network-dependent, thin-client, web apps. Apple might still be pushing native mobile apps because they make lots of money at it, but long term that phenomenon will not last.
- salman89 15y ago
  I'd be interested to hear from software developers what can actually be done at a web app level. Can we eventually have a fully functional Photoshop webapp? Take a look at a company called Kaviza (recently bought by Citrix). They have been doing some good work in terms of deploying VMs onto thin clients. Lets be honest though. Google Docs sucks compared to the Office suite. I've tried to use Google Docs for serious work, but a lot of functionality is still missing. Even if the world moves to web apps, I don't think Microsoft is doomed. An OS still has to run on the thin client, and Microsoft can develop web apps. I'd be very interested to try out Office 365 when it goes live. Cloud based apps don't have to be web apps. Just ask Apple.