4 ms·

New York Times agrees: Windows is toast

5 points by fromedome 18y ago

pg 18y ago
"Does this mean Microsoft going to keel over tomorrow? Of course not. But as the rise of the Internet, Apple (second coming), mobile computing, Google, et al, are demonstrating, PC operating systems are a lot less important than they used to be." Literally could not agree more...
- jwilliams 18y ago
  This article talks to Windows, I think one of the biggest exposures for Microsoft is Office. It's a significant part of their revenue (a real cash cow) and is the gateway into the corporate environment. Now they have two problems: 1. Competitors (often free) are producing products that are competing - and even more importantly, are compatible (enough) with the Microsoft formats. and 2. They are running out of ways to innovate in the Office format. The ribbon in the latest versions is interesting, some of the integration is better... PowerPoint was significantly better... But really... How much more can they innovate in the Office Suite format? Word XP might offer more, but in my experience it's a very moderate increment over something like Word 2000 (and arguably Word 2.0 for many users). And it shows - I see many organisations who have no intent to upgrade. They need to innovate their key planks (Windows, Office) considerably or eventually they'll either obsolete or commoditised out of the market. How their current strategy reflects that, I don't know.
gaius 18y ago
if MS can come up with a licensing model that makes it feasible to deploy the CLR as a grid/cloud-computing platform running F# code, then things will get a bit more interesting.
pragmatic 18y ago
The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated... Consumers are one thing, businesses are another. Businesses spend a "crapload" on computers and many of them are stuck in the Windows world. While home users with simple email needs can switch, MSFT still has the cash cow business buyers which are less price sensitive than consumers. While I like Ubuntu, even our Linux admin just switched his (work) desktop to Vista b/c it was too much of a pain to interop with our Windows network. Sometimes it's just not worth the pain.

5 points by fromedome 18y ago

pg 18y ago

"Does this mean Microsoft going to keel over tomorrow? Of course not. But as the rise of the Internet, Apple (second coming), mobile computing, Google, et al, are demonstrating, PC operating systems are a lot less important than they used to be." Literally could not agree more...

jwilliams 18y ago
This article talks to Windows, I think one of the biggest exposures for Microsoft is Office. It's a significant part of their revenue (a real cash cow) and is the gateway into the corporate environment. Now they have two problems: 1. Competitors (often free) are producing products that are competing - and even more importantly, are compatible (enough) with the Microsoft formats. and 2. They are running out of ways to innovate in the Office format. The ribbon in the latest versions is interesting, some of the integration is better... PowerPoint was significantly better... But really... How much more can they innovate in the Office Suite format? Word XP might offer more, but in my experience it's a very moderate increment over something like Word 2000 (and arguably Word 2.0 for many users). And it shows - I see many organisations who have no intent to upgrade. They need to innovate their key planks (Windows, Office) considerably or eventually they'll either obsolete or commoditised out of the market. How their current strategy reflects that, I don't know.

gaius 18y ago

if MS can come up with a licensing model that makes it feasible to deploy the CLR as a grid/cloud-computing platform running F# code, then things will get a bit more interesting.

pragmatic 18y ago

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated... Consumers are one thing, businesses are another. Businesses spend a "crapload" on computers and many of them are stuck in the Windows world. While home users with simple email needs can switch, MSFT still has the cash cow business buyers which are less price sensitive than consumers. While I like Ubuntu, even our Linux admin just switched his (work) desktop to Vista b/c it was too much of a pain to interop with our Windows network. Sometimes it's just not worth the pain.