4 ms·

>I'm okay with Microsoft failing at projects like this. We don't need another Apple-like presence on the market. Personally I’m not ok with being locked out of

>I'm okay with Microsoft failing at projects like this. We don't need another Apple-like presence on the market. Personally I’m not ok with being locked out of potential computing power by platform so I can’t get excited as MS struggles to keep up. It’s either MS keeps up or the future ahead is dark.

derefr 4y ago
> It’s either MS keeps up or the future ahead is dark. You say that as if Apple will become some sort of PC-market hegemon, driving consumers and professionals to use its proprietary ARM hardware and OS despite having traditional Windows- or Linux-based workflows, simply because Apple's ARM is just so much faster. Here's the third option: nobody cares what Apple is doing over in its corner of the PC market; the PC market remains an x86 market; and it continues to be driven by the needs of corporate buyers buying 1000+-part orders of PCs to outfit entire (non-IT!) businesses with; where those businesses don't care about having the fastest computer, but simply need "a" computer, with support and parts their internal IT department can swap out when needed; where the biggest factor driving purchases is TCO; and where TCO is driven down by commoditization and competition, not by vertical integration.
- kevinsundar 4y ago
  This still misses a large risk for Microsoft. Business software is moving to web apps. The orders of 1000+ PCs you've described will be soon replaced by BYO personal devices (who's owners prefer vertical integration like Apple for ease of consumer use) and Chromebook esque devices which are even cheaper than traditional PCs for a business. Microsoft cannot keep doing what they are doing.
- fomine3 4y ago
  I wish Apple's proprietary computing platform keep niche but continue building good products. However iPhone become top share on some market and perhaps is it much higher share on enterprise?
  - derefr 4y ago
    PCs and "sealed consumer information-consumption appliances" (phones, tablets) are different market verticals — they will never converge, because the buyers of them have different needs that result in mutually-exclusive design constraints. Even in Japan, where "nobody" owns a home PC, offices are still full of PCs; nobody is being handed a Macbook to do their work from, let alone a phone or tablet. In my opinion, it's perfectly fine for Apple to win the "sealed appliance" space — since ~everybody else (your Samsungs, your Xiaomis, even Google) is just trying to do the same proprietary vertical-integration play that Apple is doing in that space; they're just worse at it than Apple is. In contrast, Apple will never win the PC space, since their whole market strategy — "give people something different that forces them into our ecosystem" — is (and always has been) anathema to how boring, non-IT businesses want to use computers. Even companies whose workflows depend entirely on macOS "killer apps" (like desktop publishes back in the 1980s), who begrudgingly buy Macs to fulfill those needs, constantly lobby their app-developer ISVs to go multiplatform, so that they can toss out the Macs and revert to doing the same boring PC-centered IT that every other company around them is doing. (And do note that Apple isn't trying to win the PC space. They were trying, historically — maybe up until the year 2001 or so. But ever since the iPod, and then the iPhone, Apple's strategy has moved to treating the Mac as a halo product category — a nice-to-have for those already in the Apple ecosystem for other reasons — rather than as something that's going to usurp the PC in its place one day. It's why, around that time, they killed XServe and Airport routers: they saw no further benefit in attempting to achieve corporate ubiquity, rather than complementarity.)

derefr 4y ago

> It’s either MS keeps up or the future ahead is dark. You say that as if Apple will become some sort of PC-market hegemon, driving consumers and professionals to use its proprietary ARM hardware and OS despite having traditional Windows- or Linux-based workflows, simply because Apple's ARM is just so much faster. Here's the third option: nobody cares what Apple is doing over in its corner of the PC market; the PC market remains an x86 market; and it continues to be driven by the needs of corporate buyers buying 1000+-part orders of PCs to outfit entire (non-IT!) businesses with; where those businesses don't care about having the fastest computer, but simply need "a" computer, with support and parts their internal IT department can swap out when needed; where the biggest factor driving purchases is TCO; and where TCO is driven down by commoditization and competition, not by vertical integration.

kevinsundar 4y ago
This still misses a large risk for Microsoft. Business software is moving to web apps. The orders of 1000+ PCs you've described will be soon replaced by BYO personal devices (who's owners prefer vertical integration like Apple for ease of consumer use) and Chromebook esque devices which are even cheaper than traditional PCs for a business. Microsoft cannot keep doing what they are doing.
fomine3 4y ago
I wish Apple's proprietary computing platform keep niche but continue building good products. However iPhone become top share on some market and perhaps is it much higher share on enterprise?
- derefr 4y ago
  PCs and "sealed consumer information-consumption appliances" (phones, tablets) are different market verticals — they will never converge, because the buyers of them have different needs that result in mutually-exclusive design constraints. Even in Japan, where "nobody" owns a home PC, offices are still full of PCs; nobody is being handed a Macbook to do their work from, let alone a phone or tablet. In my opinion, it's perfectly fine for Apple to win the "sealed appliance" space — since ~everybody else (your Samsungs, your Xiaomis, even Google) is just trying to do the same proprietary vertical-integration play that Apple is doing in that space; they're just worse at it than Apple is. In contrast, Apple will never win the PC space, since their whole market strategy — "give people something different that forces them into our ecosystem" — is (and always has been) anathema to how boring, non-IT businesses want to use computers. Even companies whose workflows depend entirely on macOS "killer apps" (like desktop publishes back in the 1980s), who begrudgingly buy Macs to fulfill those needs, constantly lobby their app-developer ISVs to go multiplatform, so that they can toss out the Macs and revert to doing the same boring PC-centered IT that every other company around them is doing. (And do note that Apple isn't trying to win the PC space. They were trying, historically — maybe up until the year 2001 or so. But ever since the iPod, and then the iPhone, Apple's strategy has moved to treating the Mac as a halo product category — a nice-to-have for those already in the Apple ecosystem for other reasons — rather than as something that's going to usurp the PC in its place one day. It's why, around that time, they killed XServe and Airport routers: they saw no further benefit in attempting to achieve corporate ubiquity, rather than complementarity.)