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They seem to be very slowly losing to Apple on the laptop / productivity market and first signs of losing to Linux on gaming. In the same way that their incomp

They seem to be very slowly losing to Apple on the laptop / productivity market and first signs of losing to Linux on gaming. In the same way that their incompetence has been very slow to move the needle, once they lose the market it’s going to be almost impossible to get it back.

whizzter 1y ago
More than anything, once people realize that they can be fine without MS because 5-10% of the non-Apple market has done so (and the alternatives has figured out the kinks with the mass influx of users) it could move from a trickle to an avalanche. The upside is that MS has the reserves and fallbacks to get their shit together if they realized that they are faced with a bad sitation and those that can't leave will get better products.
- binary132 1y ago
  I think they already know and have been trying not to lose to Apple for a long time, as evidenced by their awkward attempts to embrace “good design” and “cool”.
Arch-TK 1y ago
I don't think Linux will ever fully take over gaming regardless of effort unless competitive multiplayer game companies decide to give up on assuming total control over your system in order to make cheaters undetectable to the average gamer*. It would require that a Linux based OS was released which allows games companies, in a standardised way, to take full control over the system. And at this point, it won't be a Linux distro, it will instead just be like Android. I think calling that a market takeover would be similarly thin and insignificant as calling android a "Linux takeover of the mobile OS market". But this isn't to say that Microsoft won't lose the market share to "Gamedroid" or whatever, it just won't be losing it to Linux. * As has been demonstrated, KLA and similar technologies do help make cheating more difficult and require more resources. But, as the cheating industry's pocketbooks make clear, cheating hasn't stopped, it has just become more discreet such that most players simply don't notice when they're losing to cheaters.
- dijit 1y ago
  I work in gamedev. A kernel module is easier to make on Linux than on Windows. The only person who would say otherwise has clearly never written anything on that level on Windows. It's not just uneasy: it's Sisyphean. The code-signing signature you need alone is an order of magnitude more difficult to obtain than the development burden of an appropriately defensive kernel module. We gamedevs don't even need "full control", just a moderate amount of checking for tampering of our application memory and a scan of the proclist and device tree. It's like, not much. The reason it's in the kernel is because we need to get "under" the cheat engines so that the OS doesn't lie to us, linux doesn't make that aspect harder or easier, just different. Easyanticheat already supports Linux if you enable it in your Epic developer settings. The limitation here is that developers know that gamers are mostly running windows so the support burden isn't worth it. For now.
  - Arch-TK 1y ago
    > A kernel module is easier to make on Linux than on Windows. That's cool, but you can't enforce that the rest of the kernel hasn't been modified with that kernel module. You need a chain of trust. > We gamedevs don't even need "full control", just a moderate amount of checking for tampering of our application memory and a scan of the proclist and device tree. It's like, not much. The reason it's in the kernel is because we need to get "under" the cheat engines so that the OS doesn't lie to us, linux doesn't make that aspect harder or easier, just different. Windows requires drivers to be signed. Just because you wrote a Linux kernel driver, doesn't mean that when I run it, that you can trust it in any way. > Easyanticheat already supports Linux if you enable it in your Epic developer settings. The limitation here is that developers know that gamers are mostly running windows so the support burden isn't worth it. It doesn't support it with KLA. Bypassing this kind of anti-cheat on Linux is relatively trivial compared to windows with KLA.
    - hulitu 1y ago
      > Windows requires drivers to be signed. Just because you wrote a Linux kernel driver, doesn't mean that when I run it, that you can trust it in any way. There is a lot of signed malware for Windows.
pjmlp 1y ago
Only on markets where folks can afford Apple margins. As for Linux, I keep waiting for the return of netbooks wave, in something that isn't a constrained Chromebook or Android tablet with keyboard. Ordinary people buy what they can see on the local PC stores, not buy over Internet, importing System 76 and similar.
- dijit 1y ago
  Ordinary folks are going more and more chromebooks these days, those are the "low cost laptops" that are on the shelves at your local bestbuy/curry's/elgiganten etc; For everything more than that: the Macbook Air is equivalent or cheaper. People seem to continue the lie that Apple hardware is more expensive, yet I just closed a deal on a business thinkpad (T14s Gen6) which was double the price and 2/3rds as performant, because we're a Windows shop and we don't buy Apple. Forgive my annoyance here but someone told me that "at least we don't buy expensive Macs" after we signed the invoice and it really got under my skin because it's legitimately half the price for more power. Completely blinded by ignorance. Upgrades might be expensive, sure, but anything of any quality has always been like-for-like with Apple being cheaper on the low-spec end. The consumer grade market where Windows used to dominate is having their lunch totally stolen by Chromebooks and Android Tablets. (More-so by Tablets I would argue).
  - jamespo 1y ago
    I bought a Lenovo AMD laptop a year or two back with 32GB RAM & 1TB HDD for around £650. The upgrade cost alone for that RAM/storage is £600 for a macbook air.
    - dijit 1y ago
      which one and where? my thinkpad was around 20,000 Swedish krona
      - jamespo 1y ago
        It was a Yoga Slim 7 Pro X 14 direct from lenovo. About 18 months ago. Not quite ThinkPad level, but the keyboard, pad, screen etc are very good and it runs Linux well.
lotsofpulp 1y ago
Microsoft’s value is Excel+ Azure. And as long as they can sell Excel, they can sell a bunch of the other stuff at a cost so low that leaders have trouble saying no to janky Teams and other software. The question is what can obviate Excel.
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
"first signs" for sure; I think / suspect the next big step for Valve would be to release a desktop gaming system. If it has a browser and "native" Discord it has the potential to take a chunk off the PC gaming market.
- Gigachad 1y ago
  Yeah imo the average person will never install an OS, they will only use the one that comes on a device. So for Linux to go mainstream it has to come preinstalled. And the Steam Deck is clearly that. I’d happily recommend the deck to normal non tech users. It’s just that good. One of the things I think they did exceptionally well is using a read only image based OS, meaning the system is always in a known state, and if an update ever breaks something, the bootloader shows the previous working images letting you boot back in to those and wait for the broken update to be yanked and replaced. You never need the user to reinstall after a broken OS.
ponector 1y ago
Luckily for Microsoft, quality of Apple's software is deteriorating as well. No one is using products from Microsoft due to their quality.

whizzter 1y ago

More than anything, once people realize that they can be fine without MS because 5-10% of the non-Apple market has done so (and the alternatives has figured out the kinks with the mass influx of users) it could move from a trickle to an avalanche. The upside is that MS has the reserves and fallbacks to get their shit together if they realized that they are faced with a bad sitation and those that can't leave will get better products.

binary132 1y ago
I think they already know and have been trying not to lose to Apple for a long time, as evidenced by their awkward attempts to embrace “good design” and “cool”.

Arch-TK 1y ago

I don't think Linux will ever fully take over gaming regardless of effort unless competitive multiplayer game companies decide to give up on assuming total control over your system in order to make cheaters undetectable to the average gamer*. It would require that a Linux based OS was released which allows games companies, in a standardised way, to take full control over the system. And at this point, it won't be a Linux distro, it will instead just be like Android. I think calling that a market takeover would be similarly thin and insignificant as calling android a "Linux takeover of the mobile OS market". But this isn't to say that Microsoft won't lose the market share to "Gamedroid" or whatever, it just won't be losing it to Linux. * As has been demonstrated, KLA and similar technologies do help make cheating more difficult and require more resources. But, as the cheating industry's pocketbooks make clear, cheating hasn't stopped, it has just become more discreet such that most players simply don't notice when they're losing to cheaters.

dijit 1y ago
I work in gamedev. A kernel module is easier to make on Linux than on Windows. The only person who would say otherwise has clearly never written anything on that level on Windows. It's not just uneasy: it's Sisyphean. The code-signing signature you need alone is an order of magnitude more difficult to obtain than the development burden of an appropriately defensive kernel module. We gamedevs don't even need "full control", just a moderate amount of checking for tampering of our application memory and a scan of the proclist and device tree. It's like, not much. The reason it's in the kernel is because we need to get "under" the cheat engines so that the OS doesn't lie to us, linux doesn't make that aspect harder or easier, just different. Easyanticheat already supports Linux if you enable it in your Epic developer settings. The limitation here is that developers know that gamers are mostly running windows so the support burden isn't worth it. For now.
- Arch-TK 1y ago
  > A kernel module is easier to make on Linux than on Windows. That's cool, but you can't enforce that the rest of the kernel hasn't been modified with that kernel module. You need a chain of trust. > We gamedevs don't even need "full control", just a moderate amount of checking for tampering of our application memory and a scan of the proclist and device tree. It's like, not much. The reason it's in the kernel is because we need to get "under" the cheat engines so that the OS doesn't lie to us, linux doesn't make that aspect harder or easier, just different. Windows requires drivers to be signed. Just because you wrote a Linux kernel driver, doesn't mean that when I run it, that you can trust it in any way. > Easyanticheat already supports Linux if you enable it in your Epic developer settings. The limitation here is that developers know that gamers are mostly running windows so the support burden isn't worth it. It doesn't support it with KLA. Bypassing this kind of anti-cheat on Linux is relatively trivial compared to windows with KLA.
  - hulitu 1y ago
    > Windows requires drivers to be signed. Just because you wrote a Linux kernel driver, doesn't mean that when I run it, that you can trust it in any way. There is a lot of signed malware for Windows.

pjmlp 1y ago

Only on markets where folks can afford Apple margins. As for Linux, I keep waiting for the return of netbooks wave, in something that isn't a constrained Chromebook or Android tablet with keyboard. Ordinary people buy what they can see on the local PC stores, not buy over Internet, importing System 76 and similar.

dijit 1y ago
Ordinary folks are going more and more chromebooks these days, those are the "low cost laptops" that are on the shelves at your local bestbuy/curry's/elgiganten etc; For everything more than that: the Macbook Air is equivalent or cheaper. People seem to continue the lie that Apple hardware is more expensive, yet I just closed a deal on a business thinkpad (T14s Gen6) which was double the price and 2/3rds as performant, because we're a Windows shop and we don't buy Apple. Forgive my annoyance here but someone told me that "at least we don't buy expensive Macs" after we signed the invoice and it really got under my skin because it's legitimately half the price for more power. Completely blinded by ignorance. Upgrades might be expensive, sure, but anything of any quality has always been like-for-like with Apple being cheaper on the low-spec end. The consumer grade market where Windows used to dominate is having their lunch totally stolen by Chromebooks and Android Tablets. (More-so by Tablets I would argue).
- jamespo 1y ago
  I bought a Lenovo AMD laptop a year or two back with 32GB RAM & 1TB HDD for around £650. The upgrade cost alone for that RAM/storage is £600 for a macbook air.
  - dijit 1y ago
    which one and where? my thinkpad was around 20,000 Swedish krona
    - jamespo 1y ago
      It was a Yoga Slim 7 Pro X 14 direct from lenovo. About 18 months ago. Not quite ThinkPad level, but the keyboard, pad, screen etc are very good and it runs Linux well.

lotsofpulp 1y ago

Microsoft’s value is Excel+ Azure. And as long as they can sell Excel, they can sell a bunch of the other stuff at a cost so low that leaders have trouble saying no to janky Teams and other software. The question is what can obviate Excel.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

"first signs" for sure; I think / suspect the next big step for Valve would be to release a desktop gaming system. If it has a browser and "native" Discord it has the potential to take a chunk off the PC gaming market.

Gigachad 1y ago
Yeah imo the average person will never install an OS, they will only use the one that comes on a device. So for Linux to go mainstream it has to come preinstalled. And the Steam Deck is clearly that. I’d happily recommend the deck to normal non tech users. It’s just that good. One of the things I think they did exceptionally well is using a read only image based OS, meaning the system is always in a known state, and if an update ever breaks something, the bootloader shows the previous working images letting you boot back in to those and wait for the broken update to be yanked and replaced. You never need the user to reinstall after a broken OS.

ponector 1y ago

Luckily for Microsoft, quality of Apple's software is deteriorating as well. No one is using products from Microsoft due to their quality.