Windows 8 ... 2% market share, a failure

 

Not sure I agree there. W8 has only been around for a very short space of time. That 2% will grow dramatically over the next year or so as more and more consumer PCs ship with it.

 

The other stuff you listed... well let's just say they are not Microsoft's core products...

 

Consider that Apple are also struggling to innovate at the moment so if Microsoft are having problems Apple is probably having even bigger ones with the iPhone losing ground to the Galaxy.

 

As for Steam... I'll be watching closely. If the much speculated "Steambox" ever hits the shelves then Valve will have the gaming market by the balls and the lack of competition will not be good for the consumer.

When I was dealing with hundreds of companies and authorities installing their first networks, it was MS all the way. Let's not forget MDOS, and NOVEL. Anyway, you've got to be in it to win it, some things are not as successful as others, that's life. But windows, Office, Backoffice, and FSX all seem quite successful.

OP robains talked a little about understanding the difference between real physics and "game physics", in other words how far need go to offer a simulation like experience just for games compared to engineering. I think the two are moving together and someone can utilise a core library for building a more diverse set of products, including games. To get good game dynamics real physics calculations are employed as games become more realistic. I can't see why MS don't get on with coding the holo-deck now and wait for hard light force fields to come along soon. We're not as far down that road as I'd hoped to be since I wrote Hover Wars for the UK101 30 odd years ago. A two player first person shooter with split screen and projectiles. I was just upgrading it to co-op against bots when the owner needed his computer back.

 

I can't see why MS don't get on with coding the holo-deck now and wait for hard light force fields to come along soon.

 

It would be nice to see that, but it's unlikely to ever come from Microsoft.  I think the biggest flaw with Microsoft is that if they can't "see" (insight) on how something will make them money on it's own merits rather than a leverage sell.

 

Win8 exists as a leverage tool to get existing Microsoft desktop customers (still 80% market share) into buying Surface and Win Phone devices which "Would" get Microsoft in the "Mobile" game.  Ballmer probably thought Win8 is a smart way to move his desktop customer base over to mobile.  But people don't spend money when they don't need to spend money ... something Ballmer should have understood from the beginning as it's what made Microsoft the dominant PC platform.  This isn't a "new" business strategy, it's what made the Model T a huge success ... a car for the masses.  

 

Problem is, Microsoft doesn't really have any hardware ... all they have is software (other than XBOX).  And in today's world trying to "Sell" an OS for anything more than $30 to free is difficult ... what's the added value?  Same with "free" office like applications that for the most part get the job done, so why spend the money on Microsoft Office?  Ballmer should have seen this coming a LONG time ago and understood that Microsoft needed to diversify into other areas.

 

Apple's OSX has always been cheap for many years now $29.  iOS is free ... why, because it's bound to hardware, and that's where the money is.  Microsoft have no hardware other than XBOX (which took many years sold below cost) just to start to make a profit.

 

The "mobile" madness will eventually reach saturation ... I dare suggestion it might actually be getting close to saturation.  Don't use "world population" as a basis for a saturation point ... that would be a false guide.  I know many friends that jumped in early to the mobile madness and now they have started to back away from it and use the technology far far less ... it's an inevitable human condition.   

 

Now that doesn't mean the mobile segment will collapse, it just means the history of the human condition will start to take over and mobile computing will reach saturation and growth will fall in line with a more "normal" pattern.

 

There are so many other long term money streams that Microsoft could have explored, but never did ... they just couldn't see past the "make money by leverage" process and now all they can seem to do is play the game of "catch-up" and try to use existing customer base to achieve their goals.  Whether I or other's believe Win8 has merit is of no importance ... the adoption numbers tell the story (ignore sales numbers as there are lots and lots of OEM shelves stuffed with Win8 computers they can't sell), and they are much worse than Vista over the same time period.  

 

And predictably what do Microsoft do?  Rush out and make Win9 RTM schedule for this June and try to make it sound like "we listened and the consumers decided what went into Win9" ... in other words, the EXACT same strategy they did after the Vista flop and came out with Win7 (however it took them a little longer to come out with Win7).  Win7 wasn't a great success, it only just recently passed up WinXP in terms of adoption.  However, repeating the same Vista to Win7 process for Win8 to Win9 will fail miserably because Microsoft aren't understanding the dynamics of now vs. then.

 

Steve's point about real physics is a good ... why hasn't Microsoft implemented API's (similar to DirectX) to come up with accelerated real time physics?  They've had to leave it up to nVidia to try to pioneer their PhysX acceleration.  Again, another example of Microsoft's lack of innovation.  Like I've suggested, why didn't Microsoft innovate an OS where components can be replaced (Motherboard for example) without requiring a complete wipe/re-install of their OS -- they have the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) but that got hacked up.  These are just some examples of many that never got done.

 

Part of me feels sorry for Microsoft, they've really corner themselves (from their own doing) between a rock and a hard place.  I can't predict how they are going to get out of the mess they created, but I do know that "stay the course" isn't going to work for them.

 

And yet microsoft could not see any value in the codebase, still par for the course for a company that missed out on the start of the internet by five years at least.

 

Lockheed Martin has extensive experience on knowledge of the defence market and its training needs. Why should Microsoft commit millions (if not billions) of dollars in an attempt to compete with no guarantee of success. It would be as fioolish as Lockheed Martin going head-to-head with Microsoft in the Windows market.

 

 

 

It would be nice to see that, but it's unlikely to ever come from Microsoft.  I think the biggest flaw with Microsoft is that if they can't "see" (insight) on how something will make them money on it's own merits rather than a leverage sell.

 

Check out Microsoft's Illumiroom R&D project. Looks like the first step towards a holodeck to me.

 

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/illumiroom/default.aspx

 

Microsoft has plenty of cool R&D projects. The problem is that they don't always make it any further due to internel political issues (not invented here seems to be a major one).

 

Like I've suggested, why didn't Microsoft innovate an OS where components can be replaced (Motherboard for example) without requiring a complete wipe/re-install of their OS -- they have the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) but that got hacked up.  These are just some examples of many that never got done.

 

You can do this already. I just did it with two computers in the past month, and have it done a couple more times in the past. Including one AMD to Intel upgrade. They could make it more seamless though.

 

http://scottiestech.info/2010/03/17/upgrade-your-motherboard-without-reinstalling-your-os/

 

Always a good idea to backup before doing this though!

 

I agree 100%!

...just nipping back to the problems of change and Windows 8. Perhaps a more convenient way to get at the settings would be handy?

 

In Win 8 right click on the desktop and choose New, and Folder.

 

Paste over the folder name (copy between quotes) with this:

"Windows Settings.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

The future?

 

Going forward, IDC expects that tablet shipments will surpass desktop PCs in 2013 and portable PCs in 2014. In 2013, worldwide desktop PC shipments are expected to drop by 4.3% and portable PCs to maintain a flat growth of 0.9%. The tablet market, on the other hand, is expected to reach a new high of 190 million shipment units with year-on-year growth of 48.7% while the smartphone market is expected to grow 27.2% to 918.5 million units.

 

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24037713#.UVQWT1LDW4K

True. For years, Desktops and Laptops have been supplied to folk that don't really need it, I suppose they'll now be getting tablets.

And maybe Win 8 RT is the future - not Win 8?

Things are certainly complicated by RT, and it's in a market that never really existed before. Many organisations have developed scratchware over the years that's vital to their businesses. I might pick up a tablet to read news, but I'm doing my year end on a PC. If RT is the future, it's a long way off.

And maybe Win 8 RT is the future - not Win 8?

That will probably depend a lot on how well Intel can improve the power usage of their CPUs. In terms of performance, x86 CPUs still perform better than ARM models and run Windows 8 better. Intel has come a very long way, and has a lot of resources behind devoted to going much further.Another advantage is that the x86 based Windows 8 tablets can run traditional Windows desktop applications. The article below is a good review of the Surface Pro tablets.http://www.anandtech.com/show/6695/microsoft-surface-pro-review

Some of the IDC data is also just not complete. For example PC shipments/sales ... in China they still ship PCs with Windows 7 and those sales numbers are on the increase, not decline. Only PC's that come with Win8 are on the decline. Also, looking at NewEgg's data, they indicated component sales are doing VERY WELL (increase), however their Win8 PCs are not selling well.

 

Microsoft keep spouting about the decline of the PC market, when in fact the PC market is very healthy and doing just fine.

 

IDC doesn't report on custom PC builds, they also don't report on system upgrades ... they seem to think that PC sales can only come from a complete New PC. That's a false representation of "the market" and the numbers are very skewed ... if Microsoft were "keying" off IDC data then it's no wonder they're going down the wrong path.

 

But again, Ballmer should have the smarts to figure this out ... one of the BIG selling points of PC's is the ability to upgrade components and not have to start from scratch ... salvage those hard drives and video card and just get a new motherboard/cpu and RAM -- $500 saved. This IS why the PC is what it is today. Does IDC report on this, no they don't because it's too difficult for them to do so ... but they will need to figure out something because IDC made the same mistake with downloaded/online sales of gaming software when they never took into account that source and only looked at retail sales (boxes sales). I can't remember the last time I bought something that was in a box from a retail store??

 

IDC charge for their services, if Microsoft are indeed using IDC then that might explain their skewed perception of the PC market decline.

 

As far as I can tell, the only aspect of Microsoft's business that is keeping them alive is their enterprise division SQL server, Windows server, Exchange servers, etc. ... their changes in licensing for those products have netted them a huge revenue increase. But how long can the enterprise division sustain the rest of the company?

 

Rob

Where's your evidence to show that sales of PCs with Windows 7  are on the increase and that only PC's that come with Win8 are on the decline?

The total number of custom PC builds and system upgrades are trivial in relation to the totals and lost in the noise.

 

What evidence do you have to show that IDC's figures are skewed in favour of Microsoft?