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InfoWorld's Crystal Ball Predicts the Future of Microsoft
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Dec 29, 2008 11:01 AM
from the don't-drop-it dept.
from the don't-drop-it dept.
museumpeace writes "InfoWorld executive editor Galen Gruman has brainstormed five different scenarios for Microsoft in the coming decade and solicits the reader's vote on which is more likely. Does it tank? Does it go open source? Does it out-Google Google? Does Ballmer really fill Gates' shoes?"
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more importantly: (Score:5, Funny)
does it blend?
Re:more importantly: (Score:5, Insightful)
Haha. You are truly Captain Wishful Thinking. You people that think if you come on a board with a bunch of like minded "thinkers" and say something, that makes it true. "Microsoft is irrelevant!" "See how I've made my hatred known by saying something nonsensical and dismissive of an entity I hate!?". You just did the equivelent of a 13 year old girl's "wha-EVA!"
If you hate MS that much, a better tact would be to not underestimate the enemy in your little nerd battle. They're not irrelevant, to say they are is laughable and shows how provincial and limited your experience in the computing industry is.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:more importantly: (Score:4, Informative)
actually that is where you are wrong. For every million dollars ms spends on R&D they get something like $100 back.
And do you have any numbers actually supporting this?
Nearly every other division of MSFT is losing money with the exception of windows and office
You know, it may help to look things up before posting: it's so easy to Google for "Microsoft financial report", and it would really make you sound less stupid. Have a look here [microsoft.com]. MSFT has 5 divisions; 3 are big money makers (Client, makers of Windows, Business - owners of Office, and Server and Tools, mainly selling SQL Server), Entertainment and devices (mostly known around here for the XBox), made less money (only 178 millions in the 3 month ending Sept 30), but was still in the black, and only one division, Online Services, actually lost money (no surprise there).
If you marginalize either one of those products MSFt goes bankrupt in less than 10years.
You're so wrong it's not even funny. Look at the numbers again; in the 3 months ending September 30, the consolidated income for MSFT was $5999 million. The biggest earner was the Business division, with an operating income of $3311 million. Even if you completely remove all revenue from Office while still keeping all the related expenses (research, development, sales and so on), MSFT still ends up with an income of more than 2 billion in the three months, or 8+ billion anually. You're so far removed from reality I have to ask: doesn't it hurt to pull so much weird stuff from your nether regions?
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Re:more importantly: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Nobody buys MS that doesn't want to"? Say that to about every user that's had a problem with something with MS.
Meanwhile, just because they're the biggest company doesn't mean they're relevant. It just means they WERE relevant. Past tense.
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Re:more importantly: (Score:5, Insightful)
If it got to the point were someone didn't want MS anymore, they go find something else. Simple as that.
Many companies have invested millions of dollars in Microsoft software as a core part of their computing infrastructure. That's not something that can be replaced quickly, easily, or cheaply.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It sounds like some sort of perverted technoecosystem that might be interesting
Re:more importantly: (Score:4, Insightful)
As you say, my daughter's Ubuntu machine plays perfectly nicely with my Gentoo infrastructure, and my son's WinXP machine does too, for that matter. I'll presume that my daughter's boyfriend's Mac will plug into my network and run just fine, whenever that becomes necessary.
It all runs on standards - real, open, cross-platform, public standards.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
see response below, people are locked in right now and have to make significant investments to get out. My workplace is a multibillion dollar company and they hate using MS products due to unnecessary fees but recognize it's even more expensive just to make the transition and so have been doing so little by little.
Nobody said Linux is perfect. However, at this stage both apple and windows are worse for many corporate needs among other things (for non-graphic design related where mac and linux are equal).
Oh,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Something that prompts the user to move to a different OS (or effectively, a different computer) is on the same order of magnitude as something that prompts someone to move to another country. "No one is forcing anyone to stay in the U.S. They can leave at any time." It's not about whether or not someone is free to leave. It is about whether someone has any place they feel comfortable leaving TO. Mac OS is getting more users this way and Linux is gaining ground. Things ARE changing. But so too is com
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a ridiculous statement. I have bought and wiped clean close to a hundred MS pre-installations because getting either another os or applying for a refund was more expensive.
Re:more importantly: (Score:4, Funny)
Some people even believe apples are things you eat!
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Magic 8 Ball had this... (Score:5, Funny)
Does Ballmer really fill Gate's shoes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you ask?
Re: Does Ballmer really fill Gate's shoes? (Score:4, Funny)
*Looks at Ballmer and Gates*
I will near complain about not having options again.
*shudders*
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Can Ballmer fit Gate's shoes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Does Ballmer really fill Gate's shoes? (Score:4, Funny)
His hands fit rather well on the legs of that chair though... *ducks*
I wonder where you'll end up when you duck while Ballmer is bending over a chair. I don't like the outlook to be clear. But word is he excels when it comes to chairs.
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Re: Does Ballmer really fill Gate's shoes? (Score:4, Funny)
I have heard a rumor that Microsoft is going to replace Windows with a new operating system code named Chair. I have not heard much in the ways of details, except that the new os has legs.
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I can say with confidence (Score:4, Funny)
Given the state of things (Score:4, Funny)
Bollocks (Score:4, Insightful)
What a bundle of bollocks. I've read better in /. comments.
My vote? None of these. They're all in the "dumb and dumber" category.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you click through to the descriptions of each? Two of them actually make some sort of sense. (The rest don't.) I can see MS going into a slow decline, or surviving without adapting much. Of course, that assumes that Windows 7 doesn't suck anywhere near as much Vista when it comes out - if it does suck, Microsoft might as well find themselves a black hole to go jump in, because Linux is becoming a viable alternative even for Joe Six-pack.
On another note, every time I see the phrase "cloud computing" I
Re:Bollocks (Score:4, Insightful)
Linux is becoming viable for people who just want to surf the web or write term papers. Microsoft is sufficiently entrenched in the enterprise and SMB market, and will continue to do just fine. Linux might be good enough for stand alone home desktops, but it lacks polished tools to ease enterprise deployment. I understand that they are there, but they aren't mature. Linux needs a Group Policy equivalent that is as polished and easy to use as Group Policy. Linux needs an Exchange server equivalent that integrates with an LDAP directory. Once those two are up and running, then maybe people can start talking about Microsoft coming tumbling down.
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Re:Bollocks (Score:4, Interesting)
I think another aspect is just what others were originally talking about too. People have always maintained that Linux makes a hell of a SERVER OS for enterprise. The bottom line is that Linux is stable, cheap, and has an abundance of free and high quality server products that get all sorts of things done well. When you combine that with the fact that users in general don't care (and can't even tell) what software is running on a server they're getting stuff from, then you have a win-win scenario in favor of Linux there.
The GGP though, when referring to Linux in the enterprise, seemed to be referring to Linux on enterprise DESKTOPS. Big difference there. While my organization uses Linux and FreeBSD pretty heavily in the server room, it's still all Windows on the desktop. Big reasons for that include a whole mess of propriety Windows-only software programs for which there are no open source alternatives (if you can find an open source Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal system, Building Permit/Planning system, or Veterans Benefits processing software, please let me know).
I think in that scenario (business desktops), there is a point to be made. There is a lot of REALLY obscure software out there for Windows that just doesn't exist for other platforms. Not to mention that from a job security standpoint, an IT Department sticking with Office rather than OO.o is a smart move. If office has a problem, then everyone blames MS. If OO.o has a problem, they're going to blame you for not using Office. Home users generally don't use the obscure programs and don't care as much about their productivity suite.
Overall though, Linux is still making headway. Once upon a time it was at best a server OS to all but the dedicated hobbyists. Now it's a server OS and rapidly becoming a valid consumer desktop OS. Not a bad combo, even if enterprise desktop still isn't conquered yet. Mac OS X hasn't really captured that market either. Still though, it's acceptance as a viable home desktop means more interest, more developers, etc. An increase in both of those can only bode well for the possibility of more enterprise class desktop apps for Linux (or just written in cross platform manners - I used to be very opposed to that idea after some sour experience with Java's AWT and Swing, but lately I've been seeing some REALLY good cross platform programs written in Python and the like that are quickly changing my mind).
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6. The "same procedure as every year" scenario. (Score:5, Insightful)
MS will continue to force OEM installations on the market, non-it companies will still be afraid of FOSS and MS lobbyists will still do their part on locking down IT departments in public sectors. (In even some of the most "socialist" countries Windows is still used on 99% of desktop PCs in public (school, administration) services, where no special software is needed.
Cloud computing, Web 3.0, "web-bases OSes (!)" and whatnot buzzwords won't change that.
What we could hope for is that the Recession will create focus on cost linked to software licenses, and more focus on saving old hardware. (With software needing updating.)
The greatest thing that could happen is that MS invented some 100% waterproof way of securing Windows against piracy (of Windows itself). Ofcourse, *if* that would happen, they'd just drop the prices substansually in 3rd world contries to regain the lost marked share. (Just look at the netbook rebate. They had to loose half the market shares before slashing prices)
What "cloud?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember "grid computing"? Remember "application service providers"? Remember how that was supposed to change everything? Right.
The current appeal of "cloud computing" is that some companies are willing to give it away to get market share. That won't last. Google is cutting back on their freebies. The day is probably coming when "Google Apps" won't be free. Gmail is already a paid service for businesses. Google runs those services mostly to cost Microsoft money.
As a business, "cloud computing" looks a lot like shared web hosting. The price competition is fierce and the service levels aren't very good.
A few niche applications have been outsourced well, like "Salesforce.com". In fact, that's the leading commercial outsourced application. But Salesforce doesn't compete with Microsoft.
None of this looks like a real threat to Microsoft.
This is all FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Desktop Operating Systems: Granted, Microsoft's cash cow of Desktop operating systems better evolve. I don't agree with the statement on Office 12 which is much better than previous versions. The same can't be said of Windows Vista or Windows 7. They better start working on IE 9 which should be open source and standards compatible for starters. The future of desktop OS is the browser and technologies like gears, silverlight and AIR.
2. Server OS: Microsoft will probably retain the 50-50 ratio on the server side and Server 2008 is excellent with AD. However, it may have to think long and hard about Hyper-V because virtualization is going to be the future on the server OS side.
2. Gaming: With the XBOX division, they will be making their $$ of Xbox live and not by selling the console. Xbox live is very stable and provides an excellent online gaming experience. Sony's victory of Blue Ray won't be longer because for movies and all, its going to turn to a streaming model. So MS better start putting TB drives in there or make them generic for the users to swap them out.
3. Application Dev: Eclipse is a good alterative but MS Visual Studio is one of the best IDE's out there. It is not going to die anytime soon.
4. R&D: Microsoft's labs may not match Google currently but they are coming out with some cool stuff. Photosynth comes to mind. With their "surface" technology evolving it will be interesting.http://livelabs.com/projects/ [livelabs.com]
Re:This is all FUD (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, MS is now finally making profit with Xbox. However, the project has cost the company $6 billion in losses over
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The future of desktop OS is the browser and technologies like gears, silverlight and AIR.
God I hope not. Gears might be fine, but I really hope that people don't fall into letting Internet apps be held hostage by Microsoft and Adobe.
Microsoft will probably retain the 50-50 ratio on the server side and Server 2008 is excellent with AD.
I don't know how well Microsoft will retain the server-end. To me, a lot of it comes down to Exchange. If you want to use Exchange, you have to have an Exchange server and you pretty well have to run a Windows domain at that point, so you may as well let Windows dominate your network. On the other hand, if OSX and Linux come out with decent competitors to Exchan
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize that this is a engineering website for computer scientists right? Don't you have an Xbox you should be playing with?
Microsoft will NOT tank (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still got 10 to 15 years of lingering life in it before it falls.
Re:Microsoft will NOT tank (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
see how long SCO stuck around far after they were no longer relevant.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When you are that large, you need to be everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
The article accuses Microsoft of going in too many different directions at once, but when there are so many possible outcomes, how can they not. Microsoft can't affort to miss out on the next big thing, whatever it may be, so they play in every market.
Microsoft was already late to the internet (Netscape), virtualization (VMWare), Business Apps (SAP), internet search (lots of companies), and then improved search + ads (Google), Virtual Meetings (WebEx), next gen programming (Java/Eclipse), media players (IPod), video game systems (PlayStation/Nintendo), phones (IPhone)... and they can't afford to miss the next big thing. Sure, in some of these industries they were in the market, but maybe their product was inferior and it didn't take off (Zune, early revs of Windows Mobile).
So they must maintain a market presence in business apps, touch computing, mobile computing, cloud computing, game systems, video streaming, health care... just in case that is the next big thing.
What most Microsoft bashing tends to miss is that being in the market isn't enough.
Sometimes first to market is enough (Playstation 2 vs Xbox). Othertimes it is tie-ins with 3rd parties (IPod with the ITunes library). Sometimes it is price driven (Linux) and sometimes the quality of the product matters most (IPhone). I never see anyone do a full review Microsoft except as a list of bullet points for the markets that they play in.
Only the "slow decline" option seems plausible... (Score:5, Interesting)
But "slow" is *really* slow. Like... Give them 20 more years, and they may have "declined" to the size that IBM is now.
Most of these scenarios take the "cloud" for granted. Since the death of mainframes, businesses have been reluctant to adopt hosted apps, even when they are hosted in the company's own datacenters. The number of highly successful cloud app deployments for business will be countable on one hand. A single major outage will derail the cloud computing train for another 10 years or so and history will repeat itself for the 5th (6th?) time... Any scenario that predicts Microsoft's downfall based on the failure to adapt to cloud computing is flawed. #1 & #5. Same with the scenarios that predict Microsoft success based on the cloud. #3 & #4...
In the sort term, I see Microsoft having a huge hit on their hands with Windows 7. CIOs everywhere will pat themselves on the back for saving so much money by skipping a generation, and the software itself will be improved thanks to the massive open beta that was Vista. The new version of Office (running locally) will also be a hit. Internet Explorer will continue to lose marketshare, but Silverlight adoption will increase. That covers the next 4 years. Anybody who claims to have a credible idea of what's going to happen after that is simply guessing.
Re:Only the "slow decline" option seems plausible. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is not even mentioning the stuff they make that people actually like. Visual Studio +
MS is at considerable risk of losing its status as de facto standard, and of suffering significant erosion of its margins, and I hope both things happen; but the notion that it will actually die is implausible at best. Companies with far weaker products have held on for ages on legacy deployments alone.
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Wang Labs as example (Score:4, Insightful)
I've always felt Microsoft is likely doomed to follow Wang Labs [wikipedia.org] decline from huge success to irrelevancy. The only real question is the timeline.
Wang, like Microsoft, dominated for a long time with proprietary OS and software, generating gobs of money and being a huge company. Then one day it seemed like the world just walked by them and they stopped selling new stuff and just sort of faded away.
Microsoft's decline will could be more complex, largely due to the Xbox and Windows Mobile markets with their own cycles, but Microsoft seems stuck in their tell-the-market-what-it-wants mindset instead of adapting to changes.
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Most laughs - door number five (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd have to opt for the Borvell scenario (Score:5, Interesting)
Although not for all the reasons they listed under that scenario. I was there when the pronouncements of the paperless office doomed every word processor to the scrap heap of history, only to see the amount of paper actually expand. But now offices really are using less paper and I believe the need for heavy duty word processing, particularly one for every workstation, will...no, is diminishing. That chops at one of Microsoft's major profit centers and, even if you disagree about the future of paper, it's still a declining industry segment any way you shred it. The need is diminishing, the alternatives are getting better and more abundant.
The internet appliance trend will continue to eat away at OS market share. On less expensive hardware the cost of Windows becomes a larger percentage of the cost of a new machine. Unless the user has a need that justifies the cost, if users have a choice they will, at least some of the time, choose the alternative. The desktop market isn't growing as fast as the appliance market and more functional and more powerful appliance devices, like Netbooks (oh, no, we're gonna get sued!) are going to continue undermining the sales of higher end laptops and at least a few desktop sales. Mobile devices, smart phones all take their razor nick of blood out of the beast.
I don't see MS disappearing for a long time but I do see them diminishing over time. And I also believe there will be an "Enron" moment when it becomes apparent that earnings have been sliding for a long time.
Good/Bad for Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft has some good and bad things going for them.
Good stuff includes a large bank account, established market share, some measure of trust in some organizations (yes, heavily qualified but true), some interesting technology on the horizon.
The things going against them are formidable though:
1) They are the market leader; or rather, they hold the lion's share of the market. The market leader traditionally bears the brunt of costs to develop new technology. This is not just coding costs, but intangibles like pushing standards that have significant up-front costs and barriers to acceptance. With the heterogenous mobile computing environment, their previous strategy of closed "standards" no longer work.
2) Their traditional cash cows (OS, Office) are becoming commodities. Everyone and their little sister seems to be putting out OSes with enough functionality to be "good enough". Microsoft now has to fight for the niche markets. This is more expensive than appealing to the masses. In contrast, startups can target the niche easily. For MS, it could be death by a thousand cuts as they bleed money going after tiny markets. (Sound eerily like the Republican Party???)
3) Barrier to entry for new markets is getting very expensive. Google has built an infrastructure on search and Internet connectivity. To enter this market is difficult. In fact, many people think that Google is purposely developing throw-away technology knowing that Microsoft is going to jump/react and try to match it.
4) Vista sucks. Their next revision may be a lot better, but Vista missed a critical salvo. Windows is not going to die anytime soon, but the problems with Vista has tarnished an already battered image.
5) Competition is much fiercer.
Predictions schmedictions (Score:3, Insightful)
Making predictions about the future of computing (or about anything else for that matter) is useless. Most likely things will develop in a totally unforeseen way that is not described in the five models. That is why I didn't read the fine article.
PIM environment wins (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft, Apple, and Google battle it out for the new PIM (personal information management) environment which replaces the desktop environment. Microsoft relies on lock in and cloud applications. Apple relies on multimedia integration and mulimedia services. Google relies on the FOSS/OSS community to port applications to their cloud. As the years go by all three give up on lock in. The PIM environments of each company become so commingled, outside of each company branding it with their own look and feel, nobody is able to tell them apart. Consumers buy devices instead of software. The days of "I run windows, osx, linux" end.
The scenarios were from June ... (Score:4, Interesting)
MS is an oil tanker (Score:4, Insightful)
You can switch the engine off and it will continue to move forwards for a long, long time, simply due to its mass and momentum. The same is true for MS. They have a lot of long term contracts with companies that cannot simply cancel them. Companies in turn have long term plans that include licensing plans for MS products.
The IBM case and how big blue "lost touch" with its customers around the early 80s, when they missed the rise of the PC and how mainframes lost their importance, does not really apply either. There is no "PC" that MS would have missed. And the times are quite different. Computers are today in every home (ok, not every, but close). And for the average person, computer means MS operating system. Yes, that was similar with IBM and computers back in the 70s. But when you bought one for your home, you had no option to get a mainframe (unless you were some super rich geek). So you had to get "something else", which was a PC with a MS OS. Today, people get a "computer for their home", so they don't look around for an alternative.
Yes, one of the things MS benefits from is the lazyness of people. And that's why this oil tanker is going to go forwards for a long, long time to come. They'd really have to do something insanely stupid or piss off their users in some really insane way to change this, because nothing could come from the outside that could change that. People are too used to MS systems and they will continue using them because they're used to them. Why learn new tricks when the old ones were already hard to grasp? Unless users are really, really pissed and fed up so they start looking for alternatives, this won't change.
Technology goes the way of fashion (Score:3, Insightful)
We are nearing a point where technology - both hardware and software - are going to reach a plateau. Let me use Microsoft Word as an example. Twenty years ago the software available to do desktop publishing was pretty poor. The interfaces were primitive, there were severe limitations of what could achieved, and the integration of intelligence to aid humans (spell checking, thesaurus, grammar checking, language translation, etc) was non-existent. There was a massive amount of room for improvement, and thus Word was created and has steadily grown in features and capability ever since. Because there was so much improvement to be made in that market, there was room for Word to progress, perhaps ahead of the curve, to set itself apart from similar products. So what is left to be implemented in modern word processors? What groundbreaking feature remains to be invented that can really set one product far above the others? There's not much. GUIs can be tweaked and redesigned. File formats can be updated and made more portable. But the simple fact of the matter is competition, like Open Office, can chug along in development at a leisurely pace, and before anyone realizes it, Open Office is suddenly completely on-par with Microsoft Office.
We're heading towards the same end with operating systems, web browsers, and even hardware. Every now and then something new will come along (multitouch iPod / iPhone comes to mind - Microsoft was idiotic not to encourage that simple and logical progression with the Windows Mobile OEMs) that will set a product far apart. However, eventually we will have, for the most part, equivalency throughout.
So what will dictate what companies or products are popular and which are not? Take a look at the fashion industry. The whole skirt-length, tie-thickness phenomenon will occur in the technology arena. Fads will come and go. Specific products will become popular because of subtle differences between them and competing products that the masses somehow identify as "modern" or "cool". Eventually the recycling process will begin, probably on a 15-20 year cycle, but perhaps even faster in the technology market. Some company will dredge up a GUI or method of doing something that was popular a couple product generations back, and it will make a resurgence for a while. Speech driven interfaces will become popular, then eventually be perceived as stupid and primitive. Gesture driven interfaces will become popular, then people using them will eventually be seen as old-fashioned and out of vogue. Direct interfacing to the human neurological system will become practical and popular, then later will be seen as too unnatural and invasive, leading full circle back to some other method of interfacing.
So I don't think any one company is going to dominate for any duration, because they will not be able to make their product different enough (for better or worse) to make it stand up against the alternatives. This is where open source will really make a huge impact. The odds of a company like Microsoft managing not just to survive, but to dominate these kinds of drastic changes in technology paradigms is very, very unlikely.
This guy lives in Microsoft's Ivory Tower... (Score:4, Informative)
Yet this same company has produced a great server operating system (Windows Server 2008) and sharing server (SharePoint 2007)
SharePoint? A great sharing server?
SharePoint is like someone at Microsoft heard of a Wiki as explained by a Martian, and hired some people from Lotus to implement it. It's inflexible to set up and configure, only works right on Internet Explorer, and is insufferably clumsy to use. It could only be described as "great" by someone who has never touched any software unblessed by Redmond.
my scenereo (Score:4, Funny)
Re:My Crystal Ball Predicts... (Score:5, Funny)
You mean I've only got 12 months to live? 2010 is the real year of the linux desktop as predicted by the Mayan calendar!
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Re:Slow decline it is (Score:5, Insightful)
You are 100% correct, if you completely ignore corporate America using Windows.
Lets take a large corporation as an example and look at the costs you ignored:
Dozens of in house Windows apps, which would either need to be re-written or at least fully tested again in an emulation environment.
Training for the end users for a new OS.
Training for the end users for a new Office suite.
Training for the end users for any critical applications.
A new desktop management software roll-out for IT.
Any server changes for IT.
Training for IT in the new OS/Suite/Apps/Management software/servers.
Time to convert from the old systems to the new ones.
and a few dozen problems that will spring up during the transition.
Now, after the millions spent on the above, you can wait a few years for the ROI in your new MS free environment.
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