Microsoft Is a Dying Consumer Brand 585
Taxman415a noted a CNN story on the dying Microsoft brand where they talk about "The less than stellar performance of, and problems in, nearly every consumer division. It cites StatCounter's data showing IE's market share falling below 50%, and is even smart enough to note that's just one statistic with various problems, though the trend is clear. It also seems that MS doesn't want to compete with Android, so it plans to charge royalty fees to handset makers to discourage them from using it in their products. The conclusion is that MS will just be a commercial, not consumer company."
Ford did drop Microsoft plugs from their ads (Score:0, Interesting)
They used to emphasize that their computer gizmos in their cars were Microsoft powered. It seems now they don't do that. This might be an indication that they weren't getting any traction saying that Microsoft developed their computer gizmos in their cars, so it wasn't worth mentioning in their ads. Of course they could just have another vendor now.
Late to the game? (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has been late to the game in crucial modern technologies like mobile, search, media, gaming and tablets.
Microsoft was doing tablets (since 2002!) and mobile long before Apple kicked out the iPhone and the iPad (yes, I'm aware of the Newton, but it wasn't directly involved in the successes of the recent mobile efforts).
Just because they haven't been doing it right doesn't mean they haven't been doing it.
Re:Really??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't Microsoft dominate the OS marketshare, wasn't Windows 7 a huge hit
Take a poll on people about who is more [insert positive phrase] , Apple, Google, Microsoft and some others and Apple and Google will show up more highly ranked than MS. It is their brand that is tarnished - their desktop OS monopoly is not threatened. Windows version xxx will dominate, no matter how crappy. They got away with XP for 6 years with only fairly minor updates, and it still captured almost all of the market.
Come on CNN atleast don't make link baiting so obvious
Hey, they have to eat! :) To be fair to CNN, Wall Street is eating MSFT alive.
Royalties (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure many phone makers are very happy with the fact that MS charges royalties for Windows Phone 7. This is because MS will be the one defending any IP/patent lawsuits, etc. Why do you think people are suing HTC and other Android phone makers instead of Google? Google probably isn't legally responsible. MS will be, so they are charging a small amount for it.
Re:Maybe Microsoft is different? (Score:5, Interesting)
Their money makers are windows, xbox, office etc.. none of which are mentioned in the article.
Microsoft has an incredibly great balance sheet and is making shitloads of money, and that's good news.
The bad news is that Redmond has developed a nasty habit of releasing incremental improvements and lackluster copies of what the competition is doing.
It's not that what they sell is bad, Windows Seven is actually a very good operating system (and this is said by someone who switched to Ubuntu, but I still see enough Windows Seven to like what I see). The xbox obviously gets great reviews (I'm not a game machine owner, so I can't judge for myself). Windows phones have always had a good reputation as decent phones. Hell, you can have my Microsoft Natural Keyboard when you pry it from my cold, dead, grateful-not-to-have-needed-carpal-tunnel-surgery hands. Microsoft makes some really good stuff.
The problem with Microsoft is that they aren't trying to make brand new stuff any more, and their copies of others' work has become really lackluster. Windows Seven is great, but set Windows 2000 next to Windows Seven and tell me there's 10 years of significant innovation there. Tell me how many revolutions that product has gone through since they dumped the 95/98/ME kernel. No, I'll tell you. Zero. Nada. Zip. It doesn't make Seven BAD, it just makes it BORING.
Where are they in social networking? Where are they on mobile stuff? Search? Bing? Really? Where's my Microsoft Flying Car? Why am I carrying a cell phone at all? Where's my glasses with a heads-up display, eye tracking, and an earpiece built into the wing? What is Microsoft Labs working on? Oh, right, a ribbon interface for Office, a poor clone of Google, and an update to Windows CE. Yawn. Snore.
That's how the market works, if you don't come out with something that makes people go "WOW!" every now and then, you're dying. That doesn't mean bankruptcy is imminent or your shareholders should be concerned about not making a dividend 3 years from now. It just means that you aren't a leader any more, and you need to get off those laurels before they leave a permanent mark on your ass. Because once people start looking to others for new stuff, they'll start drifting away from you on your cash cow products.
Do we still hate Microsoft here on Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Get off my la.. bah. Nap time.
Microsoft just doesn't make my blood boil the way they used to. Sure, I still hate them out of habit, but I'm old and tired now. I feel like a bed-ridden, old and gray, Elmer Fudd who still mumbles that he "could have had that wascilly wabbit', but in reality doesn't really care and just wants you to leave him alone so he can watch Diagnosis Murder.
That fact alone is a bad sign for Microsoft. They just don't matter in the same way they used to and they certainly don't drive Technology the way they did in the past few decades. Their tactics are less of a threat than they used to be. Sure, they'd do evil if they could, but they are just fruit flies at my picnic, and I've got my eyes peeled for bears.
No no no. I plan on stepping aside and enjoying my Golden Years while the next generation shakes their fists at their Apples and Googles and Facebooks.
Re:Really??? (Score:4, Interesting)
I was thinking the same, but look at the video of the interview on the TFA page and look closely at their faces. Balmer seems defeated. His posture is slumped, he mostly says Win Phone is "different," and you can see contempt in the bitchy reporter's face -- when she talks about her experience with Win Phone, when she mentions Bing, when she barks at him telling him "Explain this" and so on. And all the while he only tries to be attentive, smiling, and upbeat. Even the article ridicules him as struggling with the "vision thing."
That's not a sign of a company doing well. But I think it's just a phase, and that they will eventually reposition themselves not as a consumer brand, but as a company that enables you to get things done.
Re:Netcraft confirms it (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows is like the sick old man of Europe.
It may be a zombie but it will probably outlive all of it's contemporary commercial competitors.
Re:Really??? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think 'potential' in the poster's context could be infinite. Such are optimists.
And reality, the potential is near zero, and will remain near zero. Microsoft has lots this, and numerous other values. Hence what Ray Ozzie connoted when he left with an exit memo that ought to shake Wall Street into a regime change in Redmond.
Microsoft's oil well, the Windows Franchise, is losing steam, and steadily. That's the crux of CNN's observation. I agree with them, and the inflection point was Windows Vista, and the denial that open source and Steve Jobs could do it better. Maybe the PC isn't dead, it's just one more device. Microsoft doesn't understand this, and the incestuous products they make, coupled with a not-invented-here mentality means their distant and certain future death if they don't wake up.
Re:Microsoft's problem summed up: (Score:3, Interesting)
> That's where Apple was smart, they created different OS for the hand held devices.
No. They just changed the desktop shell and the application API.
Underneath it's still Darwin and looks very much MacOS or Unix like if you bother to peek under the covers.
It's interesting how much this "myth of PhoneOS uniqueness" gets repeated despite how bogus it really is.
No. This is all down to branding and adversing and propaganda. In truth, Microsoft's phone tech probably shares less with it'd Desktop cousin than Apple's does.
Re:Do we still hate Microsoft here on Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft just doesn't make my blood boil the way they used to.
I don't know about "we," but Microsoft's crass manipulation of the ISO standards process sure pissed me off.
Re:Really??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people are even aware that there are alternatives, which isn't the case with Windows.
Firefox and others can be sold as being easy to understand and FASTER. Performance is the biggest buzzword that there is, it's music to everyone's ears.
With IE6 being the Vista of browsers, a lot of people's eyes were opened. There are still tons of corporate apps that depend on IE6, but as the next things come along, they are going to be a lot more browser independent.
Re:Poor Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Really??? (Score:2, Interesting)
There are certainly more Windows servers in existence than ones running Linux, for example.
Is that because you need 3 different Windows servers (E-mail-, file-, web-) where one Linux server would suffice? ;-)
I don't think it's easy to count the number of Linux servers.
Re:Really??? (Score:3, Interesting)
its not a totaly bad summary though. The problem is twofold:
firstly, we have a stock market that (for all its ills) does collect the predictions of a great many people together and effectively calculates the true worth of a company. All those analysts who are paid to determine who's going to be a winner or a loser in the future really do their best, as they get paid a lot if they get it right. These guys all think Microsoft is going nowhere. I mean, their PE ratio is 12 (ie the share price compared to sales) - against over 40 for ARM for example.
secondly, things can change in an instant. Look at mobile phones, one day we all had landlines, overnight we were mobile. Smartphones - one day it was just a txt and voice device, next: full on internet and everything "i" you can think of. One day, something like this will happen to a core Microsoft product, and next thing you know, Microsoft is laying off thousands, closing divisions and reinventing itself.
This is why the smart money is out looking for something else and not totally relying on MS to deliver. I'm not sure the giant-killer is out there for businesses, unless its a Nokia 'smart computer', or (more likely) Google., but I think the consumer arena is lost to MS completely. If we see poor Xbox figures soon (and remember the PS Move is getting a lot of good coverage while the Kinect is not, and the Move is cheap whereas the Kinect is not), poor Live figures too (as usual), and slower-than-expected WinPho7 sales then the decline of MS could accelerate.
Yes, really. And it's "brand", not "company". (Score:3, Interesting)
As to the 240 million Windows 7 licenses that Mr.Softee's defenders like to point to as evidence that the company is doing well, there's no argument here. They are doing well. Very well indeed. Microsoft still makes jaw-dropping profits on astonishing revenues, mostly from their core businesses, Windows and Office. But the good news about Windows 7 uptake is largely tempered by the fact that it was due to pent-up demand from companies, not consumers, as the CNN piece points out. Companies avoided Vista like it was a child molester and chose to cling to XP until Microsoft could address the problems. They deferred their refresh cycles again when the recession took hold,and only when it became apparent that the new OS was what they'd been waiting for did they migrate to new desktops, resulting in a tsunami of sales for Windows 7. What's important to note is that it is the enterprise that's largely responsible for Windows 7's success, not consumers. So yes, while Microsoft remains extremely important to corporate customers, they are increasingly irrelevant to consumers.
Times change. Companies change. Apple dropped the "Computer" from their name a couple years ago in recognition of the fact that they are much more of a consumer electronics manufacturer now, even though Macs are still a significant part of their business. Microsoft is simply too rich and powerful to fade away overnight, and to my mind they'll eventually become much more of an enterprise services company, a la the transformation of IBM under Lou Gerstner. Apple has moved away from their roots and Microsoft has been slowly doing the same, and I haven't considered either company to be rivals for years now. Apple and Microsoft both have a common adversary in Internet services in Google, but in terms of Microsoft's core businesses, their major rival is much more Oracle than Apple.
Re:Really??? (Score:1, Interesting)
No.
Seriously.
"Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death" [wikipedia.org]
(...)
Microsoft's solution to the problem:
R.R.O.D. problem solved!
Re:Really??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Courier, slate, RROD, Zune, Vista. Failures abound, then Apple passed them by. The "flyover" states are indeed buying lots and lots of iPhones and iPods, and now iPads. I don't like them myself, but the proof is in the pudding. MS is a dying brand, if they don't turn it around and start to think (sorry) different. Not "just like Apple" I mean different, as in get some real ideas and stop focusing on the now declining bottom-line. Bean-counters don't make good software engineers, still you have to win on both sides of the house. Sorry, MS is just an over-sized company that might not be able to maneuver through this new world like a smaller, or more nimble thinking companies do. I'm no Apple fan anymore, MS may not want to follow the leader here either. Innovation is a mystery to them. Period.
Re:Really??? (Score:3, Interesting)
The ONLY advantage that the XBOX360 has right now is developers, developers, developers, developers. Hell, with a major cock-up that cost billions to Microsoft (with a 60% failure rate on those consoles) people only stayed with the XBOX360 because of their prior investment in the game purchases. Hell, if you had thousands invested in games wouldn't you go get another couple hundred dollar XBOX360 so you could continue to play them? Basically, games on a console are DRM, based solely on vendor lock in via the development process. In the past it was hardware vendor lock in (like mainframes and minis of 3 decades ago) and used to be contractual (when developers had to commit to developing only for a single platform).
When those same games become available on other platforms, specifically the PS3 (which is far superior hardware and technology across the board) you'll have new buyers deciding which platform based on the tech instead of their past investment in a console.
Any other company undergoing a 60% failure rate of their main hardware product would not have survived, but because Microsoft has all the games development happening and the costs of games are so high that it's hard to overcome that as a consumer once your momentum is a certain way.
This is precisely why also that Microsoft doesn't want mods or hacks to the 360, because if you can then you can pirate games and hence the incentive to buy is lost and that leads to fewer developers.
Microsoft knows one thing and one thing only. That is "keep the developers happy).
Re:Really??? (Score:4, Interesting)
And before digital photography came along, Kodak was insanely profitable. There are disruptive technologies all around Microsoft. At this point, they should be disrupting themselves, but like IBM 30 years ago, they are going to have an awfully difficult time doing so.
Re:Really??? (Score:3, Interesting)
By "niche" product, I mean most people don't have a need for an Xbox360. It's a solid product in its niche, however. Your iPhone comment is irrelevant.
"Fastest selling OS ever?" That is news to me. Might well be true, but I'm not sure the global explosion of sales of PCs (due to historic low prices) pre-bundled with Win7 is any indication of Win7's success. How many people ran out to Best Buy to get their copy of Win7 when it came out? How many are doing so now? I bet, at the consumer level, more people have purchased Leopard/Snow Leopard than all versions of Win7 (not purchased a computer with a Win7 license already on it). I could be wrong...it's happened before. Too lazy to find sources.
Personally I think Win7 is great, and would upgrade in a heartbeat if I used Windows computers.
And plopping in your Wordstar file from the 1980s is EXACTLY what is wrong with Microsoft. You have to cut your losses and start from scratch at some point. Otherwise you get an unwieldy beast of new and old technologies...none of which work well because of it. How much money can you make supporting legacy software, compared to the amount of innovation you lose while trying to support the legacy stuff?
Our product at work was developed for WinXP (and worked in NT and 2000 and 95/98). It broke in Vista so we made a Vista version. Now it's broke in Win7. So much for backwards compatibility.
Re:Maybe Microsoft is different? (Score:3, Interesting)
Where are they in social networking? Where are they on mobile stuff? Search? Bing? Really? Where's my Microsoft Flying Car? Why am I carrying a cell phone at all? Where's my glasses with a heads-up display, eye tracking, and an earpiece built into the wing? What is Microsoft Labs working on? Oh, right, a ribbon interface for Office, a poor clone of Google, and an update to Windows CE. Yawn. Snore.
The interesting thing, to me at least is that they actually do seem to be researching things like this but it never makes it to market. I've heard different reasons, including infighting between departments, but the end result almost always seems to be that they had something really need going and then it disappears with an accompanying statement of "oh that was just for internal research".
A good example would be the Courier [wikipedia.org].. the first concept designs I saw online for that thing were just awesome in what you could do with it and it immediately made me start thinking about how it could be used in an educational environment, let alone how much I wanted one for personal use. The second concept designs were still impressive but you can tell the project had already started to lose some of the really neat features. Where is it now? "Incubation phase" apparently although they have no plans to actually build it . It seems to me like this thing would blow an iPad out of the water. The comments on /. on Courier stories generally seemed excited and interested. Why not finish it? Why not spend the money on the development and make the device as shown in the original concept?
Microsoft Surface is a device that actually made it through to a limited release and it seems like it should have had some potential but apparently they didn't end up knowing exactly what to do with it and who to market it too.
SOMEONE in Microsoft apparently does some research and SOME of them are actually very good, if not highly marketable, ideas and yet very few actually see the light of day.
Re:Really??? (Score:5, Interesting)
True, but don't forget that Apple, Android, and even WebOS have a several-year head start on Microsoft in the mobile space.
Several years.
That's a lot of lost ground to recapture before you can even begin to overtake any of them.
Zune was DoA. Kin was DoA. Courier was vaporware. XBox 360 bet heavily on HD-DVD, and lost.
Was Vista part of the "getting better" process? IE6 stagnated for years until they were forced to begin upgrades again by Firefox. WP7 is several years behind its competitors, and for all its promise, it still has to make up that lag if it wants to seriously compete.
This is not to say that MSFT is a 'dead' or 'dying' company. But they've gotten complacent as the 800-pound gorilla, and other companies are capitalizing on their inability to adapt & move quickly, and in many cases, beating the pants off them. I think Microsoft's success is far from guaranteed, and it's clear that they are mostly in a reactive mode, rather than an "innovate & open new markets" mode -- they're *responding* to Apple & Android tablets. They're *responding* to Apple and Android phones. They're *responding* to the iPod. They're *responding* to other gaming consoles, other browsers, other search engines, other social networks. And every misstep they make, you can bet one of their competitors will capitalize on it.
If they don't get out of that reactive mode, they will slide towards irrelevance, and end up a "me too" brand on the market. It's not that MSFT is a "bad" company - they have a lot of bright people working there. But I don't think management has a clear strategic vision for the company, and it shows in the clear "nobody will take this segment seriously until there's a *MICROSOFT* product there" attitudes that Ballmer et. al convey. Nobody was going to take the iPhone seriously. Nobody was going to take the iPad seriously. Nobody would want an iPod once Zune was available. That's coasting, not leading.
Re:Really??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft may be commercially dying but as for Linux, it's hard to commercially die when you haven't even been born. And that's why it's going to stay around for a nice long time. It's free, and the type of people who read /. are generally the type of people willing to separate from the herd and try something new. Especially if it's free. And being free and opensource, Linux doesn't really have to get popular in order to survive.
And what's more, you guys shouldn't WANT it to get popular. Remember yesterday's "games are too easy because they got popular and had to be dumbed down for the unwashed masses" thread? You really want that to happen to Linux?
Re:Really??? (Score:4, Interesting)
MS is a large company that does not react quickly. They have skilled people but are hampered by management. One of the reasons the Kin failed [blogspot.com] was that it was 18 months late. It was decisions by management that caused problems. The original idea was they wanted to quickly release a product. If MS had tried to build one from scratch it would have taken years. Thus MS bought Danger. Danger made the HipTop (commonly known as the SideKick) and the original plan was to release a SideKick successor within 6 months.
[Now all of the following are rumors as no one in MS has officially confirmed them. You can read about them by googling.]
But then came the management decisions that would doom it. SideKick applications ran on Java. Being MS, it was decided that Windows CE would be used. That decision alone would push back product launch by many months. There was also rumors of infighting. The head of Windows Mobile didn't want the Kin so he did not allocate any resources to help the Kin team (Project Pink). So the team had to implement an OS with which they were not familiar without the help of those that knew the OS well.
As the project became hopelessly delayed, features like the App store were cut in order to make some sort of release date. Also since the phone was so delayed, it was going to be obsolete by the time it would have been released as many of the competing products released new features in the meantime and the market place was changing. When the SideKick was popular among teens, texting with some photosharing were the functions that they used most. But by the time the Kin was released, consumer smartphones like iPhone and Android that did more than text were becoming the desired products.
In the original plan, Verizon wanted to woo these texting teenagers as customers from T-Mobile. So they were willing to offer a cheap data plan. By the time the Kin was launched, the phone itself would consume more data than originally planned (texting phone vs smartphone). Verizon did not feel they needed to honor the original agreement as MS delivered 18 months late. Thus the Kin got the normal smartphone rate. The combination of late, few features, and high data plan would make the Kin not desired by the target market.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Is RIM Microsoft's target? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most commentators like this CNN reporter immediately position WinPhone7 in competition with the iPhone, but just maybe it's RIM who's really the initial target. Consider the enormous investment large corporations have in a Blackberry infrastructure that co-exists with their Exchange servers. Having Outlook on a cell phone with a secure connection to Exchange makes RIM rather superfluous.
There were 10 million Blackberries sold in the first quarter of 2010 according to Gartner [gartner.com]. Devices running the iPhone and Android OS accounted for about thirteen million. If I were running Microsoft, I'd start by leveraging my existing clients and targeting those RIM devices. Switching a single large enterprise from Blackberries to WinPhones brings a lot of business Microsoft's way in a hurry.
First quarter year-on-year growth was 40% for RIM compared to -0.9% for Windows Mobile and 117% for iPhones. Sales of Android devices grew a whopping 800% but did not overtake the iPhone in total. Most of those phones were being sold to consumers, of course. Denting that market would be nice for Microsoft but not as lucrative as converting corporate Blackberry accounts.
Microsoft's E&D Just Lost 180 Million Last Qua (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes. Xbox fans have been making this inane claim for the past eight years.
The eight year long Xbox fiasco has racked up some 4-4.5 billion in losses for the first Xbox, another 3-4 on the second Xbox. And these are just the visible losses that come after all the other profitable software products Microsoft mixes the Xbox losses in with.
I've heard Microsoft people say the actual Xbox losses are in the 15 billion range when you separate them out from all the profitable products thrown in to hide them.
Just last quarter the E&D division that includes the Xbox lost 180 million. That means that even with all the other profitable products in E&D plus the hundreds of millions in online fees Microsoft charges a year, the Xbox still after five years losses enough money to help drag the entire division into the red.