Microsoft now stagnant, says former executive

i couldnt agree with that guy more..windows mobile and vista were 2 failing products each in their respective field. the only way i see microsoft coming back from this position is if in 2-4 years they could make microsoft surface (to those who are not familiar with it: [url= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0 [/url])
availible to the general public and not just for commercial consumers

"Digging even deeper, Dodge says Microsoft will begin losing Office customers in 2010 to free web-based technologies such as Google Apps, and may even begin losing OS customers to the upcoming cloud-based Chrome OS."

Not to defend M$'s ineptness, but that was SUCH a shill comment from a Google employee...esp. the Chrome OS bit.

While I agree that Windows Vista is a big turd. Windows Mobile or the new version Windows Phone. Could have been much more successful with less emphasis on business and more on multimedia. I used to have an old Audiovox Verizon Windows Mobile 2002 phone. I used the multimedia capabilities and features more than anything. I then upgraded to the Samsung i730 which also was used for watching movies and playing music. This was all before the iPhone came out. I even took the time to send them a letter to focus on more of the multimedia capabilities of their phone os instead of the business aspects of it. But what do I know? I'm just some guy that knew the possibilities Windows Mobile had years before the iPhone came out. Microsoft's execs just dropped the ball when it came to the Windows Mobile OS.

In all fairness, Apple has been more innovative since they launched back in the 80s and it hasn't gotten them anything but diminished market share. They will rule small devices but as long as they keep the 40% premium for PCs, they will never rule the computers of businesses or typical consumers.

As long as Linux keeps expecting soccer moms to be pros with terminal commands as if it's still 1984, I don't see that really taking over the OS market.

MS will be around for a minute. The force tells me that Google and Apple are about to go to war over the mobile device market with a ferocity that the computer world has never seen. I think they'll be too occupied with that to really put up a good fight against MS' bread and butter products.

I wouldn't read into this too much, Microsoft is and will continue to do fine. If they take the route and listen to their customers more like what they did with Windows 7 then I'm sure they can redeem themselves as a whole.

"but Windows 7 helped to "redeem" that mistake." I wouldn't make such a statement this early in windows 7 release. It's just as bloated as Vista, and it's main competitor is still windows xp.

Microsoft has lost their edge ever since they jumped on the "more is better" bandwagon. XP was successful because it was small and fast and quite reliable.

I want to be the first to certify Vista a worst OS then windowsME. That monstrosity is the reason Microsoft is in this predicament.

I've had winME, Vista, and Win7 and I feel that vista was WAY better than winME; but that's just me! As far as MS going under; I think this is just a Google employee hating on MS; that being said, MS needs to work really hard to stay competitive with the new tech that's being put out by google & others.

I dont favor neither, they both offer different things. Microsoft slipped with Vista though. W7 is nice though.

Originally posted by jony218:

---

I want to be the first to certify Vista a worst OS then windowsME. That monstrosity is the reason Microsoft is in this predicament.

---

Corporate America is pretty much standardized on Microsoft Windows and Office.

Yes, there are alternatives. But they are simply not business standards. Thus, they will go nowhere in business.

Linux and its variants (such as Chrome OS) are simply not ready for prime time when it comes to the desktop. I doubt they ever will. There simply is not enough support from commercial developers. Attempting to customize such a system is an ongoing nightmare for non-geeks.

Thus, Microsoft may be stagnant, but it still rakes in billions in profit each year. Thus allows it to be a very formidable opponent for Google. Microsoft's Bing, for example, is becoming a formidable search engine - equivalent to Google. With major content producers removing their content from Google - with cash support from Microsoft and higher profit from advertisement than what Google gives out - Google has very real and very dangerous competition.

Google has to watch out for itself. Its major revenue is from advertising. A higher paying company - such as Microsoft - can usurp its revenue source. Google makes little if any money from its software, OS, or cloud services.

Note that Apple is actually not a direct competitor to either one. Apple can pick and choose its battles. Apple chooses only those which makes it a lot of money. And as both a hardware and software maker, Apple is in the best position to profit from whatever direction it chooses, irrespective of what Microsoft and Google do.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jony218:

---

I want to be the first to certify Vista a worst OS then windowsME. That monstrosity is the reason Microsoft is in this predicament.

---

That's just a crazy statement, seriously. Vista was not the greatest but it was better than any Windows OS before it (or at least on par with XP), and Windows 7 blows them all out of the water.

---

Keep in mind that for several years (pre-XP), M$ wanted to move Windows AND Office to a subscription model where you wouldn't pay anything upfront, but would have to pay a monthly fee for use and upgrades. They just had to come to the realization that end-users were (at least currently) more likely to be pissed off about that situation, but it's still something they're interested in. $10-20/mo. is FAR more lucrative than ~$200 every 4-5 years. Luckily, I think also trying to move to that model for them now would be seen as monopolistic behavior (unless monthly fees were as low as $3-5/mo.), plus it would end 'ownership' by end-users...if they cancel their subscription, they can no longer use it (as it would require regular online authentication to stay valid). This was M$'s initial intention behind .NET and if users let them, they WILL try to stranglehold.

Originally posted by Josipher:

---

[url= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0 [/url])

---

I tried Vista a couple of times but found it to be a big pain due to operational differences with XP. With so many ADDON registry hacks available I am very comfortable with XP.

Recently I had an occasion to try out windows 7. I like to get things working my way using a lot of scripts. None of the scripts from XP work in Win7. Simple things like scheduler or switching network interface setting for different locations with netsh are now a nightmare. In my opinion they are getting close to the difficulty level of Linux command line. If this trend continues I do see people migrating to Linux for the new machines.

I always carry a mini dvd - 1.44 GB - in my shirt pocket with Puppy Linux installed on it under 100 mb in size. It essentially does everything I may need on the road through a very easy to use GUI and this includes saving your work, freshly installed software, downloaded files etc on the dvd itself as long as you do not exceed the free space on the dvd.