
Steve Ballmer's Nightmare is Coming True - sev
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/steve-ballmer-s-nightmare-is-coming-true-181558610.html
======
colinshark
"1. The iPad eats the consumer PC market.

This is happening right now. In the third quarter of 2012, PC sales were down
8 percent on a year-over-year basis worldwide. In the U.S., sales were down 14
percent. A big chunk of the decline can be attributed to the rise of the
iPad."

Or just that PC speeds have reached a plateau, and common desktop applications
no longer need the latest hardware. The continuous upgrade cycle is slowing. I
think that speaks for the 8% on its own.

On second glance, this whole article is borderline troll bait.

~~~
marshray
How many people do you know who have an iPad but not a PC (or a Mac)?

My sample is completely non-scientific, but I can't think of anyone I know
like that. My impression is iOS and Android are taking eyeball-time and
consumer purchasing money away from PCs, but I just don't see them replacing
PCs any more than iPhones or Playstations did. Yet.

What am I missing?

~~~
MrFoof
>How many people do you know who have an iPad but not a PC (or a Mac)?

Here's an edge case -- my parents' apartment community. This is a 2-building
apartment complex (with about a dozen condo units in the front) with about
500ish total residents. When my folks sold their home a few years ago and
moved in, no one else on their floor (two buildings, three floors each) owned
a computer, and many never had owned one in the past. My parents today are
still on the younger side of the spectrum (57 and 63), so we're talking about
a population whose kids went off to college or moved out in 1992 or earlier.

However, there was a desire amongst people they met to own one as they were
aware of what could be done, they just didn't want to deal with the hassle. My
mother (a textbook technophobe) showed folks her Kindle, and people in the
community felt that was easy enough to deal with (especially when getting to a
library in the sticks can be a hassle). As a result, my parents helped get
folks set up with 3G Kindles. My parents bought themselves iPad 2s about 18
months ago. My father, unlike my mother, was comfortable around computers, but
his computer/iPad usage shifted to 10/90% after about 3 months. My mother was
initially more 70/30, but is now more along the lines of 20/80. As of right
now, they have no intention of replacing their computer with another one.
Moreover, my mother who was always paranoid of someone "messing up" the family
computer 15-20 years ago is eminently comfortable with her iPad. An even
weirder outcome is she apparently follows Apple product news a bit, as do one
or two of her aged 55-65 friends.

The new thing? The septuagenarians and octogenarians are now getting iPads.
They're buying an Airport Express, calling Comcast to get internet access, and
the iPad is the first computer they've ever owned. And they're pretty chuffed
about it. And using them. Significantly. Do you have any idea how fantastic
the idea of HD FaceTime is to grandparents who almost never get to see their
grandkids (and that they'll use it every chance they get)? When I mentioned
LetterPress to my mom, the next time I talked to her she mentioned how big a
hit it was at her community.

I think to date my parents have set up a dozen other residents with Kindles
and about another dozen so far with iPads + internet access. This number will
continue to grow.

~~~
klibertp
That's kind of old news. On the other end of a spectrum I know quite a few
people who are my age (nearing 30 (already?! eh...)) and who never had a PC or
had one for some time and then didn't replace it when it broke. They were
using, however, game consoles and then early smartphones and then tablets.
They wouldn't use Kindle, though...

It's just that not everyone needs the full power and flexibility of a PC. I
think in reality just a tiny fraction of users needs one, and as a number of
users grows that percentage only lowers. The truth is that a PC always was and
always will be much too hard for average user to operate (by design!) while
not offering anything meaningful for said average user.

I suspect that tablets and other narrowly focused devices will only gain
popularity with time, replacing PCs for most day to day tasks for most users.
They are easy to use and they give people something of value without too much
hassle. I welcome this trend with joy: it means less calls from family to help
them set up/configure/uninstall/clean up things.

There is one thing, however, that I'd like to see included in this future of
tablets and similar devices. It would be a tiny, protected with PIN, but
mandatory on every single device icon which, when clicked/taped, would invoke
a BASIC interpreter (or Lua, or anything similar). I'm worried that while it's
getting easier for average user to use these devices, it's also getting harder
and harder to hack them. And when there won't be a PC in a household anymore,
how children are supposed to learn to love computing? Instead of just using
devices...

------
MattRogish
"If this happened and then these other ten things happened and if for some
reason people stopped buying office (but they aren't) and some folks did some
other things (that there is no evidence of happening) then MS is doomed!"

Look, I'm as bearish on MS as they come (I think Microsoft's cultural and
technical dominance of the personal computer is at and end) but this is a
whole lot of crap in an article.

I think Microsoft as being the "only" choice for personal computing is over,
which is a net positive. But there are still tons of businesses (the people
that really pay Microsoft gobs of money) that are not switching off of
Microsoft any time soon. I think Google will nibble off a bit of Microsoft's
services for the small and medium business (who needs Exchange any more unless
you have strict auditing requirements, which most SMB's don't) and Apple will
make inroads, but iPads won't be replacing shitty $500 Dells any time soon
(although I know IT departments would love virus-free completely locked down
computers; it's been their "Holy Grail" forever).

MSFT has seen declining Windows revenue as a proportion of the total for a
while and will still have rev in the many tens of billions if even half of
MSFT's consumer market disappears.

I don't think MSFT will ever go out of business. It'll just be smaller and a
lot less relevant.

~~~
flogic
I'm really curious to watch this whole thing unfold. I don't think betting
against MS is a good idea. There are a number of factors that make me think MS
could actually come out fairly well from all this. Apple doesn't have Jobs to
demand innovative slick products. East Asian electronics companies want to be
in the tablet game, but Apple won't license iOS to them. This is why Android
is on more devices. However most people who can be choosy aren't excited by
Android. Enter MS. Windows 8 has mixed reviews. However, Surface seems to
review fairly well. And, we can be fairly certain MS will license Windows for
tablets.

------
mindstab
#4: loyal devs start to leave: they don't even cover half of it. What about
all the game companies literally angry about windows store like valve who is
leading the steam on linux charge? Or the unity game engine? Or Notch? Big
names in windows game dev who have been very windows loyal are angry and
investing heavily in new platforms. And they made this happen.

------
josephlord
MS aren't about to disappear anytime soon but MS are no longer capable of
dominating markets the way they used to. They are in decline at least in
relative terms and I don't see any likelihood of that changing any time soon.

The Windows market is going to get nibbled (not gobbled - at least short term)
from tablets in the consumer market and the corporate market is going to be
increasingly web based for internal systems which over time will loosen the
Windows grip there.

Exchange, Sharepoint, SQL Server can all remain major revenue drivers in the
corporate world, they won't go anywhere quickly and they may even grow (I
don't know the market well enough). IBM makes enough money in these markets.

Office is the big elephant, Excel is the tool for massive amounts of
forecasting and modelling. Many people don't need the power and have
alternatives but many do. PowerPoint strikes me as replaceable, most content
created with it has a short lifespan. Word is replaceable for individual users
but the network effect of people using it and exchanging files gives it hold.

Overall I think MS has a good decade or two of good profits if it wants to
take them but the glory days are done.

~~~
gnaffle
Looking back, I think many of the big initial successes for Microsoft were
propelled by missteps from their competitors. Apple, Lotus, Word Perfect,
Novell, the list is long.

This time, their two biggest competitors haven't made many mistakes at all,
and that is their big problem.

~~~
josephlord
Was WordPerfect a miss step or dirty tricks? Maybe both, but you are right.

Generally though I don't think that MS has the agility to capitalise on the
mistakes that do happen. This still have massive scale and cash but everything
I read about life in Microsoft says slow decline is the future. Over managed
battling fiefdoms and bureaucracy that limit innovation and are likely to
strangle any start up they buy.

------
mbesto
Funny, I just wrote long winded post precisely on this topic:

[http://www.techdisruptive.com/2012/12/03/dear-microsoft-
let-...](http://www.techdisruptive.com/2012/12/03/dear-microsoft-let-me-show-
you-how-to-sell-your-surface-tablet/)

I actually don't think the MS nightmare is all that bad. I'm still seeing a
lot of organizations try to move to Google Apps and then moving back to MS
products because the lack of features and native functionality (Outlook is a
big one). Even though I'm a heavy Apple user, I'm slightly rooting for MSFT.

------
neya
The iPad eats the consumer PC market?

Oh please, please stop this BS. The iPad sales are shooting up, true. The PC
sales are going down, maybe true. But that could be due to several reasons -
Maybe consumers are just 'upgrading' (like RAM, HDD, etc.) their existing
PC's, or maybe existing PC owners don't want to even upgrade their PC at all
because it's still working fine, there just could be a lot of reasons.

The statement that just the iPad alone eats the PC market is like saying, KFC
is killing Ford's sales because it sells more chicken. Makes no sense, does
it? Exactly, that's what the iPad vs PC comparison looks like too.

NO consumer would want to replace a PC with an iPad because there is a LOT of
utility attached with a PC that it would be a blunder to replace it with a
tablet like an iPad.

~~~
jarcoal
This statement is just as inaccurate! You've completely dismissed the fact it
might be happening based on no evidence at all.

My brother just tossed his laptop for an iPad and he loves it. There's one
person who has, so you're already wrong.

~~~
pmelendez
Does your brother have access to a desktop computer? If so he didn't replace a
computer for an iPad. He replaced his mobile gadget for a lighter option.

Tablets are great for consumption, but extremely poor for generating content.
Even with an external keyword, writing a document (not even talking about a
spreadsheet) in a tablet is least than pleasant.

~~~
jarcoal
No other PC, just his iPad. And he uses the keyboard and thinks it works
great, so you are wrong in saying that it is bad for generating content.
That's your opinion, not a fact.

~~~
neya
iPad _is_ bad for generating content. I don't mean _bad_ as in BAD. By bad, I
mean it's not going to be just as good enough as a PC. Best example? Take
photoshop. Photoshop for iPad is so amateurish compared to Photoshop for PC. I
can never imagine a designer using just an iPad to survive, because he will
miss out a lot of valuable tools (Illustrator, PS, etc.). But, I also want to
personally thank you for being so polite and not being staunch (like most of
them usually are). Cheers! :)

~~~
jarcoal
Yes, there are definitely some kinds of content that won't be doable on a
tablet, such as your Photoshop example.

The OP just stated that word processing was harder on an iPad, which as we
both know is simply an opinion.

~~~
neya
Hmmm, I'm not being a dick, but I just want to give you an example - As to why
word-processing _is_ really difficult on an iPad. Assume you are a blogger,
each platform like tumblr, blogger, etc. has its own Editor. And to make text
bold, italic, listed, etc., you need to _select_ the text, which is quite
frustrating, if not hard on an iPad. Selecting text is easier with a mouse
than say, with your fingers, especially on miniscule text.

Selection is just one example. Talk about dragging images within an editor -
Most editors don't support the OnTouch event, but rather just the OnClick
event, so there is a huge difference, actually.

------
darkhorn
I had some activity using gmail and hotmail. Microsoft revealed my IP address.
Neither Yahoo nor Gmail reveals IP addresses. Now I'm in court for bullshit.
This happened in a non US country. Now, do you think that I'll use any of
their products anymore? I've closed all my Microsoft related accounts and I've
promised myself never to use their products. I am going to make an open source
application for <https://tent.io/> just because Microsoft has shares in
Facebook. Fuck them. Microsoft, go to Hell!

~~~
chimeracoder
> I had some activity using gmail and hotmail. Microsoft revealed my IP
> address. Neither Yahoo nor Gmail reveals IP addresses.

I don't know what you mean by 'reveal IP addresses', but I can assure you that
your latter statement is very much not the case.

~~~
cynwoody
Some mailers include an X-Originating-IP header, allowing a recipient to see
the sender's IP address trivially. Gmail does not include that particular
header. The headers it does include will simply lead back into the Google
network.

More on the X-Originating-IP header, from 2001:
<http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/06/44567>

As for whether or not Gmail reveals your IP address, it depends on who's
asking. E.g., we have the recent example of LTC Paula Broadwell.

~~~
darkhorn
No, I've not send any emails. Court asked to give the email account's details
(IP) and microsoft was happy to give.

~~~
chimeracoder
> Court asked to give the email account's details (IP) and microsoft was happy
> to give.

Yeah, so Google is more than willing to do this too (and has, in the past).

~~~
darkhorn
It does not do it in Turkey.

------
logn
Microsoft has 50 billion in cash. They need to buy their way back. Video
platform: buy Netflix and Hulu. Music: buy Pandora, Spotify, and eMusic.
Cellphones: start shipping the Mozilla phone platform on Microsoft hardware.
Social: add social features to Skype and integrate it into aforementioned
products, and buy MySpace on the cheap and integrate it.

Edit: I'm not saying I want this. As a user of all of these services (except
MySpace) I like them the way they are. But if I were Microsoft CEO this is
what I would do.

~~~
thematt
They could also buy Valve and then integrate Steam and XBox Live. It would be
horrible for end-users (they'd probably botch it) but would be lucrative from
a business perspective.

~~~
sharkweek
I am pretty certain Valve would reject even the most ridiculous of offers from
MSFT

------
redthrowaway
The majority of the doom-and-gloom seems to be predicated upon their
unrealistic expectations from last year.

"Windows Phone will become a viable 3rd choice behind iPhone and Android"

Really? Did anyone actually expect a product that came to market so late, with
no OEM buy-in, to be successful?

"Windows 8 will re-establish PC dominance"

MS has an established track record for releasing a hit version of Windows,
then a flop, then a hit, etc. Windows 7 was a hit. It's hardly scientific, but
most of the people I spoke with expected Win8 to flop simply based on that
pattern.

MS is only in dire trouble in relation to the overly-optimistic predictions
Y!F made last year. In reality, they're continuing to lose ground as they have
been for years. Yes, Ballmer's leadership is still questionable, but it's
hardly like they've had a terrible year. They're just continuing to slip and
lose dominance.

------
melling
Microsoft's nightmare is really just a great boost for everyone. There hasn't
been l balance in computers for almost 20 years. Microsoft has a monopoly that
needs to be broken. It will be good for everyone, including Microsoft. They'll
still be widely profitable and they will probably be more innovative and
competitive. Given Microsoft's 90% desktop market share and domination with
Office, I can't see them falling below 50% anytime in the next decade. They
really are that entrenched.

------
BenoitEssiambre
I feel that these recurring analysis of the OS wars are always ignoring the
main factor influencing the markets for these software which is that closed
ecosystems are getting less and less competitive with open ones as core OS
functionality is maturing and being commoditized.

When you buy into a closed ecosystem, you buy a product that comes with a
leash attached to your neck. Because of compatibility issues, you pay now and
set yourself up to also pay more later. You agree to give a vendor near
monopolistic powers over you in the future. You will have to continue buying
from their ecosystem unless you are willing to lose access to all your apps
and a lot of your media or buy them all again.

Microsoft does this, RIM does this and of course Apple is the worst offender.
A lot of consumers do not want OSs that tie a leash around their necks.

Apple being first to achieve wide success in the market of phones with near
desktop level computing power are able to maintain a big share of the market
because of a large population already locked in its platform.

RIM and Microsoft's mobile OSs, judged on technical merits, are probably as
good as Android and iOS. However, Android has the huge benefit of not locking
users and developers with a particular hardware or software vendor.

I'm pretty sure that if Android was not a mostly open OS it would not have
gained more traction than the others. I'm also pretty sure that if iOS was
released as an open platform, there would be no significant competitors other
than iOS forks. Google and its Android partners know this as does Amazon to a
lesser extent (although they force DRM on a lot of their content including
apps).

In the long run, the only conclusion to this war that makes sense is
convergence toward competing Android forks that allow people to change vendors
or coalitions of vendors without losing all compatibility with their
accumulated apps and media. That is unless the others are willing to open
their OSs and allow competing forks like Android does.

------
kmfrk
Not that it's going to stem the tide nor anything, but someone made a very
interesting point of the significance the Surface Pro could have for the
medical sector:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/143vgu/the_windows_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/143vgu/the_windows_8_sales_data_is_in_and_its_bad_news/c79qxlo).

tl;dr: The medical sector is entrenched in ancient Windows-based software, but
the backwards compatibility of Windows 8 will allow them to move from desktop
computers to Surfaces (tablets, if you will).

Or maybe it might have some significance. I have no idea what the numbers are,
but I assume a couple of the people here trying to disrupt the market could
give us the low-down.

------
doctorpangloss
Honestly, my iPad is collecting cobwebs, along with lots of other friends'
iPads. Maybe he has the fads backwards. After all, how many "employees" do
real work on their iPads?

More disastrously for Microsoft, who needs a PC to make PowerPoints? Keynote
will kill Microsoft.

------
JuDue
Given the massive, dominant install base of Windows, you'd of hoped for a
better result after the first tablet friendly version was released.

Particularly the slashed OS price, and bundling of the previous cash cow,
Office, in RT.

Agree it might take time to catch on, but these days that doesn't seem to be a
truth either. Windows Phone looked like a sure winner to me a year ago - or,
atleast, more than its current 1%.

Things are moving fast, and people have broadened their minds in the past 3
years of iPad exposure.

What MS needed was a product that took the iPad by the horns. Either that or
released its Surface "compromise" (which it certainly is) 2 years ago.

------
lucb1e
I don't know enough about the others, but point number 5 is too early to say I
think. Windows phones have been decent for how long now, half a year or a
year? After having a reputation of sub-sub-zero?

Those at school who have one are very positive about it now, so the market
share in this may still grow a lot. I would not think for two seconds about
Windows on my phone a few years ago, but I would consider a Windows phone
right now because they got so much better.

------
sytelus
Here interesting data point is that even as PC sales declined by 21%, the Mac
sales have NOT increased by same margin. Reports says Mac sales grew only by
5% although these two rates are not comparable because later is % of Mac sales
while former is % of PC sales which is much higher .

The reason people used to throw away their working PCs to buy new ones was
newer better hardware and hyped up new OS releases. I think PC sales decline
is greatly contributed by no new compelling hardware factor. The OS releases
of course are less and less compelling because most tasks happens in browser
which works fine even on old PCs. If IE was only game in town, people would
perhaps still need to get new OS but that's not the case anymore.

I guess we are entering new era of PC/Mac refresh cycles were people are going
to replace their machines only when it stops working instead of just because
new release arrived. People would rather spend $500 on getting a tablet that
they don't have than replacing their PC that is already working fine to check
emails and browse the web.

Interesting thing here is that Wall street analysts would probably going to
extrapolate this incorrectly instead of seeing that this is new "normal".

~~~
pmelendez
One reason that might explain why you don't see that decline on Macs is
because is being cancelled for all those people trying to develop for iOS
devices.

What it is true is that we don't need new hardware in the same way we used to.
For instance, my 5 years old laptop is running faster with Win8 beta that it
did with Win 7, and that is the only PC I use at home and probably that won't
change any time soon. Before that I used to change PCs in a two years cycle.

------
hnriot
The best thing MSFT could do would be to release a fully compatible, fully
functional Office suite for iPad, charge $49.95 and profit for the next
several years.

~~~
klibertp
I don't know for sure, because I don't own a tablet, but I'd guess that "fully
functional" would be technical impossibility at this time.

------
jbarham
Google's currently generation of Chromebooks are getting good reviews and
appear to be quite viable as second computers.

I know that everything my wife does on her current laptop (running Ubuntu) she
could do just as well on a Chromebook, so when her current laptop kicks the
bucket, my first choice for a replacement would be a Chromebook, in which case
it would be first laptop I've bought that does not have Windows pre-installed.

~~~
rsheridan6
I just got one for just that purpose and I can vouch for its suitability. I
actually prefer the Chromebook to the $1700 Windows laptop most of the time
because it doesn't take so goddamned long to start up when you open it.

------
snowwrestler
The article is a very big stretch. Just because companies are buying iPhones
and iPads, does not mean that their workers are moving away from PCs. My
employer has issued iOS devices to a lot of workers--but they all still have a
PC on their desk too. And those mobile devices all tie back into the corporate
Exchange server and Active Directory.

------
shaydoc
This is such a nonsense article. But within it there is grain of truth albeit
very small.

Taking my circle, several of my family have migrated to iPad or android
tablets from PC/laptop setups and are not looking back because iPad fulfills
all there computing needs. For me, my laptop recently passed away so I bought
a nexus 7 to replace it, and you know what its brilliant for me. I do
obviously still have a development PC, but for personal use its tablet all the
way. So I think desktops and PC sales will suffer loss long term in the
consumer market. So Microsoft do need a good product here, and they have a lot
of catch up to do, but they have done it before!

The security blanket for Microsoft remains new innovation enterprise, business
and maybe cloud. I think they have a long way to go to win back the consumer
space.

------
jack57
This is incredibly sensationalist. iPads are great for the run of the mill
soccer mom, but anyone who wants to get any real work done needs a personal
computer(Mac or Windows, trying to be unbiased in this regard). Microsoft
Office isn't going anywhere, and I don't think anyone expected the 1st
generation of Surface to succeed. Windows 8 is a fine operating system
primarily criticized by people who used it for a very short amount of time.
The Surface Pro has not even been released yet, and Apple is slowly losing
their knack for innovation. Let's not throw our stocks in the air and beg
Apple to take our money yet. This article draws ridiculous conclusions on
shaky data and successfully draws the attention of those looking for
Microsoft's downfall.

------
DigitalSea
And the award for link-bait author of the year goes to....

Seriously though, I can't believe I actually just read this entire "article".
There's no proof of anything, just a whole bunch of over-exaggerated claims.
Does the author really think that people in offices are going to ditch
computers entirely and type 15 page documents on a device that has glass so
weak if you sneeze on it you risk cracking the screen? No USB ports, so means
for connecting multiple external monitors, no CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive, no means
of connecting an external drive, lack of internal space, no keyboard...

I feel sorry for any business that thinks it's a great idea to stop using PC's
and instead opt for expensive tablets with a minimal feature set, investing in
potentially tens of thousands of dollars in software and infrastructure to
support an office of iPads is not feasible. You know why PC's are the number
choice for most businesses, especially in the corporate sector? Because PC's
are dirt cheap, cheap to build and upgrade, cheaper software, better support.
I've had my Core i5 machine for ages now and I've been able to run games on
the highest settings since I built it 2 or 3 years ago. RAM is cheap, new hard
drives are cheap, every component of a computer except the CPU is cheap. You
can't upgrade the internals of an iPad.

As for Office, even Google Docs and Zoho (amongst others) have failed to beat
it. Microsoft Office isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future and the
very fact Microsoft have launched cloud versions of Office as well, it's
definitely still in wide use and evolving. There are many people who still
don't trust the cloud, I don't trust the cloud.

It was a nice try, but this is ridiculous. Windows 8 has been out for one
month and the author is making extraordinary claims that it has failed to stop
the iPad? Windows 8 is not about just capturing the tablet market, it's a
great decision from Microsoft to streamline their operating system offering
instead of having 15 different versions of an operating system there's only a
couple.

Remember when journalism used to mean researching and spending sometimes weeks
or months on one story? Me either. It's all become a race to get page views to
increase ad revenues as evident by this article.

------
jasonkostempski
"Loyal developers start to leave the Microsoft platform."

I work with about 10 developers, not a single one has even mentioned trying
Windows 8 or VS 2012. We all have our own MSDN licenses so it's not a money
issue. Everything we do runs on .NET, SQL Server, Windows Server, etc, and it
runs well, it's just no one seems to care about the new stuff. I stopped
getting excited about MS stuff maybe about 2 years ago but that's because I
became an OSS snob, that's not what's happening to the otherwise happy MS
stack devs I know, I'm not really sure what it is.

------
xiaoma
And from the video in the post:

 _"The iPhone business is now bigger and more profitable than all of
Microsoft"_

I still remember the interview in which Balmer outrighted laughed at the
iPhone.

~~~
corporalagumbo
That seems to be one of Microsoft's problems. They try and laugh everything
off. To me it says "we're not serious." Ballmer doesn't seem like a very
serious CEO either - based on his public attitudes (which I think are an
important sign.) Microsoft would be best if it was a relatively humble, quiet
company with extreme, unrelenting focus. Hopefully if the market kicks them
enough they will learn their lesson and start taking things seriously.

------
superbaconman
The whole article is speculation and 'what if's. I understand a lot of people
are worried about reactions to Windows 8, but I think the move to create a
cross hardware development platform will distinguish them in the long run.

------
bconway
Original story: [http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-nightmare-
is-c...](http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-nightmare-is-coming-
true-2012-11?op=1)

------
nazgulnarsil
yawn, office is going nowhere anytime soon. There isn't even a plausible path
by which office goes away right now.

~~~
protomyth
Microsoft took over in the office suite realm in the transition from DOS to
Windows. Plenty of folks said 1-2-3 and Word Perfect were not going anywhere.
I do wonder if anyone is going to exploit the mouse/keyboard to touch
transition?

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Computer use wasn't nearly as ubiquitous then. A disruption to MS Office would
be several orders of magnitude larger.

------
shmerl
Why specifically iPad and not just mobile computers in general? iPad isn't the
only tablet around you know.

------
acex
i couldn't read this diagonally let alone going through and around me only
device that's isn't apple is xbox in the living room. bollocks.

------
JulianMorrison
Where's Android in all this?

------
Roybatty
"2. Employees gradually switch away from using Windows PCs for work."

That's not happening.

