

7 Reasons Why Microsoft is Doomed - drm237
http://www.askreamaor.com/microsoft-and-windows/reasons-why-microsoft-is-doomed/
Not this year, not next year... but soon - almost certainly by the next decade.
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aston
I love playing Microsoft apologist!

1) The fundamental workings of the software business are pretty much unchanged
since they were created by MSFT back in the day: It's relatively cheap to
develop something worth a lot of money. As far as service and maintenance
goes, I'd say Microsoft on average is pretty good about both. They are
absolutely the kings of hot-fixes/service packs and absolutely the kings of
keeping backwards compatibility wherever possible, which is about all you can
ask for.

2) Let's not pretend like Internet Explorer wasn't a huge product for
Microsoft (and the world). There's nothing worth arguing there. As for the web
2.0 stuff, Microsoft has demonstrated that it's not going to be a pioneer here
(and it isn't in many businesses, actually). That said, they're making money
from their search product, and MSN/Live.com is still quite popular. I don't
know what metrics you want to judge Microsoft by here, but if they're behind
it's not to the point of death. Especially since we still haven't seen any
billion-dollar ideas out of web 2.0 (short of ad platform stuff a la Google,
whic MSFT is copying).

3) When has Microsoft really had that many friends in the first place? They
run a business that's especially large, so they'll be stepping on toes all
over the place. I'm not entirely sure how this points to their ultimate
demise, so long as they're still making more money than the competition is...
(That means they're winning)

4) You only need one cash cow (ask Google). Microsoft has two clear clear
money winners. The rest of the products are ultimately investments more than
anything, but I'll go one by one just for fun. MSN is indeed taking over web
search share recently, and has always had a super popular destination page and
email. The Zune didn't beat the iPod, but neither is anything else. For a
first try, the Zune actually didn't suck too hard. Microsoft is working their
way into the consumer entertainment space here, though, is the real point. The
surface computer isn't a real product, so I don't think anyone's bought it. MS
research kicks out a lot of stuff that's just worth thinking about, not worth
making. IIS is a pretty popular web server. It's not free though, so Apache
makes for pretty tough competition. Ultimately, IIS is more a part of MS's
entire web stack, and so if you buy into that, you're giving MSFT a lot of
money, which is good, even if it's not #1. The Xbox, again, is a consumer
entertainment play, and the Xbox 360's killing it in the US console market.
Microsoft has a lot of money, and they throw it around. You don't have to win
markets to make money, and they know that fact well.

5) It's way too early to tell for sure, but if XP's launch is any basis for
comparison, Vista has some great years ahead. We'll see how the Vista hate
keeps up when people realize it's, like XP is now, the standard OS everyone's
running. Even if Mac OS tripled up, its share would still be basically
irrelevant to MSFT's bottom line.

6) Compare Microsoft's stock price to Ford's over the last few years. Both
companies are such long-standing giants that there's no excitement to be had
in trading the stock. If you don't buy that, you could at least accept that if
confidence in Microsoft were tanking, the stock would be too. It's actually up
10% on the year.

7) PC makers aren't turning their backs on Microsoft. They're trying to pick
up some sales from the Microsoft haters (who they would prefer not also become
Dell haters by association). Dell is gaining customers with the deal, and
Microsoft's not losing any (since Dell buys the licenses, not the buyer). This
is as much of a non-point as the rest.

~~~
Goladus
Is Vista the standard OS everyone is running? Back in 2001, there were people
saying "Windows 98 is just fine, thank you." But those people were drowned out
by 1. Gamers and 2. all the people who were buying a new PC didn't really have
a choice about the OS they got.

Now, the people saying "XP is working just fine, thank you" are probably a
majority, and the relatively few people buying new hardware can choose OS X
(And today, Ubuntu is a more serious contender than any open source OS was in
2001).

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tx
It is very late and I am too tired for a more detailed reply to this. The dude
is wrong.

By the way, isn't anyone else tired of this endless "shift to services" BS
that we've been fed by tech-media since around year 2000? And even if it's a
"shift" indeed, as opposed to just another possible option, isn't Microsoft in
the best position to simply start charging everybody $XX/mo for Vista
subscription?

Microsoft does have its problems, but they certainly have nothing to do with
their business model or "lack of friends". As much as I dislike their products
these days, nobody else managed to charge people for software as much as they
did (and still do). Almost everybody else, having failed to produce something
valuable enough to have users pay them money, is busy deciding on the same
lame question: "shall we put the ads up or we still have enough cash to wait
until someone acquires us?" The business is simple: make something people want
and they will pay you. Either up front or monthly - is it really that
important?

Every point he makes is either invalid or plain stupid. How can one say that
"Microsoft is doomed because their stock isn't rising anymore"? He is
confusing a reason with consequence.

~~~
hello_moto
Last time I checked, IBM is still selling software. Custom or shrink-wrap.

------
blored
PG is setting blogging trends in a similar way to how David Beckham set
hairstyles in the early 00's.

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henning
"Not this year, not next year... but soon - almost certainly by the next
decade."

More likely is that they simply won't be nearly as dominant as they are now.
They have like 50,000 employees.

There are still plenty of great people at Microsoft and if someone can cut
down on the bureaucratic bullshit that keeps everyone from getting stuff done
they'll be a force to be reckoned with for decades to come.

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eusman
allow me to doubt someone who calls eyeOs window management code as "a full
operating system"! this guy is out of boundaries!

How is an empire like Microsoft worthing approx. 289 billion dollars doomed?

seems like somebody needs a wake up call! MS may not threaten Web 2.0 startups
in their early steps. Actually it can be the good guy when they come and buy
you...And that is not because MS can't innovate. It's just the nature of
startups to bring the little thing called innovation to the world. Every big
company has this problem! Only that MS has the luxury to buy their mistake...

when PG throwed the bomp MS is dead, I remember there were like 250 comments
on YC.news covering every single argument someone could come up with about
this subject that probably everyone on YC.news already read...so it really
seems worthless that I added this comment...

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patrickg-zill
This guy is probably wrong, just like John Walker was probably wrong when he
wrote "Microsoft at Apogee" many years ago...
<http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/msapogee.html> .

I don't think that vista will kill MS, nor will losing money on Zune, but I
think that the bureaucratization of MS will kill them. Would you buy an OS
from the DMV?

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mattmaroon
You know your anti-Microsoft argument is plain old retarded when everyone on
hackers news disagrees with you.

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edw519
A better title may have been, "50 Billion Reasons Why Microsoft is not Doomed"

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jasonlotito
Anyone who suggests that "You can even get a full operating system to run in
your browser!" has no understanding of technology or how it's applied. Also,
how me makes the jump from "Dell starts selling Ubuntu machines," to "PC
makers are starting to turn their backs on Microsoft", I have no clue. It's
like saying "NVIDIA DOOMED!!!! Future Shop starts selling ATI, too!"

