

Microsoft is doomed, but first it’s going to make a ton of money - rbanffy
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/24/microsoft-is-doomed-but-first-its-going-to-make-a-ton-of-money/

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MarcScott
This constant 'Microsoft is doomed' meme is really beginning to annoy me. Yes,
their heyday has past when everyone had a PC running Windows in their homes,
but that does not mean the end of Microsoft.

"Tablets and smartphones are the future of computing" to which I say bollocks.
If I'm working a 9-5 job and need a computer, I don't want to be two finger
tapping on a virtual keyboard. Can you imagine the epidemic of RSI that would
ensue. I want a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor, and I don't give a shit what
they,re plugged into, but I highly doubt it's going to be a £400 iPad with no
access to the file system. I'd rather use a Raspberry Pi if I have real work
to do.

Yes, the vast majority of users just want access to Facebook and Twitter, but
in business you want a Windows, OSX or Linux PC.

If developers were to actually start developing all iPad apps on iPads I might
consider the battle lost, but as far as I'm concerned the PC maybe in decline,
but that's to be expected after a boom. It will level out eventually.

~~~
cliveowen
imho that's the point, the consumer market will rely almost exclusively on
smartphones and tablet, while the business market will remain just the same.
So, in the worst case, Microsoft will became a purely business company, a new
IBM if you will. Microsoft will do just fine.

~~~
crander
That's called retreating 'upmarket' and it usually (historically) fails. IBM
is the exception.

As clichéd as the Innovator's Dilemma is now, I find very few folks who have
actually read it and processed all the strategies, and case studies in the
book.

Spinning off a wholly independent entity that can compete at the new price
level/market is Christensen's recommended approach. It's all in the book.

------
mdm_
>Businesses are not going to put iPads on peoples’ desks any time soon, nor
are they going to ditch Microsoft Office in favor of Google Docs.

That's interesting, because at MPoW we've been using Google Docs for several
years and at most meetings I attend, you can look around the table and not see
a single laptop; everyone is using a tablet or smartphone.

It's amazing how fast it's changed too. When I started here ~4.5 years ago,
Office documents shared on network drives or emailed back and forth was the
norm and if you had a meeting of n people, you can be sure there would be n
laptops around the table.

~~~
tluyben2
Yep. It's changing really fast. BYOD is so popular here with big companies;
clunky laptops are unopened for months at a time while employees happily use
iPads for everything. Even if the company didn't pay for them. I myself cannot
imagine how you do a lot of the work (or play) on tablets; but I know many
people typing entire documents (books, (white)papers) on their tables in
favour of laptops/desktops. So I see it changing fast; some people will not
drop their keyboards, but when I get into a train now full of business people,
you can count the laptops on 1 hand; the rest having iPads. That was
completely different a few years ago.

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davidjgraph
Or to give it a slightly less linkbaity headline:

"Microsoft's current strategy and product range has a limited lifespan, but
it's so cash rich it could just buy it's way into growth markets"

So, really, it's not doomed or dissimilar to most other mature large
companies.

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afreak
Microsoft is far from doomed, but it is interesting to see Digital compared to
them. I have said since the iPhone came out that if Microsoft fails to compete
within the mobile devices market that it would become another IBM or it would
be merged into some other company. So far all signs point to failure on
usurping the market from Apple or Google.

I think that we are still a ways off from this situation, but I cannot see
Microsoft as its own entity in two decades.

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bhauer
Doomed is obviously used for dramatic effect. Needs to, and is struggling to
adapt, yes.

Nevertheless, as the article hints, work (and even consumption and creation at
home) is routinely done at desks. Whether we continue to call that "desktop
computing" or "using a PC" or any other untrendy phrase is a matter of
language. I believe tablets are sexy because of what they do, not necessarily
that people like having to hold them or like small screens. They are great on
the go, but when I am at home or at the office, I want large form-factor. I
would prefer immersion.

I feel Microsoft needs to steadfastly improve their principal area of
strength: work and play at desks [1]. I also think that with the nascent swing
back to users recognizing the value of control, Microsoft should take the
(daring?) position of being the only tech titan to encourage a decentralized
cloud.

Reviewing my blog rant on Microsoft again, though, it's the nearly-last point
about MSDN pricing that just has me shaking my head in disgust. The pricing is
so unbelievably out of whack with today's development model.

[1] [http://tiamat.tsotech.com/microsoft](http://tiamat.tsotech.com/microsoft)

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shmerl
It's doomed because Windows on PC is losing ground. Linux gaming is on the
rise and it will push Windodws out even more.

~~~
MarcScott
Gaming is a tiny niche market in reality. Microsoft runs almost everything.
Have you ever seen an ATM crash - yep you get a BSOD, or a ticket machine at a
cinema, or a checkout till. Most of these machines are still running XP!

~~~
islon
"Gaming is a tiny niche market in reality" Yes, it's just the biggest medium
industry in the world, ahead of hollywood and music.

~~~
MarcScott
I was talking in regards to PC sales. Microsoft has gaming covered with the
XBox, and to a certain extent IE. When I said niche, I was referring to gamers
that buy PC gaming rigs. These consumers are not important to Microsoft, they
have bigger fish to fry.

~~~
shmerl
Microsoft doesn't care that much about PC gaming these days and this is
another thing that will bite them. Linux will emerge as PC gaming leading
platform in the future.

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Toshio
> "Microsoft is doomed, but first it’s going to make a ton of money" ...

... by milking the trapped, a.k.a. raising the price of client access licenses
here and there - which incidentally explains why it still looks like a
profitable company on the enterprise side of the equation.

