

Microsoft trashes its brand — with Apple the big winner - zen53
http://bigtin.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/microsoft-trashes-its-brand-with-apple-the-big-winner/

======
iamelgringo
Have a look at Microsoft's sales figures for the past few quarters:
<http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar08/10k_fh_fin.html>

They're still making money hand over fist despite having a lame duck OS and
one of the worst economies in decades. Their revenue increased by $10 billion
and had profits of $3.5 billion.

I really wish that people would look at these numbers before declaring doom
and gloom for Microsoft. The market isn't exactly running screaming from
Microsoft as some would hope.

~~~
pcc
Maybe its just me -- but I really don't see how this article is declaring
financial doom and gloom for Microsoft, or saying that the market is running
screaming from Microsoft? It just seems to be saying that enterprises aren't
(yet) seeing a compelling case for upgrading from XP to 7.

------
wvenable
I work as a consultant for a lot of medium sized businesses and none of them
have any intention of moving away from XP anytime soon. However, that does not
imply that they want to move to any other operating system. The main reason
they don't want to move away from XP is the support and training costs. Moving
to OS X or Linux would be _even worse_.

All of these columnists miss the point -- OS X and Linux won't sell for exact
same reason that Vista doesn't.

------
colins_pride
_It’s just a major shame that Apple’s business model and contempt for its
users is even less appetising than Microsoft’s…_

Huh?

~~~
mechanical_fish
Note the blog tag line:

 _Big tin: IT infrastructure used by organisations to run their businesses._

So, I think this final sentence needs translation. For "Apple's business
model", substitute "Apple's business model, which involves not caring much
about the low-margin, high-grief corporate IT hardware business." And, for
"contempt for its users", substitute "contempt for the people running
corporate IT departments". (Remember, IT doesn't care about the people who
_type_ on the computers. It's the people who _set up_ the computers who are
the primary "users".)

I'm sure it really does suck to try and maintain Macs in a Windows-centric
corporate environment. But it's not as if corporate IT has anyone but
themselves to blame. They turned away from Apple in the _early 1980s_ and have
never really looked back until now. Apple has learned to survive without their
business and now has no real incentive to become the next Microsoft. Somebody
else needs to step up and do that.

~~~
swombat
_low-margin, high-grief corporate IT hardware business_

Low-margin? I used to work at a large bank, and I recall Dell charged them
some £25 for a plain USB optical mouse with just 2 buttons and a mouse-wheel.
I'm sure many businesses could do with these kinds of margins.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Are you trying to tell me that Apple's equivalent USB optical mouse was
_significantly cheaper_ than Dell's? That _would_ be a surprise.

Other questions to put this anecdote in perspective: Was that a list price or
the result of a negotiation? What _were_ the competing products in the UK at
the time, and why would a bank choose Dell if those products where
significantly cheaper?

~~~
swombat
The bank's supplier for desktop computer hardware was Dell. If Dell could
deliver it, it was ordered from Dell. There was no "choice". And yes, it was a
list price, no negotiation involved.

There were plenty of competing products in the UK - I could have had a better
mouse for cheaper by wandering down to PC World, down the road, and paying
£10. But the corporate ordering process didn't allow me to get involved in
that - all I could do was express the fact that I needed a mouse with a wheel.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_If Dell could deliver it, it was ordered from Dell._

Well, there you have it. If you are Dell and you secure that exclusive deal,
you get to charge high margins on certain incidental products.

Of course, as has been pointed out by olefoo, to get a deal like that Dell
probably had to give up a lot of margin on _other_ products. And throw in
support contracts, and expend a lot of sales time...

------
kierank
I don't have an opinion either way on this Mac/PC thing however I do think
that the marketing is quite interesting.

For many years Macs have been portrayed as "cool", with all the "Mac vs Pc"
adverts as well as the indirect appeal from the iPod / iTunes advertising.

Microsoft have been quite clever at counteracting this in the new adverts this
in my opinion. In their adverts, they're gently nudging the idea that Macs are
one step up from cool; the implication is "Macs are _elitist_ " owing to the
price differences making a purchase by "real-life people" imposible. Once this
implication gets through to the majority of people, this starts to kill the
trendiness factor.

Or am I over-analysing it?

------
jrockway
Unfortunately for Apple, Microsoft doesn't need a brand. It already has
millions of people who are locked in to applications that depend upon
Microsoft software.

------
anigbrowl
Right back to the days of MS-DOS, every other OS version from Redmond seemed
to garner contempt, only for the complainers to be mollified by the version
that came after (and claim credit a la 'finally Microsoft has listened to what
people like me have been saying since the release of FU-DOS 4.0...'). Vista
hasn't been a failure for MS, just not an obvious success. 'Failure' brings to
mind things like OS/2.

For >20 years now, I've just been in the habit of preferring the odd-numbered
versions, and assuming that the even-numbered versions were meant as
incubators for the next major shift (most recently, from 32 to 64 bit
computing). At first I thought this was due to ham-handedness at MS, but
nowadays I wonder if it isn't the actual strategy - the pattern has repeated
so many times now, perhaps it's because it actually works for MS. Notice how
aggressive advertising on Vista's behalf only began last year as W7 was going
into beta.

Thus, I predict that Windows 8 will require a minimum of 2 cores, 16gb of RAM
and a 1gb Graphics card, leverage virtualization technology for application
switching and be decried as a hugely inefficient and pointless attempt to
recycle server solutions onto the desktop for no good reason. When Windows 9
emerges, there will be many headlines of the 'Microsoft desperately needs to
recover from the disaster that was Windows 8...' variety.

------
ashr
The enterprises that are on Windows today aren’t going to move to OS X anytime
soon and this is why:

There is a huge barrier for enterprises to move to OS X, it is locked into Mac
hardware.

Macs are extremely overpriced as compared to their PC counterparts: 30% - 50%
more!

So for cost conscious enterprises, when they compare between the cost of
upgrading to Windows 7 (which has had good reviews so far) with cost of buying
new Apple hardware and OS X, Windows 7 turns out to be the winner.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Macs are extremely overpriced as compared to their PC counterparts: 30% - 50%
more!_

Do you have any analysis, or are you just spreading old FUD?

Here's a 2006 link finding that a Mac Pro was _cheaper_ than a comparably
equipped Dell of the time. (Though, as you can see, you can spend all day
arguing about what "comparable" means.)

[http://www.macworld.com/article/52540/2006/08/dellmacprofoll...](http://www.macworld.com/article/52540/2006/08/dellmacprofollowup.html)

Here's a 2007 Computerworld analysis:

[http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewA...](http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9023959)

Of course, the difference is that Apple simply stays out of low-margin
markets. So it's definitely possible to get a box with "PC" stamped on it for
much less money than the cost of any new Mac. The most conspicuous current
example of a market which Apple does not deign to enter is the netbook market.

~~~
ashr
Definitely not into this for FUD :)

Also have no intention for starting PC brand war here. One can go visit a PC
vendor's web site (say, dell) look at the notebook/desktop/workstation
hardware configuration and prices and then compare with what one can find on
say, Apple Store.

This year, I recently purchased a gateway laptop:
<http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668231.php>

(17" HD display, 64 bit Intel Core 2 Duo 8400 2.26 GHz CPU, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 320
GB 7200 rpm hard disk, NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GTS Graphics with 1GB of GDDR3
Discrete Video Memory).

I got this for $1270 after tax. For the same amount of money I also bought a
Macbook: <http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html> (13.3" display, Intel Core
2 Duo CPU 2.0 GHz, 2 GB DDR3 RAM, 160 GB 5400 rpm hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce
9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory).

I would like to point out that I love both of these notebooks. I would give
Apple extra points for build quality, fit & finish and better user experience.
That said, one can very well see, item-by-item, how do the technical specs
compare between the two mentioned here.

When a for profit company has to make a decision, cost of purchase becomes a
big factor and that is the _only_ point I am trying to make here.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Much_ better. Thanks.

------
TweedHeads
Apple sells beautiful, fashionable and durable products worth every penny
spent.

------
phoxix2
I feared the day the pro-Apple kidiots would take over HN ...

This article tells us nothing we did not know, provides no meaningful insight,
and then tells us in no-way-shape-or-form exactly hhhoooowwww Apple is
bettering its brand.

To the Apple lovers: Notice how the tens of millions of corporate desktops are
<i>sticking</i> to Windows XP. They aren't switching to Apple, and couldn't
due to a lack of a proper Exchange client, nor advanced Active Directory
features ...

I guess its too late for HN :^(

~~~
pcc
Could you clarify how you extrapolate from this article to "pro-Apple kidiots
are taking over HN?"

To me it seems the article is only talking about trends and survey results, is
not espousing any particular "Apple Love" and is not aiming to delve into the
mechanics of how Apple is bettering its brand -- its merely making
observation.

Your comment to Apple lovers really applies to Linux as well, so I'm not sure
why you need to make the distinction.

I guess corporate users would generally move their desktops (either to the
next version, or to something else) because they feel it creates extra value
(maybe better stability, easier management or whatever), and this outweighs
the cost of the change. Or, from fear that if they don't keep up, in future
they may be stuck with a larger problem.

Corporate desktops that are sticking to XP aren't moving anywhere; not even to
Vista/7. Obviously nobody is creating sufficient incremental value - yet.
Thus, one really can infer nothing as to where they might end up migrating
down the road.

Lack of "proper exchange client" or "advanced active directory features" (?)
also probably doesn't mean much -- its not as if anyone has the "One True Way
(tm)" of doing email, scheduling or ldap. Corps do walk away from Exchange/AD
(or any other technology for that matter) if sufficient value is added
overall.

~~~
billswift
Actually, the article seems to regret the way Microsoft looks like it's about
to shoot itself somewhere very painful (after having already shot itself in
the foot with Vista).

