With holiday PC sales apparently unscathed by the lack of Windows Vista, Microsoft reported quarterly earnings Thursday that topped expectations and its own forecast. The software giant said it earned USD 2.63 billion, or 26 cents per share, on revenue of USD 12.54 billion, for the three months ended December 31. That compares with earnings of USD 3.65 billion, or 34 cents per share, on revenue of USD 11.83 billion for the same quarter a year ago.
Most people doesn’t buy or upgrade their OS. They get it bundled with a new PC. To Microsoft it doesn’t matter if that PC comes bundled with Vista or XP Microsoft will get their money anyway.
And what does that have to do with their last quarter earnings considering that Vista isn’t out yet?
It has a lot to do with the fact that Vista is not out yet. What this paper shows, is that Microsoft can still sell XP even though Vista is so close to public release.
It means nothing to us guys on the street, as we can see through marketing crap, but this report was aimed at shareholders who only ever want to sell good news about sales.
I do not believe company sponsored reports like these. I want to see independent reports.
Last I checked, quarterly reports like this are legally binding, and thus factual…MS “sponsored” it because they are legally bound to do so under US law.
Also, as MS is a publicly held company, all of their numbers (past and present) are public domain regardless if they made or lost money. If you are implying that they can put “spin” on stuff like this…perhaps in their own press reports yes, but not in documents that are public domain.
What planet are some of you guys from?
Same planet as you….
However, not from the same country.
US laws do not apply here, but still we get the same spin from US corporates.
Over here, we beleive in COLD,HARD, FACTS>>>
Microsoft Corp (NSDQ: MSFT)
Last Sale Change Volume
30.45 -0.64 -2.06% 99,304,980
Edited 2007-01-26 00:41
Doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft IS subject to US law when it comes to reporting its financial numbers at each quarter.
And a 2.06% price drop proves what? a small number of profit takers have sold off their shares – given that it dropped by only a small amount, one could say that on the news, share holders in Microsoft see the outlook as neutral at worse, in regards to waiting for whether Vista sales take off, and optimistic at the positive end of the spectrum.
With that being said, however, I do think that $30 per share is excessive given that there are companies in Australia and New Zealand who make more (or similar) than Microsoft, and have share prices lower than them, and better still, give alot better dividends per share.
Then again, over inflated share prices seem to be a thing in the US – lots of capital gain but very little dividends.
I don’t think it shows they can still sell XP in spite of Vista being released. I think it just shows that people buy computers with Windows pre-installed.
It also would be plausible to say that people didn’t really expect MS to ship Vista anytime soon because they haven’t shipped for five years.
And what does that have to do with their last quarter earnings considering that Vista isn’t out yet?
You’re missing the essential truth, or are just not wanting to face it.
The figures show clearly that Vista or no Vista, Microsoft’s revenue is unchanged and unscathed despite it having taken over five years to get its next major product out. No company in any normal market place could even remotely contemplate doing anything like that, surviving from the revenue of their years old product (and with few improvements) where that revenue hasn’t even fluctuated or showed any kind of decline.
Vista or no Vista, new product or not, it shows that Microsoft is going to get a steady stream of predictable revenue come what may. That shows you that there is something very wrong with this market, as many people laughably call it.
Xbox; Deferred revenue. Other than the Upgrade program I find little to do with Vista.
Other than XP; Office 2003 selling quite nicely.
It just shows it doesn’t hurt to be a monopoly.
Microsoft isn’t a monopoly, it’s a monoculture. The barrier to competing with Microsoft isn’t political or economic, is social. Competitors will have success against Microsoft just as soon as using anything other than Windows becomes socially acceptable.
Further, the monoculture is Windows NT/2000/XP the platform, not Windows the brand. Vista is a whole new platform in many respects. Many businesses are not even remotely ready to bring Vista into their IT environment. Even if OEMs want to sell Vista preloaded, businesses will say no thanks, give me my Windows XP. That’s the monoculture at work.
Competitors will have success against Microsoft just as soon as using anything other than Windows becomes socially acceptable.
I don’t think other OSes aren’t socially “acceptable”. Look at OS X (and Macs), for example: it worldwide has the imagine of a “cool thing”, something one could buy just like sun glasses from D&G. However, that OS is slowly gaining shares, very slowly, despite the marketing hype of “coolness”.
Competitors will have success when they will finally realize that (at least in present Windows world, that is West plus small parts of other places) to win they first need to support Windows because they can’t ask people to completely change what they did for 15 years.
This is of course different where market is still building, like China, for example, where competitors run and Microsoft has been almost banned.
What I meant by “socially acceptable” is that people expect you play by the rules of Windows in order to participate in society. In other words, Windows users think everybody downloads crapware, clicks Next, and runs SpyBot every few weeks.
The idea of a centralized source of specialized packages that hook together automatically to form a clean and manageable system is just plain foreign to these people. You show them the application that categorizes and searches over 20,000 packages they can install with a single click and they still search the web for weather applets and toolbars and what-not.
They enjoy the struggle. It’s indoctrinated. It’s somehow more reassuring to know that their antivirus software is blinking away in the system tray than to be told that this system doesn’t need extra virus protection. Of course it does. And it needs registry cleaners and defragmenting and a fresh reinstall every now and again. There’s no telling them otherwise. That’s how computers work.
You can’t support this culture. Not even Microsoft can. It takes everyone’s stubborn patience and trillions of dollars per year in excess costs to just barely support this culture–to keep it teetering on the edge of unsustainability.
Here we are, the most adaptable species on our planet. We create tools to shape our environment. And just because we’ve been using stupid tools for a measly 15 years, we’ve lost the ability to accept smarter tools? Either the human race is getting dumber, or it’s a divine miracle we’re not still hunting with spears.
Or maybe things aren’t really as bad as you say for a large enough fraction of the users. I’m in a fairly large institution with a broad spectrum of smart, but not always computer-savvy, people and most of the population does just fine at keeping their Windows machines functional. There are some who have problems once and then learn their lesson and don’t face it again. By and large people get by though. And most of the issues I see are hardware failures or config issues (our network requires some registration to connect).
Competitors will have success against Microsoft just as soon as using anything other than Windows becomes socially acceptable.
IMO: it does not have to do with being “socially acceptable” so much as the Network Effect and Vendor Lock-in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
“It just shows it doesn’t hurt to be a monopoly.”
Your comment just shows that no matter how little substance a response can have around here, slip the word “monopoly” in to a reply on a post about MS, and you’re sure to get modded up.
This quarterly report was released 5 days before the Vista launch merely by coincidence…publicly traded companies have 30 days to file paperwork after the close of their fiscal quarter, which in this case was Dec 31st.
@butters No its definitely a monopoly.
“Your comment just shows that no matter how little substance a response can have around here, slip the word “monopoly” in to a reply on a post about MS, and you’re sure to get modded up.”
Ok I’ll add a little more substance *five years” Vista has been out. I don’t even have a electronic piece of equipment in my house that old…and I have a VCR.
Has Apple; linux!?, Sun; Anyone at all been able to make an impact on Microsoft’s Money Making Machine. Even though alternatives are cheaper; Better; Good Enough for 90% of users. Maybe a couple of percent.
Can Microsoft afford to fritter away money on ventures like the Zune; Xbox and lose Millions of pounds just to try and Monopolize another Market.
And what do they have to show for it…an OS with *underlying improvement*; *rewrote from scratch*, but with no positive impact on the user, whole countries are advising not to use it, strong Microsoft supporters in the Education sector are saying hold off. Bloggs; National Press; Everyone is saying its expensive(read overpriced).
…and yet everyone here is dimly aware that we will all be using Vista at one time or other.
@jayson.knight you want more I can post links for all the stuff in this post, plus links to Microsoft being a Monopoly in the US;EU…and Korea, but if you cant see 5 years out of the Market and have made larger and larger profits since…the whole point of the article then I give up.
if anyone can find a copy of it, please send me a copy. My e-mail address is [email protected]
I’ve been looking everywhere and can’t find it! LOL!!!1!!
When you’re charging an exorbitant amount of money for buggy software that you foist upon a clueless public; which you’ve kept hostage by enforcing shady OEM & educational deals…is it any wonder your profits are through the roof?
You mean exclusive contracts that OEM’s choose to enter into? oh, how terrible, Microsoft offering them a lower price with strings attached; don’t attack Microsoft for doing something that every other company does – Coca Cola pay for prime place in the shelf; should they be punished for just conducting business as anyone else does?
Education – governments CHOOSE to go down that; why didn’t I see Sun, Red Hat or Novell apply for the education software supplying contract in New Zealand? $10million not enough? New Zealand is a piddly pathetic small country thats not worth a pinch of shit – but Microsoft was more than happy to bend over backwards and provide a good deal for the NZ Ministry of Education.
As for ‘forced end users’ – end users would run an alternative operating system if they could get their games and applications on that operating system; the day they can go down to the local computer superstore and purchase a boxed game or application off the shelf, take it home, and install it without needing to jump through hoops – then there has been progressed made.
Until that day Linux will remain a niche operating system for a small number of users who want that flexibility and power at their fingertips – thats not saying anything negative about Linux, but its facing the reality that end users run an operating system to access their favourite applications; they’re happy with the applications, they’ve learned how to use it, and they don’t want to change.
“don’t attack Microsoft for doing something that every other company does – Coca Cola pay for prime place in the shelf; should they be punished for just conducting business as anyone else does?”
Well, there has been a lawsuit or two that indicates it’s not just “business as anyone else”.
I don’t know what they did to get to become that dominant, but they have been making sure that OEM’s had very little choice but to sign those contracts that stopped them from selling any competing OS.
Read up on how Be Inc couldn’t even GIVE away their OS because of those contracts.
I don’t know what they did to get to become that dominant, but they have been making sure that OEM’s had very little choice but to sign those contracts that stopped them from selling any competing OS.
Read up on how Be Inc couldn’t even GIVE away their OS because of those contracts.
Bullcrap; I know the contract they would have signed; I’ve seen the damn thing! its a contract that outlines exclusivity in supply which in return the OEM receives a major discount on purchasing Windows licences; the discount – can be up 80% compared to the regular OEM packs that are sold via the usual distributors.
If you’re an OEM; you can either make a deal with Microsoft with an exclusive contract or you can purchase OEM Windows licence packs off distributor in lots of IIRC 10’s, 50’s, 100’s, 1000’s and upwards; the cost decreases as the number of licences increase, but the discount isn’t as steep as one would expect if one when into an exclusive contract.
These companies CHOSE to enter into a contract knowing full well that in the future it would inhibit their chances of diversifying their product range by also offering what ever else was out there – that is the cold hard truth; if you want someone to blame, you can clearly blame the manufactuers who took on the patrionising view of ‘we know whats best for the stupid users, so we’ll only sell Microsoft software’ – and when the trial came forward, you and all the OEM’s come out of the wood work, claiming they were pillaged and raped by Microsoft, forced into signing contracts at gun point – and funny enough, all these companies then sign up to another contract, after blackmailing Microsoft, and demanded lower prices for OEM copies of Windows.
Its hypocracy in action, and may I suggest you look at the reality; both OEM’s and Microsoft are scumbags; Microsoft screwing the end user with poorly tested inferior products, and OEM vendors fobbing the responsibility off on others when they don’t get their own way or when they’re caught out.
“These companies CHOSE to enter into a contract knowing full well that in the future it would inhibit their chances of diversifying their product range by also offering what ever else was out there”
Sure they did. They also knew that their ability to compete right now would be limited if they didn’t sign their contract.
If all the OEMs would refuse to sign this (and paying a higher price for the windows licenses) they could have had options to sell more things later.
Most people wants Windows on their machine and don’t care about anything else so the deal wasn’t terrible for the OEMs. At least not worse than the option. The deal was really good for Microsoft. In the end, the only ones who it wasn’t good for was the consumers.
If you read the DoJ “Findings of facts” (http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm) you’ll see that it is pointed out in numerous places how this hurt competition and in the end the consumers.
You can say that this is the way everone does business all you want, that doesn’t make it right. If other companies do the same thing, I hope they too get taken to court.
Sure they did. They also knew that their ability to compete right now would be limited if they didn’t sign their contract.
If all the OEMs would refuse to sign this (and paying a higher price for the windows licenses) they could have had options to sell more things later.
Most people wants Windows on their machine and don’t care about anything else so the deal wasn’t terrible for the OEMs. At least not worse than the option. The deal was really good for Microsoft. In the end, the only ones who it wasn’t good for was the consumers.
So you actually admit in the above paragraphs that it was the vendors who chose to enter into the contract, it was the vendors who restricted choice.
Microsoft offered them the choice; cheaper by more restrictive contract or the slightly more expensive option with more flexibility – and they choice the cheaper more restrictive one.
So if one were to actually take companies to court, it should be the OEM’s restricting choice to the public by refusing to offer alternatives.
Thanks for admitting that the fault lies with the hardware vendors and not Microsoft.
These companies CHOSE to enter into a contract knowing full well that in the future it would inhibit their chances of diversifying their product range by also offering what ever else was out there
They didn’t choose anything. Using your rather silly Coca Cola analogy, if other foods that I ate depended on me drinking Coca Cola at the same time otherwise I’d starve (or the all new Coca Cola Explorer), then shops wouldn’t have a choice but to sell Coca Cola. It’s a hard and fast pre-requisite, and it’s something that unscrupulous companies like Monsanto would absolutely love to achieve. Would that be acceptable do you think?
That’s called a monopoly, and Microsoft’s is as secure a monopoly as we have ever seen. You can shout, scream and say “but people could go elsewhere” all you like, but it is still a monopoly and they are things that governments have laws to govern.
…forced into signing contracts at gun point – and funny enough, all these companies then sign up to another contract, after blackmailing Microsoft, and demanded lower prices for OEM copies of Windows.
Ever seen the film Total Recall? When you are living in a market and world where oxygen is a hard and fast requirement, there isn’t any produced naturally and someone happens to be selling it, that’s called leverage.
Honestly, I don’t know what some of you have been drinking (Coca Cola probably) after years of evidence as to how this works, but I suppose a pig headed reluctance to see facts in the face will see you through.
Edited 2007-01-26 11:28
They didn’t choose anything. Using your rather silly Coca Cola analogy, if other foods that I ate depended on me drinking Coca Cola at the same time otherwise I’d starve (or the all new Coca Cola Explorer), then shops wouldn’t have a choice but to sell Coca Cola. It’s a hard and fast pre-requisite, and it’s something that unscrupulous companies like Monsanto would absolutely love to achieve. Would that be acceptable do you think?
Interesting, so now you’re claiming that it goes from a market good to a merit good by claiming that compared to Coca Cola, Windows is a necessity and needs to be regulated – nice to see you’ve now come at it from another angle.
An operating system is a necessity for a computer to operate, but it isn’t a necessity for it to be running Windows – who is to blame because the alternatives are so crap? should Microsoft be blamed because Sun, Red Hat and Novell have done absolutely NOTHING about getting third party commercial software on Linux/OpenSolaris? I’ve yet to see Sun use its $4billion the bank to approach the likes of Adobe and say, “ok, how much will it cost to port your whole software portfolio to OpenSolaris/GNOME natively?” and invest that money in Adobe to get the software ported – Sun could do that, but they’d rather be cheap skates, sit on the sidelines blaming Microsoft, because hey, its a whole lot easier to blame and abuse than actually do something about the dearth of mainstream applications on *NIX.
That’s called a monopoly, and Microsoft’s is as secure a monopoly as we have ever seen. You can shout, scream and say “but people could go elsewhere” all you like, but it is still a monopoly and they are things that governments have laws to govern.
Yes, you are correct; the government must ensure that monopolies do not abuse their power as to allow competitors to compete in the market on an equal footing as the dominant player.
If Microsoft *ONLY* offered an exclusive contract and told the OEM vendors “take it or leave it’ then sure, it would sit in the realm of your ‘total recall’ anology – but the fact is, they are offered MORE than just one contract to sign.
The OEM”s CHOSE out of ALL the contracts they were offered, the one that had the deepest discount and the highest restriction; should Microsoft be blamed for the stupidity of the customer? thats as ridiculous as to claim that because someone drinks too much and suffers from alcohol poisoning, its the alcohol manufacturers fault rather than the individual not taking any responsibility for his actions.
Oh, and btw, Dell OFFERED Linux desktops with Red Hat Enterprise Desktop – they since STOPPED selling those machines because there was insufficient sales, and NOTHING to do with any ‘strong armed’ tactics by Microsft – Linux is making inroads into the server space, even with this so-called ‘strong arm tactics’ you claim – how about just bloody well admitting that *NIX isn’t ready for the desktop, and move along.
The example with Red Hat spoke volumes; they offered it as an option on a desktop, the market responded by continued window sales with very few Linux desktop sales – babe, you want freemarket, the market has spoken; its like a democracy voting with their wallets, don’t like the outcome, do something about it by improving what you offer them, then maybe they’ll consider it the next time they vote with their wallets when purchasing.
An operating system is a necessity for a computer to operate, but it isn’t a necessity for it to be running Windows
It’s a necessity for it to run an OS of some kind, and whatever that OS and whoever it is controlled by is makes the rules everyone follows thereafter.
but the fact is, they are offered MORE than just one contract to sign.
It doesn’t matter how many contracts there are – they’re all drawn up by Microsoft. That’s just so bizarre it isn’t funny. The Total Recall analogy fits, because OEMs exist in a universe where Microsoft and Windows make the rules, and if they want to stay in business they depend on the software people run, what that software is written for etc. etc. The notion that OEMs choose anything is, again, laughable.
Oh, and btw, Dell OFFERED Linux desktops with Red Hat Enterprise Desktop – they since STOPPED selling those machines because there was insufficient sales
When it’s hidden away under several layers on a web site, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Linux is making inroads into the server space, even with this so-called ‘strong arm tactics’ you claim
Microsoft does not have the control over the server that they do over the desktop, but that has gradually changed ever so slightly with software such as Exchange.
I also love the ‘you claim’ bit. Microsoft’s monopoly position and how it is kept is simply a fact. That’s all there is to it.
how about just bloody well admitting that *NIX isn’t ready for the desktop, and move along.
You’re attempts to portray Windows as being in some sort of market is laughable. I’m not arguing about any *nix’s suitability as a desktop (and there are many desktop uses) but that fact that Windows simply doesn’t compete in a market as we would know it.
babe, you want freemarket, the market has spoken
Considering that there is no market, and everything is based on who comes first and can make the rules………
Alternatives are made available; customers have chosen to go with Windows – whose fault is that? are you now saying that without the government intervention, end users are too stupid to make their own decisions?
Please don’t slam Coca-Cola drinkers… Even I know MS has unfair and unrelenting leverage on the market, and I drink Coke all day!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6300675.stm
See Jason.Knight, I stand by my original assessment. Microsoft lies.
They lied about their earnings being better than expected? No. The article linked by the person you replied to says thier warnings were worse than the same time last year. That does not at all contradict what they said. Sad you got modded up for such a blatantly wrong statement.
Sad you got modded up for such a blatantly wrong statement.
I know, but thats the way things seem to be around here.
I read both articles again, and yes, I was wrong.
The problem with ‘no impacted by delay’ – Microsoft has given out free coupons to current purchases of Windows XP and Office products for free upgrades to Vista and Office 2007 respectively.
The issue will be whether the following quarter will be show an impact on their underlying profit based on the number of people who ‘cash in’ their coupon and whether there is enough retail sales to make up the difference between the coupon ‘sales’ and full price sales.
Vista looks like a promising product, but at the same time; given that they’ve extended the EOL of Windows XP Professional (and most likely Home), one feels that Microsoft is preparing itself for a long migration ahead as the changes they’ve made are quite radical, thus, for many people, might require either upgrading their software or waiting on third party vendors to provide compatibility updates for their products.
Please read up on US anti-trust law. You seem to be missing a fundamental difference between Microsoft and companies like Coca Cola — they have been found to be a monopoly, and that changes the rules under which they must operate.
It isn’t rocket science…
Browser: Links (0.99; OS/2 1 i386; 80×33)
Please read up on US anti-trust law. You seem to be missing a fundamental difference between Microsoft and companies like Coca Cola — they have been found to be a monopoly, and that changes the rules under which they must operate.
Sweet cheeks, there is a reply button there for a reason; use it; I don’t make it a habit tralling through this forum looking out for those who have replied to me, but couldn’t be bothered using the appropriately provided features on this site.
Secondly, this exclusive contract existed before Microsoft became a monopoly, or to use a more ‘politically correct’ term – dominant market player.
Lets also remember, we need to blame competitors who failed to step up to the crease when opportunities arose; we could all be running SPARC powered machines had Sun not been such a coward and pulled out of the desktop space; we’d all be using dumb terminals over high speed internet connects had the UNIX vendors pulled finger and came out with a unified standard for the various UNIX’s.
To some how imply that Microsoft suddenly got market share, then imposed these exclusive contracts on OEM’s is nothing less than a complete and utter lie used by Microsoft’s detractors to explain as to why they lost and Microsoft won.
Microsoft wins, not because their products are superior, but because the competition is so utterly shit when it comes to knowing what the end user wants – believe me, if Apple made MacOS X available to even a small number of OEMs – Dell, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo and Fujitsu/Siemens; Microsoft would be shitting bricks right now; but Microsoft knows that it would never happen; and given the fact that no one in the *NIX world are willing to listen to what end users want, Microsoft know they can be as slovenly lazy as they want, and get away with it.
Edited 2007-01-26 08:31
Wrong.
Microsoft break all the laws all the time , that’s why they win.
Microsoft having an illegal exclusive deal since the first days does not make it less illegal because there competition is inept.
Microsoft enforcing that exclusive deal even after being prosecuted for monopoly practice is still illegal and does not make become less illegal because there competition is inept.
Microsoft stealing the technology of others and including it and selling it as there own does not make it less illegal because there competition is inept.
etc …
If at every cricket game the referee was only penalizing the other side bad move and allowed Microsoft to cheat all the time on top of the penalty by doing illegal moves , then the game would always be won by Microsoft.
And on the off chance that the referee was not in on it and fine them 10 000$ per game if they make 2 million on televised exclusive deal that paid only Microsoft and that there game attendance was not shared with the other team and they made 5 million per game and that they where the only cricket game in town because the stadium had an exclusive deal with them.
If the game is completely rigged in favor of the other team , you can show up , but you will NEVER win.
Even if your own team and all the team in the league is inept , that don’t make it right.
You can give me all the false excuses you want that the competition is inept , but that your own newer products coming and highly known about don’t affect sales on top of all else , well there is something really wrong.
What can I say on top of that :
The US government is corrupt …
The US justice system is broken …
The US laws are a joke …
Normal day in the US in other words.
But wait its the same everywhere when Microsoft is concerned …
Dell having zero GNU/Linux offer on the Dell notebooks they make and sell is because all of GNU/Linux is inept …
Gateway having zero GNU/Linux offer on the Dell notebooks they make and sell is because all of GNU/Linux is inept …
HP having zero GNU/Linux offer on the Dell notebooks they make and sell is because all of GNU/Linux is inept …
Lenovo having zero GNU/Linux offer on the Dell notebooks they make and sell is because all of GNU/Linux is inept …
Asus having zero GNU/Linux offer on the Dell notebooks they make and sell is because all of GNU/Linux is inept …
You will excuse me will I disagree with you.
>Secondly, this exclusive contract existed before Microsoft became a monopoly
And? The rules change when you are a monopoly so Microsoft should have stopped offering those contracts when their marketshare grew up over say 80% of the market.
They didn’t that’s why they have been found guilty of monopoly abuse.
Also BeOS being blocked out of PC sellers by Microsoft occured well after Microsoft was a monopoly for example.
Right. After becoming a dominant monopoly player, let’s stop offering low-priced deals to computer manufacturers. Increasing prices upon achieving dominancee will be the way to show them that we’re an honest company!
What everyone fails to understand is that Microsoft does not raise prices on their products. They never lower prices on old products either. When these products came out on the market, they were far cheaper than their competitors and the prices just never changed after that. Microsoft won because they were good enough and cheap enough. Sure there was some strong-arm dealings for preloading, but that worked to lower prices. How much should a piece of software cost, in your opinion? I think $20-$50 at OEM is perfectly reasonable for a piece of software as complex as Windows. People have paid a lot more for far less.
It is true that the only people who can compete right now with the entrenched position Microsoft has are Free Software makers because switching from the dominant OS has real (high) costs due to network effects. But the cost is not unbearable and if the linux people stopped trying to tweak everything at every level of the stack in breaking ways for marginal gains, then we might see wider linux adoption. But right now, it’s hard to make proprietary software on linux just due to the level of variation between installs. And not everyone who’s making linux is really interested in fixing this (why should they be? they’re making an OS for themselves, not for the masses.) I’m with kaiwai on this: the competitors just haven’t provided the customer what they wanted. Except Apple, who just didn’t price it low enough when they had a chance to cut Microsoft off before Windows became big.
Because breaking the law is better??
The problem is the problem is the *exclusivity* deal: remember this killed BeOS: they couldn’t convince any PC seller to sell PC in dual boot configuration (well they could find one but he retracted after a Microsoft guy talked with them).
Microsoft could lower the price to everybody, or by a volume discount or increase the price to everybody I couldn’t care less, but as a monopoly they shouldn’t be allowed to offer exclusivity deals, that’s all.
Sweet cheeks, there is a reply button there for a reason; use it; I don’t make it a habit tralling through this forum looking out for those who have replied to me, but couldn’t be bothered using the appropriately provided features on this site.
When I’m using a web browser that OSNews arbitrarily identifies as being a “limited” browser (e.g., Links), the “Reply” option is NOT available. The site layout is quite different when used in such browsers (even though the full site works if and only if I munge the browserID using a hex editor), and one can only post a message to an article in general, not respond to a specific message in a givne thread.
I’m using Firefox right now, so I can Reply directly, but I was using Links before. Don’t blame me for the OSNews site’s stupidly imposed limitations. I’ve bitched about their policy for a long time, and the Powers That Be here don’t seem to give a damn.
See the line in my previous message that says:
Browser: Links (0.99; OS/2 1 i386; 80×33)
It sure isn’t ME that’s adding that shit…
To illustrate (using Links under Solaris here at work):
http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner/links2.PNG“>OSNews
http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner/links3.PNG“>OSNews
http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner/links1.PNG“>Your
See a “Reply” option there? Didn’t think think so.
http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner/links4.PNG“>Your
Edited 2007-01-26 20:01
“””
When I’m using a web browser that OSNews arbitrarily identifies as being a “limited” browser (e.g., Links), the “Reply” option is NOT available. The site layout is quite different when used in such browsers (even though the full site works if and only if I munge the browserID using a hex editor), and one can only post a message to an article in general, not respond to a specific message in a givne thread.
“””
So don’t use Links?
I’ve never understood why people stubbornly cling to apps like Lynx, Links, Elinks, and Mutt… and then whine ceaselessly when the rest of the world does not cater to their choice of antiquated apps.
Join us in the 21st century! The water’s fine!
-Steve
Now, I’ll pretend you weren’t an utter twit above and actually response to your salient points.
Secondly, this exclusive contract existed before Microsoft became a monopoly, or to use a more ‘politically correct’ term – dominant market player.
Really? And you believe this revisionist history?
Here’s a juicy fact for you, my friend: Microsoft got themselves into a dominant market position in the OS market in the first place in the early 1990’s by USING such exclusive contracts.
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_index_licensing.htm
That was deemed illegal by the feds. In addition, the current contracts that you seem to be defending are not at all the same ones that existed prior to MS being a monopoly in the OS space. Those are renegotiated prior to every new OS release (and probably considerably more often then that). Have you forgotten the hassle IBM had to go though with the Windows 95 OEM licensing process? It went down to the last day, and they had to stop distributing their own operating system (OS/2) on their VERY OWN HARDWARE in order to get any sort of deal from MS.
*That’s* a prime example of a monopolist being able to apply pressure. Who else could get IBM to cave like that??
Lets also remember, we need to blame competitors who failed to step up to the crease when opportunities arose; we could all be running SPARC powered machines had Sun not been such a coward and pulled out of the desktop space; we’d all be using dumb terminals over high speed internet connects had the UNIX vendors pulled finger and came out with a unified standard for the various UNIX’s.
Uh… Have we forgotten OS/2 already? Remember that it won tons of awards (including InfoWorld’s Product of the Year for something like five years running) and that it was *the* OS to have in the hobbyist community from roughly 1993 until the end of 1995 or so.
It wasn’t a lack of a good product (or even user mindshare) that killed it. I have another link for you:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
The above is Groklaw’s MS Litigation Page. Look in the “OS/2” section and follow the various links.
To some how imply that Microsoft suddenly got market share, then imposed these exclusive contracts on OEM’s is nothing less than a complete and utter lie used by Microsoft’s detractors to explain as to why they lost and Microsoft won.
Of course not. Microsoft imposed those contracts on OEMs once they started getting an upper hand in the market with Windows, they used per-processor licensing and other illegal techniques to leverage that foothold into a monopoly position, and THEN they continued to use their position and illegal tactics to hold their position on the top of the market.
It’s actually worse than you seem to feel we believe…
Microsoft wins, not because their products are superior, but because the competition is so utterly shit
No, Microsoft wins because so many people completely forget the reasons for their being dominant in the first place — because they incorrectly believe that the market was incapable of competing when in fact the opposite was true. In the DOS market we had Windows, PC/GEOS, GEM, and even Deskview/X. In the later DOS market we had Windows 3.x, Windows NT in its little niche, and OS/2 taking over the hobbyist and some of the business market. OS/2 was the #1 retail product for consecutive months in 1996. Remember that?
No. The market was *quite* capable of competing, but Microsoft used their illegal strongarm tactics to unfairly bias the market.
I think you have a lot of reading to do…
Edited 2007-01-26 20:28
1) Interesting, you claim that IBM was *forced* to stop selling OS/2 on their machines back when Windows 95 was released, and yet, interesting enough, when I was in Australia back in 1996, you could purchase an IBM machine loaded with OS/2 – infact, it was placed at the end of the shelf so that was the first machine you saw as you entered the PC section.
So they hardly hid that computer down the back and out of sight so that no one new they sold an OS/2 machine; it was sitting out there, in all its big-blue glory waiting to be purchased by an end user.
It was IBM who killed off OS/2 sales because, like Linux, it never had the software availability which Windows had; sure it had the Lotus division and IBM software provided on it, but anything more than that, pretty much a pipe dream – it did have on thing going for it, the hardware support wasn’t actually too bad, and there were a sizable number of vendors releasing drivers for their hardware.
Oh, and btw, there is nothing stopping IBM from opensourcing OS/2 – don’t believe the ‘licencing’ hype which they scream, they could opensource it tomorrow, but you would end up with a massive migration to it – why do that when you can hype a system like linux which requires massive TLC and you can sell millions of dollars worth of ‘services’ just to get things glued into an existing infrastructure.
2) The alternatives were shit; we could be running a UNIX of some sort had they got their act together; Apple proved that a easy to use UNIX, in the form of A/UX was possible – too bad Sun didn’t continue developing OpenStep on Solaris – we’d have a very nice operating system now.
As for ‘market quite capable of competing’ interesting; why has Wordperfect/Lotus 1-2-3/Harvard Graphics/DBase all lost marketshare? the fact that they didn’t adapt to the time? the fact that they thought Windows was a ‘fad’ and that everyone would remain with DOS?
You obviously have no clue as to how crap the competition is; if the competition is so great; why doesn’t Wordperfect or OpenOffice.org make any dents in Microsoft Office marketshare? how come Linux has next to no big name software vendors like Adobe, Quicken, MYOB, Corel, Peachtree and the likes producing desktop software for it?
Interesting, you claim that IBM was *forced* to stop selling OS/2 on their machines back when Windows 95 was released, and yet, interesting enough, when I was in Australia back in 1996, you could purchase an IBM machine loaded with OS/2 – infact, it was placed at the end of the shelf so that was the first machine you saw as you entered the PC section.
When only one vendor is pushing an OS, what does that say about it? (Of course, I mean, “only one vendor that isn’t Microsoft”). OS/2 had no market because it had no apps and no name recognition like Microsoft. OS/2’s marketing was crap – who wants to use an OS used by nuns, and what the hell were they doing going at Warp speed?
Oh, and btw, there is nothing stopping IBM from opensourcing OS/2 – don’t believe the ‘licencing’ hype which they scream, they could opensource it tomorrow,
And you know this how?
but you would end up with a massive migration to it
Oh really?
– why do that when you can hype a system like linux which requires massive TLC and you can sell millions of dollars worth of ‘services’ just to get things glued into an existing infrastructure.
“Sweet cheeks”, Windows requires even more “TLC” than Linux.
Or on the other hand, we could believe your version of events. Yes, the world is just one massive IBM-led conspiracy to liberate the masses from “good” software like Windows so that malodorous unethical pizza-guzzling hacker-types from Finland can foist their needy OS crap on the world. Dream on.
You obviously have no clue as to how crap the competition is; if the competition is so great; why doesn’t Wordperfect or OpenOffice.org make any dents in Microsoft Office marketshare? how come Linux has next to no big name software vendors like Adobe, Quicken, MYOB, Corel, Peachtree and the likes producing desktop software for it?
Pudding, OpenOffice.org IS making dents in MS Office marketshare – not to mention Firefox. As for Adobe, Quicken, et al., it’s a chicken-and-egg situation. You can thank Microsoft for the fact that Wordperfect is no longer available for Linux, btw.
I don’t blame Microsoft for Corels financial problems; if Copeland never went down the road of their Java version of Wordperfect Suite and Netwinder you could have right now a native copy of Wordperfect Suite for Linux or some other *NIX for that matter.
With that being said, however, like I said, there is nothing stopping the likes of Novell, Red Hat or Sun, for example, investing $50million to get the application ported to their said platform.
If you ear marked $500million aside; invested it in the top 8-10 big software names; get the applications on the said platform, it would require sufficient motion within the third party software market for *NIX as to encourage more software companies to enter it.
It is about creating incentives for companies; grants, investment, join venture in regards to marketing and promoting the said product on the platform.
The problem is, none of the distributors are willing to do that leg work; they think if they sit in the corner with a lolly pop in their mouth, everything will work out for itself – sorry, that isn’t how Microsoft gets third parties on board.
Talk to anyone who works with Microsoft – heck, a mate of mine who owns a small software company in New Zealand had software after software thrown at him by Microsoft; free copies of Windows, development tools, consultation, talking about promoting their said product through Microsoft sales channels.
Oh, and sugar lips, I’ll be even more helpful. I know I provided this link in my second resposne, but I’ll do you a favor and highlight it again for you:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
Go there and read. You might actually learn something about Microsoft’s past activities.
There is one reason only why Microsoft is doing well despite Vista being late: Most people don’t go looking for an OS when they buy a computer, and most computers are preinstalled with Windows when sold.
Even those Tier 1 companies, like Dell, which will sell you a computer that has not been infected by a Microsoft OS will not advertise it, and will ask for more money for an MS-free computer than for an MS-infected one.
If people want to start making a dent in Microsoft’s marketshare, they need to start buying from the smaller manufacters (like EmperorLinux in the US and Linuxemporium in the UK) who will actually give you a choice.
I was just reading some interviews with the CEO of Red Flag the Chinese Linux distributor. He said that 90% of the Windows installs in China were illegal.
He also mentioned that the Chinese government was intent on eliminating pirated software from government and corporate environments. The consenus is that all MS products are too expensive.
Red Flag currently claims 30% of the Chinese market and installed 142,000 desktops in a single contract governemnt contract in 2005.
I expect the Chinese government will insist that all software is open source for “security” reasons within 2 -3 years effectively banning MS. This will create a domestic market of at least 200 million linux users.
“I expect the Chinese government will insist that all software is open source for “security” reasons within 2 -3 years effectively banning MS. This will create a domestic market of at least 200 million linux users.”
Doesn’t that effectively go against pretty much everything FOSS stands for, i.e. not being forced into a single type of solution…aka having a choice?
That’s a pretty sad way for Linux to pick up market share.
Simple enough concept, it is……
“the lesser of two evils”
“I expect the Chinese government will insist that all software is open source for “security” reasons within 2 -3 years effectively banning MS. This will create a domestic market of at least 200 million linux users.”
Doesn’t that effectively go against pretty much everything FOSS stands for, i.e. not being forced into a single type of solution…aka having a choice?
That’s a pretty sad way for Linux to pick up market share.
I think it very unlikely that the Chinese government would “ban” MS from the market. It is likely to insist for security reasons that all government agencies use FOSS for security reasons. No hidden trapdoors to send data back to US security agencies etc. However this is the customer making a choice on the basis suitability to do the job.
No ,
Free Software was created so that people can legally have access to use , modify and learn from a legal OS.
It does not encourage any illegal or creative way of using other people OS for the sake of choice.
Its not sad that some Chinese will now be contributors instead of just users.
“I expect the Chinese government will insist that all software is open source for “security” reasons within 2 -3 years effectively banning MS. This will create a domestic market of at least 200 million linux users.”
Doesn’t that effectively go against pretty much everything FOSS stands for, i.e. not being forced into a single type of solution…aka having a choice?
That’s a pretty sad way for Linux to pick up market share.
Well the other alternative is to make Microsoft charge Chinese customers less for their products than US and Europeans do; however, once MS do that, they will probably be forced to lower their prices in ROW too. Since Microsoft is a corporation and not a movement, they will then experience significant problems – theoretically, they could live on their bank balance for a quite a while yet – but not many investors are going to have much confidence in a Microsoft that is making, say, 1/10 of the money it used to, Gold-plated rose-scented Swiss-and-Cayman-Islands bank accounts or no. Result: Corporate and investor loyalty switches to the only other product with significant traction (Linux). Microsoft may finally have met its match.
MS tried a cheap (crippled) version of XP for less affluent countries. It was a total a failure.
Chinese per capita income is around USD1000 pa. The lowest paid Chinese workers earn less than $1 a day. $10 is per Vista licence is too expensive for China.
The Chinese can save at least $10 billion annually by switching to FLOSS. That is enough money to educate 1 million developers and technicians a year.
Chinese per capita income is around USD1000 pa. The lowest paid Chinese workers earn less than $1 a day. $10 is per Vista licence is too expensive for China.
The Chinese can save at least $10 billion annually by switching to FLOSS. That is enough money to educate 1 million developers and technicians a year.
I agree completely.
MS tried a cheap (crippled) version of XP for less affluent countries. It was a total a failure.
I’m not talking about a crap version at a reduced price, I’m talking about the same version(s) Westerners get at prices reduced to meet the realities of the Chinese wage packet.
I live in a rather remote area of the United States in a state that is sometimes mistaken for another country – New Mexico.
On the eastern side of the state there are a lot of cows. Much less than Texas, mind you, but still a large amount. In some areas the cows, which outnumber humans, are thrown hay by what’s left of our small national guard units. This is done while stranded hikers are left to perish.
What’s my point?
I live in a place where cow bells are still considered modern tech and some people eat cow parts.
They also use McSoft WinTrash branded `hay` as-well-as pay me to clean their cows, er computers, when it craps all over itself.
Personally I could care less about McSoft or its future. I hope the company goes out of business. It has not contributed a single dime to my pocket whereas using *nix and *nix-type operating systems have.
If you as an individual chooses to eat the warmed-over and ripe XP cow parts the Redmond barnyard has chosen to re-feed and re-charge you – then that is your choice. Good luck with your intestines.
The Chinese government won’t ban MS or anyone else. They will simply insist that all software for government use provides all the source code as a reasonable security measure. MS will refuse and try and coerce the Chinese before either accepting a humiliating backdown or quitting the Chinese market. Either way MS is in deep trouble. 200 million users makes OSS totally mainstream. Dell, HP, Acer etc will rush to sell linux hardware in China and OEMs will cosider it worthwhile to write drivers. MS won’t be finished but will simply become another major player.
Microsoft should be largely immune to market fluctuations except in the small white-box market and the server market.
The vast majority of Microsoft’s revenue comes from rigid OEM licensing arrangements for desktop units, and corporate licensing customers. Vista shipping or not shipping ought not have any particular effect on anything — OEM units will ship with whatever MS provides the OEM, and corporate customers will pay their regular license fees regardless of the OS.
Microsoft could drop OS development entirely and see absolutely no effect for several years.
The only impacts on their profitability are: lawsuits, products other than Windows, and their own marketing costs. The only reason they saw a 28% drop in earnings this quarter is because they blew all the cash on ads, fake studies, and bribes to bloggers. If you exclude those expenditures, they’re gross profit rose a few percent.
They’ll never see growth like Apple, but at this point there really isn’t much room for growth for them.
Apple’s problem was hardware lock in. You had to buy an actual complete set up. At the time there was only one machine with limited resources. Microsoft found a way to duplicate their software across many clonable PCs. So MS DOS/Windows ran on IBM, Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell, Compaq, etc… For every clone 5 clone PCs out there, there were 1 Macintosh. It was IBM that really screwed up with OS2/Warp that could have cut MS off. Not Apple.
IBM screwed up in some respects, yes, but Microsoft made it almost impossible for them to compete even if they hadn’t screwed up.
Warp was an excellent product from both technical and usability standpoints, and the price was also right for a long time, but a rival OS cannot stand if the hardware vendrs won’t support it and the major application ISVs won’t support it due to exclusivity contracts signed with the dominant OS vendor.
The reality is a lot more complicated than “IBM screwed up”…
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Edited 2007-01-26 20:38