Although Apple and Google officially sit out the biggest tech trade show of the year, their platforms are well represented by the third parties that create thousands of products for them. This year it feels like Microsoft is simply being left out.
Windows has virtually no presence in the two biggest things to hit computing in a long time, and it’s starting to show. Microsoft may not be in trouble – but Windows is.
Oh please, lets cut out the melodrama. Engadget tells a different story:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/09/microsoft-and-ces-its-complicate…
In short, Microsoft LEFT CES a year ago and has a major developer conference in April, and yet, its OEMs are still around CES with their refreshed line ups for 2014.
If we’re judging success by presence at CES though, look no further than the 3D TV mania last year, a lot of good that did for them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfAeMtcURg0
Right, carry on with your Nth Windows is doomed article. Please tell us more.
PC industry is declining.
Tablets are rising like crazy. Microsoft has no presence here.
Smartphones are rising like crazy. Microsoft has virtually no presence here.
Sure. Windows is just fine.
Windows has been dying according to some for as long as it has existed.
Yet here is Microsoft, still basically printing money. And given that Microsoft is probably one of the biggest beneficiaries of Android, I wouldn’t say they missed anything.
About the PC decline: PC sales are slowing because people don’t have a compelling reason to upgrade their existing machines. Something I’ve alluded to before, PCs have elongated update cycles.
Now, while tablets and phones are currently the headline grabbers due to a rapidly expanding market:
That’s according to IDC. They also predict that the rate of decline for 2014 will halve from 2013 levels.
Then there’s also the very nascent ultraportable convertible segment which is set to grow and lift the PC market, according to analysts. So the bottoming out of the PC market need not be the end of Windows.
Also to keep in mind are Samsung and Apples slowing profits as the smartphone market matures and commoditizes, then Google is quickly in Microsoft’s current position. Then what?
Edited 2014-01-10 02:39 UTC
Right. I bought my last PC in 2009 and don’t have plans to upgrade any time soon. Why? Because it’s still plenty fast enough. The days of needing to buy a PC every 2-3 years to stay current have long since passed.
However, I have bought several tablets since then. Why? Because, at least for the time being, there’s still a noticeable performance gain from year to year. But I still use my PC 10x more than the tablets.
My laptop was mid-range (I guess) two years ago, and I still am not feeling any pressure to upgrade.
The PC industry isn’t on the decline – it just looks like to so certain doomsayers because of the combination of absolute saturation and even low-end devices are quite good enough for a wide range of tasks.
Seriously – a $400 laptop is powerful enough to use in a garage as the center of a home music studio. It’s been years since anything other than games was pushing up system requirements for home users (and even many “prosumers”).
Precisely. It is also worth mentioning that a big slice of the gaming market is consoles, and that the gaming market itself is but a small percentage of consumers.
Anything made after 2006 for Business grade machinery or 2007 for consumer grade. is plenty fast for even “pro” end users and lets face it Windows 8x is not exactly a motivator to upgrade
Unfortunately Microsoft doesn’t earn money as you use your computer, it does as you replace it. It is possible to have a wildly popular product that is so good it never needs updating, and stops generating revenue. Sometimes relatively poor products mean relatively better business.
Actually, they earn money with every Windows license. I started with 7, then upgraded to 8 on this machine. Of course, 8 was cheap, and 8.1 was free.
That’s exactly what the above poster said, because regular people do not upgrade their OS. And with Windows 8, even tech-savvy people are rather reluctant.
I think that’s unusual; most people buy off-the-shelf computers and keep the pre-installed OS for the life of the computer.
My primary machine is running Windows XP as I type this.
This might change if you can simply do an in-place upgrade to Windows 9 right in the app store, like you could from 8.0 -> 8.1
I think, what triggered piracy is when Microsoft Windows XP to 7(don’t know about 8) complains that you need to activate Windows, when you change something on the board, such as replacing an ailing GPU. When you try activating, it says the key is invalid, so users are left with phone call option, to activate and validate a VALID installation of Windows. If this trick will still continue with 8 and beyond, it will be a PR disaster for Microsoft, and if there are worthy alternatives such as Android on the desktop, it will hit them hard.
Windows 8.1 is like Windows 8 Service pack 1, and it should be a free update, not upgrade.
You have never needed to activate for changing something like the GPU, it always something like the primary hard-disk.
In fact the only time I have ever had to activate was on a new install … it only pops up if you tried activating the copy more than once in a short amount of time (we are talking about a month).
They’re working on that. You can now get the latest Microsoft Office in same way you would get a subscription to Spotify (and a similar price). Great for everyone but the user, and a constant revenue stream for Microsoft from people who never ‘own’ the software!
While sometimes you make very good points, that was a lot of trying to change the subject.
Windows still makes a lot of profits, but its growth is basically flat and starting to decline. Pc makers are throwing lots of ideas around, but nothing has really shown any signs of sticking so far.
They might be printing money now, but they’re going to be printing a lot less of it in the future. I don’t see how anyone can look at the failures of Win8 and WM8/Nokia and suggest that Microsoft is in good shape.
This might be true, but it’s completely irrelevant. It really doesn’t matter for MS if it’s being caused by the phases of the moon. It’s still bad news for them.
Again, it’s interesting to speculate, but it really doesn’t change MS’s fate. Google and Samsung might indeed find themselves in MS’s current position facing declining sales and marketshare. But that by definition means that MS would have long been removed from the picture, and presumably some new startup will take the stage.
MS doesn’t have a single product that looks set to save them. It’s not Office, Windows, WP8, and definitely not the Xbox.
Astute. Usage is a real metric for success and doom, despite the vast epic number of androids sold, Windows 8 alone overtook android web tarffic in just 10 days. People are overwhelmingly still attached to their PCs.
http://microsoft-news.com/windows-8-overtake-android-web-presence-i…
I do think Windows on the desktop is slowing down; I’d hesitate to say it’s dying though. People still buy computers, though not as often as in the past, and computers still overwhelmingly come with Windows. As others have said, it has more to do with complacency and the fact that years-old computers are still useful and fast. My Lenovo ThinkCentre was built in 2011, and it’s still faster than a lot of systems that are coming out today. It came with Windows 7, and I won’t need to upgrade to 8 for the life of the system, as far as I can tell.
As for the mobile phone space, I was under the impression that Windows Phone was recently outselling the iPhone in Europe? I know it’s barely making a dent here in the US, but the US isn’t the world, even to a US-based company like Microsoft.
I honestly think the Xbox will die before desktop Windows does…if either happens anyway.
Edited 2014-01-10 13:48 UTC
In italy where WP7 was strong before too. Across europe iphone is second according to kantar. For market share vs install base and why only Android and Apple continue to matter:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/09/market-share-smar…
Edited 2014-01-10 15:56 UTC
Thank you, the linked page is quite interesting!
I believe that was only in a few countries and we all know (from the Jolla item) that such small markets does not matter and is not really an indication of anything.
Nelson is setting up a classic strawman in his quest to be a troll. Nowhere is the word ‘doomed’ or ‘dying’ or anything like this mentioned by thom or in the article. He may as well go into a soundproof room and have this conversation with himself since it seems he rewrote the article and Thom’s assessment all by himself.
The obvious here is that MS is no longer the unstoppable juggernaut anymore and is currently not perceived as an innovative market leader. And their old abuses of the market to lock out competition and current abuses of the patent system for extortion haven’t made them any friends either.
Well when you have article after article perpetuating this alarmist rhetoric you don’t get to hide behind semantics, but fine, if you’d like you can change my wording to mean Windows being in trouble (whatever that means, being vague is par for the course here).
The story pushed is: Android sells tons, Windows 8 flops, Windows Phone flops, Windows in decline, Microsoft in trouble, etc
Engadget had a completely different tone than The Verge (and this site is turning more and more into a Techmeme esque reporting of Verge articles), and key usage metrics indicate that the PC remains the most important computing device in the household.
Forgive me if I’m not as downbeat as some of you here.
I’ve come to understand that Nelson isn’t a troll, he’s just passionate about his chosen platform and is very vocal about it, and we’re all guilty of that from time to time. I know in the past I’ve gone on rants here when someone slammed BeOS/Haiku or GNU/Linux, and I came to realize that I was just giving them what they wanted: A discussion that quickly spirals into an argument.
Even though I’m not a fan of Microsoft in general or Windows in particular, I fail to see where there is any sign of them dying, or even hurting, really. One trade show is simply not a broad enough metric to make that determination.
Another perspective, on a personal note: I wouldn’t have switched to WP8 if I wasn’t sure the platform would be around and supported for the next few years, no matter how well it meshes with my needs and wants in a phone.
Nelson indeed isn’t a troll. He voices his opinion, supports it with a motivations and even throws in numbers, stats ‘n’ links.
Unlike many who just stick to dogma or silly remarks.
He’s okay, for a Microsoft user. 😉
One does not necessary exclude the other though
The general trend is that Microsoft are for the most part failing to enter new markets, and are slowly being ring-fenced into a handful of core products (Windows, Active Directory, Exchange, SQL Server).
In addition, their share-price has remained constant for nearly a decade.
Failure to grow your markets and to grow your share price is stagnation. Stagnation is bad. Relying on a single segment of the market is bad; it only takes a paradigm shift and you’re dead. Paradigm shifts happen; just ask the minicomputer manufacturers, or the Seven Dwarfs who made mainframes before them.
Xbox?
I have to agree. We are a VAR and we are seeing longer PC lifecycles due to two factors:
Customers are making due with what they have because the economy is still sluggish.
The current hardware is still good enough to run the customers’ software stack.
Ten years ago, it was common to refresh hardware every 3 years. Now we are seeing that refresh cycle happening at 5 or even 7 years. The lifcycle is certainly longer, but we are still predominantly selling PCs.
I do think that the EOL for Windows XP, Server 2003, etc that is fast approaching, will drive PC sales up this year though.
We are not seeing a huge demand for tablets. We have a few customers that are getting real work done on tablets, but they are in the minority. Smartphones are a nice complement to the desktop when workers are away from the office, but can’t replace the desktop.
There is no doubt that adoption of mobile devices will increase, especially as prices continue to drop, but I don’t see desktops (or Windows on the desktop) losing relevance anytime soon.
No presence in tablets? I am not saying Windows 8/Windows RT tablets are going gangbusters but they do have a presence in tablets.
It also gets more complicated because x86 windows 8.x tablets aren’t counted as tablets in most of the numbers I have seen. I own a iPad, but I also own (and love) a Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx; and use it in the exact same way as I do my iPad 95% of the time (the other 5% is for programming Microcontrollers, CPLDs, and FPGAs that are poorly supported on OSX*).
So you want to amend that assessment?
*: Before anyone suggests a Windows VM, JTAG programmers and other ISP programmers have poor support in VMs.
I think Thom is fairly accurate there. Although most numbers will miss touch screen windows 8 pcs, I don’t think they’ve really taken off. At least judging by the non-scientific, what do my non-tech friends purchase test. They have purchased windows 8 notebooks with non touch screens and are kind of confused why they can’t touch the screen, even though it looks like you should be able to ( people do it on tv!).
On the otherhand, its obvious Microsoft paid a ton of money to get their products placed in tv shows that used to be the exclusive domain of apple. Now every show I watch there is a paid placement ad scripted in, where the crime lab grabs a surface like thing pans through the start menu to find something, then goes all zooming through the interface before casually attaching the keyboard and start typing some notes in another program to the chagrin of the older less tech savvy main character as he mutters to himself with a raised eyebrow “Wow tablet AND a pc In one amazing device”, before shaking his head and resuming focus on the international terrorist drug dealers of the week.
Thom said Microsoft has no presence in tablets, and that is simply not true. It would be correct if — like windows phone — he said they had virtually no presence, but that isn’t what he did.
I am also of the opinion that WinRT tablets and 8.x tablets should be grouped together since they are united by Metro and apps can be written that work on both without modification (just different compiler targets).
As such I don’t think you can argue that Microsoft has no presence in tablets. But I do think it is another example of one of Thom’s biases poking though when it shouldn’t.
Define: presence.
I have a presence in the soft drink industry with 0.000000000000001% of market share ( I devised my own soft drink beverage and sold it on the streets in a street fair). Is it fair to mention me in the same sentence as cocacola or pepsi? Obviously an extreme example, but there is a cut off somewhere.
Thom would argue that its met the threshold in cell phones, but not in tablets ( as he would define tablets).
In any case I think his remark was easily understood and fairly accurate.
Actually you should be asking Thom since he is the one who started it.
I have no idea what he considers the threshold to be, and I am sure Thom doesn’t. But I would think 2.2% of channel sales in 2013* counts as a presence.
I am not saying it is a big presence but I am calling BS on Thom’s comment. Especially since he didn’t even both baking it up.
Or to give a different argument, I am willing to be that Microsoft’s Tablet market share worldwide is is much higher than Jolla’s at this very moment.
BTW it would be a real trick to have a market share of 0.000000000000001% as .000000015% is (approximately) one person out of the earths population.
*: http://www.zdnet.com/new-u-s-sales-figures-show-the-changing-face-o…
You would, but Thom would not. That’s the point I was making. You’re not disagreeing on facts, but the terminology.
Most pointless internet arguments are rooted in a misunderstanding of terms. And this one is no different.
Every desktop PC I see in the enterprise world, still runs Windows, so yes, it’s still doing just fine.
The business world is still their biggest market.
The business world moves slow cause it thinks in longer terms. But just like Netware was once present everywhere it isn’t today. And thats what matters, the future, not the past. Microsoft turned, past since it already happened, into a Novell and we know what happened with Novell.
Edited 2014-01-10 13:25 UTC
‘I can’t wait to get to work and start working on that spreadsheet on my tablet’ – No one ever
Tablets are fun, but To be honest, i have not touched mine in months. For random articles or just browseing a smartphone is great. When i need to get work done, its time to find a PC. Maybe i am just old school…
I can’t speak for other people, but I routinely write documents and work one spreadsheets with my iPad. I
Thom you REALLY buy that bullshit? Really?
Let a guy who has made his living selling PCs since the days of The Shat selling VIC 20s give you the REAL scoop, ready? THE PC IS OVERPOWERED…end of story.
You want an example I’ll give ya one, my dad. Since the days of the Trash80 my dad has been the perfect “average user” of computers. What does he do with his computer? He watches videos, does chat, does his books, checks his email, surfs the web, he IS your average PC user. So when the Phenom IIs dropped in price when the FX chips came out I thought “Ya know its been awhile since I built dad that Phenom I quad for his house,even longer since I built that C2D for his office,maybe its time to get him some new units” so I ran a 3 week monitor of their performance just to see how hard he was slamming them, know what I found? 47% was the maximum CPU usage on the C2D, 36% max on the Phenom I X4 and looking closer I found that 47% was caused by a hung program, remove it and he dropped to less than 40% on both!
So the PC is NOT “dying” it is NOT “being replaced by tablets”, it is simply so incredibly overpowered that most folks won’t replace a unit until the previous one dies, THAT IS ALL. Heck even us gamers don’t have to hardly replace, myself and my 2 boys game exclusively on FP shooters, the most stressful games, our specs? The youngest has an Athlon X3 unlocked to a Phenom II X4 (for those that want a cheap quad? The Athlon X3 455 is seeing better than 80% unlocks and can be found for $60 USD, its a steal) with an HD7790, the oldest and me are running Phenom II X6 with HD7750s. Now those CPUs are all over 3 years old and the most expensive GPU was just $120 but they all play the latest and greatest with ease!
So don’t buy the BS Thom, the PC is still selling three quarters of a BILLION units a year, they just don’t replace every other year like during the MHz war as there is no need. Tablets are quickly becoming the same, I predict less than 2 years before we get the “Oh noes, tablets are dying!” articles because you can now buy quad tablets for less than $150. Soon they too will only be replaced when they die.
I echo this sentiment. I’m still rocking a Phenom II x4 and it’s serving me terribly well, I very rarely see myself going over 90% CPU-usage. Maybe if I’m running some heavy single-threaded app, but then it’s only on one core. I just recently upgraded my GPU to a GeForce GTF 660, but other than that I’ve been doing fine with several years old components and all the games I throw at it run very nicely at 1080p 60fps.
Gamers are pretty much the only people who need to upgrade their computers often these days and I would hazard a guess that most often it’s the GPU that needs updating, not the rest of the computer. It may be a tad short-sighted to then claim that people not buying new computers all the time is a sign of Windows/Microsoft/PCs/your mom/whatnot dying.
PS. My Phenom II x3 that I use in my server doesn’t want to unlock to an x4, it goes all crashy
It makes me sad 
I don’t agree with this. There are several components that decide a tablet’s/phone’s usefulness, not only the speed of its CPU, and these other components are still being heavily worked on. I mean, the displays are still generally lacking in either resolution or colour-depth, they’re often not bright enough to be used outdoors, they’re horrible battery-eating monsters and so on, and the systems in general are still eating too much battery and the batteries themselves are not holding enough charge.
As long as there are large improvements in usability and/or portability in these devices people will keep buying them. It’s when these improvements start slowing down will we see this shopping-spree also slowing down. Alas, there are so many things, both in hardware and in software, that can be improved upon in terms of on-the-go usability and portability that I’d hazard a guess that we’re looking for at least 15 years before we reach the same kind of plateauing effect as with general PCs.
I Regularly hit 90% just using Chrome and Visual Studio. Though I have a core 2 duo overclocked to 4ghz, I still need more cycles.
It isn’t the games that max the processor.
Edited 2014-01-12 12:44 UTC
Lucas score one of the Athlon X3 455s and an Asrock board! Shop smart and you can get the pair for less than $100 USD (hell there is a guy on eBay selling them “tested unlocked” so you know it’ll unlock for $47) and they royally kick booty friend! My youngest paired his with an HD7790 he found on sale for $100 and he is playing all the latest and greatest with no effort. Transcoding,editing, they are just great quad cores that can be had for dirt cheap.
Just make sure you pair it with a board that has ACC so it’ll be unlockable which is why I suggest pairing it with an Asrock as even their cheapest boards have ACC and they have support for 8+Gb of RAM, plenty of SATA slots, just set the RAM timings yourself as they tend to be pretty aggressive on RAM timing and you’ll have a cheap upgrade that will just chew through anything you need to do, its the cheapest quad deal out there by a country mile.
I’ll probably be getting an Intel System. I can pick up an i7 board, 32gb of ram (I need that much, I regularly max 8gb at home and the work machine is hitting 12gb) and an i7 that smokes everything for almost nothing compared to my montly pay check.
The only reason why I am overclocking this Core 2 duo was for Crysis 3 and Visual Studio.
Thanks for the recommendation though, I will see what the performance price is like compared to what I was going to buy.
Edited 2014-01-14 20:34 UTC
Werecat, listen to your old pal beast…GET THE ATHLON 455!!!! I’m telling ya more than 80% of those babies unlock and there are even guys on eBay selling them that have been pretested for unlocks with 100% guarantee to unlock for less than $50 USD, its a steal.
If your board can take it though (a lot of them can’t which is why my old board is in the spare box, damn lying Biostar!) the sweet deal IMHO is the $100 Phenom II X6 or FX X6, both of them are monsters at stock and can get insane OCs if that is your thing. I don’t even have my 1035T OCed (I managed to get up to 3.1 with 3.5 turbo on a $50 Asrock board just to see how high I could get and that was without cranking the voltage) and I have played L4D II WHILE converting an FLV to AVI AS WELL as burning a video to DVD using Windows DVD and it was smooth as butter. Having 6 cores is like multitasking heaven and while having 8 would be nicer the markup for those extra 2 cores IMHO isn’t worth it.
But if your board can’t take the X6 then the Athlon 455 is the way to go, that baby will fit into just about any AM2+ board and unlocked you have a 125w Phenom II at 3.3Ghz, it just tears through the games REALLY sweet.
But as far as tablets go? You really need to look not at the tech Werecat, but what folks are doing with them. Like with PCs its strictly a minority that are playing games more complex than angry birds, most folks are using chat, email, web surfing, watching vids, and none of these tasks are really slamming a 1.2Ghz dual core ARM, the quads? Total overkill. Sure they are coming up with higher def displays…but you know what the most popular resolution is in both TVs and laptops by a country mile is Werecat? 720p, 1366×768. Its the same thing with DVD versus BD, for the majority DVDs are “good enough” and not worth the extra expense and I’m finding the same is true with the mobiles.
Hell I’m “Mr hardcore” when it comes to tech, know how old my smartphone is? It came out in Nov 2011, but with an Area51 ROM on it it gives me wireless tethering, lets me check my email, has GPS, for what i do on the road? Its plenty. Same with my going on 3 year old netbook, I don’t mind 720p and the AMD E350 lets me play Torchlight II and Vice City when I’m stuck in the parking lot while my fiance shops, lets me look up parts for customers, check network hookups, what more do I need?
After all a cutting edge Haswell i7 is insanely powered…how many actually can USE that power?
What makes you believe people only buy high-end? If you need a PC and you don’t need high-end, cause they are overpowered for your tasks, then you buy a cheaper one with lesser power. Still a sold unit even if cheaper. In fact cheaper should mean an increase cause more people (emerging and other markets where a few thausend dollar are a damn lot so majority of this planet) would be able to buy a PC. For Microsoft its even the same number of dollars since the license is independent of the PC-power. You may like to remember that the PC-decline is about sold units, across segments, and not price per sold unit.
That would only be relevant if PC’s just started to survive much longer then before since same applied all the years before where the PC market did grow rather then shrink. Do you have a source for that, your theory?
Even both points combined make no sense. People never replaced there hardware every year to make it suddenly such noticable, we have the numbers, from one year to the other since over 2 years now.
Really, most consumers just don’t need a PC. They do barrely more then surf the web and write/read email. Tablets fit that purpose better while ebing way more cheap and unproblematic.
Edited 2014-01-12 23:13 UTC
You are failing to follow simple logic. Now if I have a 300Mhz and next year they have a 1Ghz it doesn’t matter that my 300Mhz still runs as it’ll be useless because all the new programs require a 733Mhz or better, see what I’m saying now?
THAT is what we had during the MHz war and why most folks threw perfectly working PCs on the junk heap. Hell where I live we used to go out at the start of the business year and pick up DOZENS of working PCs that were sat on the curb, why? Because this years software requires a 2Ghz and last year’s PCs were 1.2Ghz, that’s why.
In one 4 year period i went from a Celeron 300A (man those were OCing monsters, got over 100% OC on that baby) to a 600mhz, 1.1ghz, 1.6ghz, to finally a 2.2ghz and that was in a 4 years span and I wasn’t even staying cutting edge but a version behind, if I’d have went cutting edge a good 3 more speeds would have been thrown in there!
But when AMD and Intel hit the thermal wall? All that changed. A 2007 C2Q can do everything a 2014 i7 quad can do without exception. Sure it may take a couple more minutes to do the task but its not like the programs are going “sorry you don’t have the minimum system requirements, minimum is an i5” which was a VERY real problem from 93-06. heck just from 98 to 04 we went from an average 400Mhz to 1.6Ghz, literally quadrupling speeds!
So I’m sorry but you just can’t compare a period where a 2 year old PC literally couldn’t run the latest programs to a period where a 7 year old Phenom Quad can run the latest COD, its just not comparable.
The problem is that of saturation and an update cycle. Not one, but both.
This is why growth gradually slowed, then turned into decline.
I find this article telling (although I think it glosses right past the point a bit)
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-11-valve-plays-the-long-g…
excerpt:
I think everyone sees SteamOS as a play against consoles. In reality I think it is an attempt by Valve to keep the PC industry alive (for gaming at least), because they believe Microsoft has butter fingers. Its life support for their golden calf.
Windows is sick. It has been sick for years, but it has that magical 80% marketshare that ensured no matter how bad MS screwed it up it would be just fine. Its like a black hole or something, the sheer mass and inertia of the thing made it’s success an inevitability.
The marketshare is still there, but the nature of the pie is changing rapidly. The PC is no longer the computing device for everyone, and Microsoft is working just as fast as their enemies to bail on it. Thing is I don’t think it is the PC industry that is in decline – it is Windows. The PC is dying right along with it because with 80% marketshare the PC IS Windows.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/12/16/apples-us-mac-sales-see-s…
YOY sales of Macs are up 29%… Apple is the only PC maker that has YOY growth in the last year. The decline of the PC industry doesn’t seem to be bothering them much… Wonder why?
So yeah, as Nelson said Microsoft is still sitting back and printing money… And he is right about elongated upgrade cycles – thing is time goes by the stranglehold Windows has on the PC market is loosening – there might be other options when that next upgrade comes around…
I think he will be singing a different tune in a year or two. No offense meant, I get the arguments for Micrsoft’s continued success and they are compelling – I just think they are wrong.
The times they are a changin’
Edited 2014-01-12 04:32 UTC
Exactly that.
Because a big chunk of what used to be the Windows PC market was mass-consumer who only needed a PC for simple things like surfing the web. They are what moves to tablets and it hits Windows most. Other groups, like office-workers, will stay with the Windows PC. For them there is no alternate, not now. But those group is or was a smaller segment of Windows customers.
What Valve does is to take another segment with it or open choice for them. Gamers. Those who used to play first on the PC and consoles second. Valve is not doing another second, they are going for first. That’s why so much different steam machines in so much different price ranges. Its a PC, its the gamers-PC successor. Valve is doing for gamers what Android did for sparetime-customers. In both cases the classic Windows-PC is losing huge. Its becoming, again just like it was 10-15 years ago, a tool for a spcific group of people rather then the base for everybody in the mass-market doing something that needs a computer.
Fade away from thevone to one under many. From de-facto standard to an option. Competition and choice we got.
Edited 2014-01-12 23:30 UTC
I don’t think the PC industry is dying… tablets are the new PCs, people just need to learn to redfine what a PC is. My non-nerd friends all refer to their tablets as PCs and computers. They don’t think of them as being different
Edited 2014-01-13 09:01 UTC
I’ve never heard of anyone referring to their tablets as PCs, but anyway, naming aside… the problem for Microsoft is that those new “PCs” that people are buying in droves are not running Windows, regardless what you want to call them.
Windows isn’t doomed, it’s just already undead.
Thom, honestly that reply is beneath you.
Nelson, did you know that Windows Desktop OS still exists with the help of piracy? MS Needs to thank pirated copies, because by it, it maintains the dominant position, or else, people will be forced to install alternative operating systems.
I agree that MS is still the dominating force in the desktop. But I think it is even on server, cloud, and other services on top of their existing Windows platform. But in mobile? Search?
I wish Microsoft needs to offer Windows desktop license for free and let people download their OS without worrying any license fees, for business or home use. If they will not do this, they will not be competent in the very near future, this is only my opinion based on the recent trends.
Tell me if this rumor is true that MS may offer Windows phone free to manufacturers. If this is correct, offering Windows desktop for free is not a far-fetched idea.
It IS far-fetched. Desktop Windows makes tonnes of money for Microsoft. WP8 struggles to stay relevant. You can’t put a big price tag on it then and hope it’ll compete favorably with more or less free alternatives.
Of course, WP8 being free or not might just be a pointless theoretical exercise. If it’s more or less only Nokia (soon Microsoft), they’ll be paying themselves and the price really does not matter.
Giving up the cash cow that desktop windows is would be something very different.
Uhhh I think you are forgetting to read between the lines, let this old PC guy translate..
“MSFT tries to hamstring and screw OEMs with higher prices and coming out with their hardware, refuse to listen to critics and gives the middle finger when it comes to Windows Mist8, so OEMs jump ship as much as they can”
That is more in line with reality. You see with Android “Google don’t care” should be the byline. If you want to add your own frontend, add OEM specific apps? As long as the search goes to Google then they don’t care. MSFT has made it clear they want to be Apple and Apple don’t got any OEMs…so no duh the OEMs are doing as little as possible with Windows, MSFT gave them the finger!
Because Engadget is a reliable source of quality information. Really, it’s so much better than theverge….
I’m nor sure I ever said anything like that, just that this specific article was overblown. Anything in the article I linked that strikes you as unreliable?
I suspect at the bit auto-shows there will be No Kia, or very little presence too.
Sometimes you need to know when to fold(er) them. Apple and Google have for a while.
Or is it just me?
People still need PCs, especially professionals, business, offices, schools and the like.
So what are the problems?
Operating systems: by far the vast majority of PCs use previous versions of MS Windows. I don’t believe I have ever seen a single PC in the above categories running Windows 8, and very few, if any, running Windows 7.
Thus it is reasonable to assume that, when they upgrade, Windows 7 will be the OS of choice for at least another 10 years.
Hardware. If you buy a PC now, they’ll sell it with Windows 8. But when it comes to desktops, most people go to their fav computer shop and say: I need a desktop PC. Most likely the shop owner will put Windows 7 on it. Of course a few geeks will choose the parts they want according to their budget.
Then of course there is Apple, but I don’t know a single person who has bought a Mac recently in this town. Even myself, administrator of a large Mac oriented forum, don’t know what to do when my 17″ MacBook Pro needs replacement. If there is any truth about the “flat design”in the upcoming OS X 10.10, choosing a new Mac is becoming even more difficult.
Edited 2014-01-10 20:07 UTC
Let me just state that when anti-Windows/Microsoft guys where helped by numbers (i.e. phones or tablets) they kept posting numbers.
Now that numbers show Windows Phone on the rise, they started “feeling” it is doomed 😛
How can someone state that the only relevant desktop operating system, used by basically 90-95% PCs and lately many tablets / hybrids is doomed or in trouble or something, that’s beyond me.
Now if someone states that “computing” in general is diversifying and a quite interesting share is moving towards mobile devices, that’s definitely true. But many forget that a big share in mobile computing has not stealed room from PCs. Rather, those are NEW users which simply didn’t hop through PCs (think about all young users interested in accessing Facebook : they surely only need a phone, they don’t need a PC). So while PCs ceased to be the only way to computing, stating that they are dying is pure nonsense.
All in all that seems to be wishful thinking. Not only Windows is not going anywhere but it will also increase its PC market share because many other players clearly abandoned competition in PC field. If Windows is in trouble, what should we state about OSX, a product that after 15 years of development is still irrelevant ?
Actualy as a PC shop owner and system builder I have found that even those that mainly do things that could be done on a tablet or phone? Have multiple PCs as well. What I have found is they simply added the tablet and phone, not “replaced” one with the other.
Take my fiance, she spends nearly all her computing time online (in fact I’ve had her drag me out of bed because “the net isn’t working” LOL) yet does she do it all on her new Android phone I got her on Black Friday? Nope, that is for when she is out and about, the SECOND she gets home the phone is on the charger and she is on her laptop*. It is the same with my oldest and his fiance, the second they are out its smartphone time but when they get home he heads for his desktop, her to her laptop*. So the PC isn’t being replaced, its just being supplemented.
*-OT rant coming up…what is it with girls and laptops? Since becoming engaged I have been looking into this and it seems women just prefer laptops, even if they never plan to go anywhere with the things. I don’t know if its the form factor, lack of cables, or what, but from what I’ve found women will take a laptop,even a lower powered one, over a desktop a good 99 out of 100 times. With guys it is the opposite, they prefer a beefy desktop and then a regular laptop if they don’t just use a smartphone instead but with women it seems like laptops are the preferred PC by a long shot.
Well, aesthetics matter and cables are a horribly ungainly sight. Why use all that space for a desktop PC when you can get the same in a smaller, more portable and visually more pleasing package? That is the rationality there AFAIK.
I don’t know too many guys, but amongst them I’m not seeing this, they seem to prefer laptops just as much as women do. It could just be the people I know, though.
I prefer a desktop hands down for gaming; between the large display (24″), nice speakers (Cerwin Vega studio monitors with custom amp) and nice big comfy wireless keyboard and mouse, I can really immerse myself into the games I play. And I’m not even a hardcore gamer; I might play 4-8 hours a week including weekends.
But for basic web browsing and reading, I’m just as happy with a laptop or tablet. I regularly read, browse, and even play simple games on my tablet before bed. I do prefer tablets to laptops, and I’ve sold off all but one ancient Dell laptop I keep around for running BeOS, but in general I think laptops are far more popular than desktops regardless of gender.
My wife never touches her laptop ever since I put a monitor, keyboard and mouse on our media server (which lives under her desk). She pretty much just browses the web though; she’s not a techie. Her laptop is technically more powerful, but for what she does the server works fine. And since she’s not going to be using the computer while we’re watching TV (or if she does, she grabs my tablet), it doesn’t interfere with its server duties.
That is true but there are loads of new users (i.e. users who never used a PC), expecially in some countries like India, China and so on, who just skipped PCs to go to mobile devices.
Many people, expecially in Western countries, indeed use both.
So your comment fits the reality of things because you need to consider that usually mobile devices are much more affordable than PCs (unless you don’t buy one of those hi-end devices).
So I agree when people say that PCs aren’t the predominant way to access computing in general, but that didn’t happen because their share shrinked, rather it happened because market expanded to include many users who simply don’t need a PC.
So if someone tells me that mobile devices became a fairly big share of connected devices, potentially even the biggest share, I will definitely agree. If someone tells me that Windows is in trouble because PCs are no more, that’s laughable.
* by the way, I didn’t buy a desktop PC in a while. I only use notebooks. Sorry for your stats 🙂
This is very simple rule. The world is always changing, and something new would replace something old.
Remember the days of mainframes and the emergence of PCs? PCs (and Microsoft OSes) had a tremendous growth while mainframe literally stayed flat, until it started to decline and became irrelevant, eventually phased out.
PCs in the current state is very similar. It is really difficult to have growth because nearly ALL people have PCs now (Do you really think there are still a lot of people who are getting their first PC?). All of us are just replacing existing PCs when we need to, and the pace of replacement is slowing down.
We could call this a “saturated” state, where PCs are already fully deployed in the whole world. And we must admit Microsoft is currently dominating in this area, as most computers in home and commercial segments are running Windows. While there is no growth, there are still demands from periodic replacements.
Frankly speaking, Microsoft does not need to have a presense in CES, or whatever tech shows, as it already owns a large market with no competitors. This market only shrinks when it is going into obsolence, i.e., being replaced by other technologies, such as mobile computing.
Until PCs become irrelevant, Microsoft would still exist, just like what mainframe and the manufacturers did.
And anyone would like to discuss the relevance of Microsoft in mobile area? Sure Microsoft has products, be it WP phones or Win8 tablets, but is it dominating or even competitive to other products (iOS, Android)?
Well, in the eyes of lovers, everything is beautiful. Right?
Edited 2014-01-11 04:14 UTC
There’s probably plenty of space for growth in the developing world, though. Last I heard, there are around 1.3 billion PCs with ~2 billion users, out of 7 billion people.
Microsoft may not be in trouble – but Windows is.
Windows has a dominant and stable position both on desktop and laptop computers, and they have a respectable showing in on server market share.
Microsoft, however, missed the early boat on multiple new technology trends and is having trouble catching up. They were slow to realize the market potential of mobile devices, and they mis-judged consumer desires.
Yeah…no. Windows Server is to the server space what Linux is to the desktop space.
Not only that’s not true, but it is not accurate by far. Is that just a “feeling” or any evidence about that ?
Hint: Business & Tools division at Microsoft, which is selling Windows Server, is 2nd most profitable division after Office and it makes more money than Windows client.
Sorry, did I say anything about the Server divisions profits?
Uhmm…nope. I said they don’t have much market share.
While it’s impossible to know for sure, estimates of Windows’ server market share are in the 30% range. Obviously a subjective word, but I’d call that “respectable.”
Why is it impossible to know? What if I tell you that revenues for Microsoft Server are more than 2 times the revenues of all Linux licenses sold ?
By the way, market share for Windows Server is in the range 33-38% when considering the whole installed base. However, that share is just a bit shy of 50% when considering revenues. Basically, each 2 servers licenses *sold*, Microsoft owns almost 1.
That’s a rather meaningless metric in this case since the large majority of Linux installs didn’t require a license.
Windows Server exist almost solely in the enterprise space as Exchange, AD and SQL Server. Outside of that space it has very little traction.
How much money MS makes from licensing is irrelevant since the competition is free and doesn’t require a license.
Your first assertion has simply proven to be untrue as 30-38% is nowhere near to be considered irrelevant.
The fact that Linux is free and Microsoft still has such big market share (globally) draws an even worse picture for Linux. And when there’s a fee involved, there’s no competition at all.
But if you’re happy… hey… I’m happy too! 😉
Pulling numbers out of your ass doesn’t make them facts.
As already said, it’s nigh impossible to accurately measure the market share since there’s no way to measure how many Linux and other OSS operating systems are installed.
Those who work in the server space knows that MS market share is very small outside of the traditional enterprise space, especially in the cloud. Enterprise is a rather lucrative market though so that’s why the server division is still healthy.
MSFT is in a pretty great position for PaaS in the cloud, on the IaaS Amazon has a massive head start but they’re making headway there too.
The 30% figure for Windows Server is something I’ve seen taken from samplings of 739 million websites
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2013/09/05/september-2013-web-ser…
MSFT is bringing in a great amount of money in the instances where its not a market leader, its making great progress on the share front, and more importantly its embracing the cloud with some of its existing cash cows like Office 365.
I think a combination of their brand recognition, end to end integration of their services, and big tent offering for development platform can have them see significant success.
You can disagree with that if you’d like, but I think that at the very least your comparison to the Desktop Linux isn’t at all valid.
lol you’re wasting your time providing evidence to people making claims based on… well… their “perception” 😉
After all, Microsoft is irrelevant in server market and has no presence in cloud and services one. Plus, Windows is running almost every desktop on this planet but is in facts doomed. And WP has tripled its sold units last Xmas but well, it is a failure.
Based on… well, my perception 😉
http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/201312/index.html says 15% whats inline with http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ws-microsoftiis/all/all
Edited 2014-01-13 00:21 UTC
Both of which are higher than anything Desktop Linux ever had or will ever achieve. Thanks for helping the cause.
The point isn’t to arrive at an absolute figure, rather to show that they control a non trivial portion of the market. All while making significant amounts of money.
Edited 2014-01-13 00:45 UTC
Someone trying to provide data to back his assertions, at last: much appreciated.
Please, note however that your figures only refer to Web servers. A “server market” is not only made of Web servers. Mail, database, media, specialized servers are all parts of a “server market”. And there’s a lot more.
Moreover, figures you provided report which software is in use, not which operating systems it runs. While, for example, we know what IIS doesn’t exist on Linux, Apache actually exists on Windows. While a WAMP config is less common, it definitely exists. So a (probably small) share of Apache market share runs on Windows as well and that’s not reported in those figures.
However, thank you for starting a constructive discussion.
This obvious falsehood being nodded up is evidence to OSNews being a fact free zone. Server is one of Microsoft’s healthiest businesses.
I didn’t say it wasn’t healthy, I said they don’t have much market share. The two are not mutually exclusive.
It depends on the metrics. E.g. Windows Server accounted for 1/4 of installed servers on some estimates last year. IMO that figure is unrealistically high. The volume of FOSS (Linux and *BSD) units being deployed in the wild by organizations, with in house experience and w/o service contracts or 3rd party licenses, is becoming overwhelming.
However, even if windows servers installed volume is not that high (if I were to pull a number out of my ass, I’d say 20% tops of machines being used as servers run Windows), Microsoft stills commands around 40% of that market segment’s overall REVENUE. So even though they may command the market in volume, they’re the ones making the most money on server OS licenses.
Yeah but we’re talking about market share, not market revenue. Market revenue is not really that useful a metric when your biggest competition cost nothing and requires no license.
True, which is why I personally think the best metric is the percentage of servers being sold without a windows license.
I simply provided revenue to expand the context. Microsoft could be commanding a minimal part of the server space, and yet they would be the OS vendor making the most money in it.
The point I was trying to make is that the equivalence between Linux on the desktop and Windows on the server is not correct. IMO.
Although I can see the writing on the wall for Microsoft’s current business model (and perhaps the company itself if it can’t adapt), once free is good enough you better be able to make it up on services or you are toast.
“Although Apple and Google officially sit out the biggest tech trade show of the year, their platforms are well represented by the third parties that create thousands of products for them. This year it feels like Microsoft is simply being left out.”
If the author hasn’t go to a CES in an alternative Earth, there are plenty of Windows tablets, hybrids and new form factors on CES. Windows is not preciselly absent. Meanwhile, Apple DOES NOT license its products to anyone, so “third parties” is a crude deformation of what’s going on at CES.
I don’t say that this is the best year for windows. I only say that WIndows is far for being dead, and that if the author didn’t see windows product the only rational explanation was willing blindness.
This part of the linked article is not consistent with the claim of the forum’s title:
“”We’re arriving at a sweet spot where Intel / AMD tablets are now becoming desktop, let alone laptop, replacements,” says Miller. “These tablets are combining the right mix of portability / weight, performance, and price such that a lot of users who would have held out for a laptop, because it was more powerful, might want a tablet instead, and even be willing to live with some compromises in order to benefit from the other form-factor benefits and flexibility.””
I don’t see any evidence of Intel / AMD tablets replacing anything. Apple doesn’t even sell Intel / AMD tablets. Apple only sells their own custom designed ARM-based tablets.
I just got back from CES. The Verge’s article is full of crap, like most of their writing. (I sometimes get the impression that most of their writers don’t even like technology and are just writing about it ironically.) Microsoft’s decision not to exhibit at CES doesn’t make them irrelevant at all. CES simply wasn’t driven by computing devices this year. Where in years past it was a major venue for smartphone, tablet, and computer announcements, this year we had a bunch of larger Galaxy tablets that went over with a yawn, and some kind of Huawei phablet/portable charger thing. The ThinkPad 8 tablet was getting more attention than the Galaxy NotePro – in fact, every time I went by the Intel booth, there was a crowd around the ThinkPad.
The point that most of the fitness sensors and smartwatches on display only supported iOS and Android is fair, but how relevant that is depends on what you think of those categories. Personally I’m bored already; fitness sensors will almost certainly be absorbed into other devices, and smartwatches are still more of an experiment than anything I’d consider to be a long-term consumer play.
This is the first CES I attended with a Windows Phone, and every time I took my red Lumia 1520 out of my pocket it attracted a conversation. Every single one of those conversations was very positive about Windows Phone and Microsoft as a whole. It’s certainly not what I’d expect from a doomed platform.
While I do agree that Microsoft is facing irrelevance, you don’t really see it in sales. Considering that the cost of producing a version of Windows is a couple percent at most of their revenue from it, Microsoft can suck for a long long time before they actually crash. The real metric you should be watching is innovation. For instance, back in the day, Microsoft changed the market with things like DirectX, .Net, AD. What have they done lately? A new touch interface that really doesn’t work in a desktop setting.
On the other hand, most of the innovation in software is taking place on the FOSS side of the road. People do not build new technologies on Windows. That will be the real undoing of Microsoft. They have already recognized the problem by paying Apache and php to make their software work on Windows as well as it works on Linux. The situation has gotten worse with time though.
What a load of opinioned crap. Nothing innovative is being done on Windows and people are leaving the programming platform in droves LOLOLOLOLOLOL. MS is not going down no matter how much you dream and troll. Some of the most talented programmers on the planet still work for MS.
Edited 2014-01-12 08:27 UTC
How’s your reading comprehension there, buddy? Not so good, eh?
You might want to note that he said that *most* innovation takes place in OSS, not that there is no innovation done on Windows. He also said *nothing* about programmers leaving the platform in droves. Maybe you’re just projecting your own fears?
or, as Jeff Atwood put it, it’s not hard to imagine a future where .Net is a niche product.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2013/03/why-ruby.html
The whole point of this small article had nothing to do with technical merits. It was basically a short story about how the author wanted to start an open source project, so he used tools that the open source community appreciates. Makes sense to me. Problem is is that many Windows programmers like myself don’t work on open source projects, so using .NET being as technically capable on Windows that it is makes perfect sense.
Okay, and then:
It doesn’t require you to work on open source projects to be involved in FOSS PLs or utility software. I work and create software based on VB.net, but I always love to use open source tools as much possible, even I want to REPLACE VB.net itself, because that thing will only run on Windows, I want my software to run on any platform, so I experimented with Lazarus/FPC/Pascal. If you, being a Windows programmer and not a Systems Administrator at your work, then you might have no access to your servers, and doesn’t require FOSS tools.
But also as a System Administrator, I love FOSS tools, I can’t live without them, on Windows, utilities like WinSCP, putty, rsync, PostgreSQL for db, I am also experimenting with Git, and many others. So, if you live only in Windows and your whole programming life is for Windows Desktop and Windows Server, then you do not need any of the things I mentioned and you’ve greatly missed great software tools by just relying on dot net alone.
How can an opinion be crap? Just because you don’t share it or?
The only one who’s trolling here would be your self…
There may be innovative projects in FOSS development, but saying nothing innovative goes on in Windows is ridiculous. One of the biggest problems is that armchair judgments are made based on what Microsoft does with the Windows user interface rather than developments that go on under the hood. The programming models in .NET, the language and compiler development by Microsoft, and features in both Win 8 and cloud computing in Windows Azure are all good examples on innovation. The work being done to improve SQL Server and programming models to it is interesting. Work being done to compile the .NET targets directly to native hardware code is interesting. Microsoft embedded is doing some new work that is interesting. I would love to have some reading material references, and I am asking this in a respectful way, on what innovation is currently going on in FOSS. The work going on at Microsoft with managed code and the Singularity project is innovative and interesting. Also people making innovation judgments are not considering work done by third party Windows developers. You may dump on Windows Phone, but a lot of work not yet released is being done to improve it, Improve its search and assistant capabilities and most importantly to merge the Phone and tablet programming models.
Edited 2014-01-13 00:12 UTC
There are, sounds like you don’t want to give them credit.
That’s good, but there are competitions that offered the same product and with innovative features, so MS regardless of their innovation under the hood, won’t get the notice you want for them.
Interesting indeed, I will be watching this, please.
Singularity project is to me is still experimental, and can’t be called
so far.
You are hoping that Windows phone gets improvement, by the way, there are many positive reviews for WP, the thing is late, innovation, regardless of the works being done for it is irrelevant, since IOS and Android is what matters. Anyway, WP will still exist on the market as I see it.
Dano:
There is a big difference between improving and being innovative. Microsoft is certainly improving their ecosystem. But they aren’t being innovative. So MIcrosoft is finally getting into cloud. Amazon has been there since 2007. And I am sorry, but you dont see any major cloud providers using Azure as their hypervisor.
Singularity could be innovative. I really don’t know anything about it.
I never said developers were leaving the Windows environment, but lets think about that for a second. We now have iOS and Android as large programming fields, neither of which have anything to do with Windows. Microsoft is actually paying people to write apps for their apps store. And, on the games front you have a giant upsurge in releases for the Linux platform. While they are still developing for Windows too, it is still a major change from the recent past. All of a sudden there is a lot more development going on outside of the Windows platform than there used to be a short time ago.
Commercial developers are not actually leaving Windows in “droves”. That is why the opinion is crap.
Edited 2014-01-13 00:28 UTC
What innovations have come out of Microsoft lately? There’s Metro which was innovative in 2010, and Microsoft has taken that and slapped it on a tablet without many new additions.
Apart from that, I can’t think of new things in the consumer space. Windows Phone hasn’t had a huge feature update since 7.5 with multitasking. IE is trying to catch up to other browsers. Bing and Outlook are starting to get better but don’t offer anything the competition doesn’t. The voice control in Windows is a joke. Basically Microsoft may be innovating if you’re using Microsoft products, but for most people, they don’t bring out products that make you go “I want this”. They simply bring out alternatives on par with the competition, but 2 years later.
As for developers not leaving the platform in droves, how many innovative apps from developers have appeared on Windows in the past 3-4 years?