Microsoft's content platform and business strategy

[mrcorbo]

Ive mentioned this before but ballmer must go and others are agreeing, why arent the stockholders making more noise?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/6941544/Microsofts-Ballmer-worst-US-CEO-Forbes

Here's the original article. I won't argue the conclusion, but the support the author provides for that conclusion was a shockingly inaccurate portrayal of what MS have done, are doing and will be doing in the future. He's either being deliberately misleading or has an extremely poor grasp of the subject matter. I'm not even talking subjectively, either. There are a number of factual inaccuracies in the text.

OTOH, I suppose I should be conditioned by now to expect any "Top ## list of X" article to be poorly written.

 

[Mobius1aic]

I'm beginning to think with console and game development being so expensive, that the idea of hardware platforms, despite the inherit advantages of single system programming, are on their way to oblivion. The cost of supporting the platform is obviously costing Sony a damned load of money. MS is still feeling losses involved with the original Xbox and getting the Xbox 360 out the door.

Let the computer, tablet, and phone manufacturers absorb the cost and go with software platform development only like in the pre-Xbox days. Win8 will run on x86, ARM, and probably MIPS after not too long. Get your APIs highly compatible and built software development tools that allow for easy migration and deployment across mainstream hardware standards.

The only hardware MS should be making are accessories and peripheral devices. They made MS money, and didn't cost MS billions of dollars and years of development. Remember when MS developed as well as published plenty of games for the PC? They were good at it, and it made them money.

 

[TheChefO]

...Remember when MS developed as well as published plenty of games for the PC? They were good at it, and it made them money.

What makes even more money is controlling a platform (as MS are doing now with the successful xb360 business).

With the rumored new Profitable-From-Day-One™ initiative of both MS and Sony, I could see MS stepping back and saying, "here's the spec, have fun manufacturers.", while attempting to replicate the lost dream of Trip Hawkins.

I see this initiative as destined to fail and quite ironic given the precarious situation Microsoft finds itself in. Microsoft is under pressure on the mobile phone market, the tablet market, the PC market, and the server market. The one industry they have their destiny in their own hands and are competing favorably in, they decide to try and leverage and risk losing it.

Sounds familiar...

I remember another former giant in the console biz not long ago looking to leverage it's dominant position and take advantage of the brand they'd so carefully built up to that point...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Who's threatening MS in the PC market?

 

[TheChefO]

Who's threatening MS in the PC market?

No competition directly (yet), more a persistent trend over the past few years away from PC to notebooks, and more recently, toward tablets.

Desktop sales continue to dwindle every year, server sales are under pressure from linux (and cloud SaaS), and word is Google is looking to push android on the desktop. Not to mention Mac sales have been picking up over the past few years.

 

[zed]

Who's threatening MS in the PC market?

apple PC's seems to be outgrowing them by an order of magnitude quarter after quarter (*)
Though still ~90% but very worrying though for them, as internet explorer used to have over 90% marketshare and look at it now

 

[ERP]

apple PC's seems to be outgrowing them by an order of magnitude quarter after quarter (*)
Though still ~90% but very worrying though for them, as internet explorer used to have over 90% marketshare and look at it now

Ahhh but how many of those apples are running windows? Either via bootcamp or a vm like parallels.
Parallels or equivalent is the only thing that lets me run a Mac.

 

[zed]

wait, so youre saying ppl are buying "expensive macs" to run windows
hmmmm, zed backs away slowly

 

[ERP]

wait, so youre saying ppl are buying "expensive macs" to run windows
hmmmm, zed backs away slowly

I have 2 here, I'll buy a 3rd when the new Macbook pros ship, about 50% of the apps I run, I run under Windows on parallels, I couldn't use a Mac without some way to run Windows. About 70% of the Mac owners I know do the same thing, of course either way it's more people using OSX, I'm just not sure MS cares if you're also buying a Windows license.

As an aside I used a 17 inch macbook pro to run Windows exclusively when I worked at MS, I like the form factor and the hardware.
As it happens outside the bundled apps I don't think the user experience on OSX is any better than under windows.

 

[joker454]

I have a Mac Air that is used 99.9% of the time for Win7. It still has OSX on it, but I don't think it's as good as Win7 64bit hence it's rarely booted.

 

[zed]

About 70% of the Mac owners I know do the same thing,

bingo .. now me (I prefer windows, using comps for nearly 30years) but most of the ppl I speak to dont cause macs 'just work' yes theyre dumbed down. I hate it and I assume ERP and his mates do as well but are we the general populace

@joker454 is this the same joker454 that 'bings' everything (google is for losers), WP 6/6.5/7/7.5 are the best mobile OS eva! uses zune over the competition, browses with internet explorer cause the others sux etc. (all youve said here on these forums)

 

[joker454]

@joker454 is this the same joker454 that 'bings' everything (google is for losers), WP 6/6.5/7/7.5 are the best mobile OS eva! uses zune over the competition, browses with internet explorer cause the others sux etc. (all youve said here on these forums)
hell Im surprised 99.9% why arent you 100% like rangers/robert/silentbuddah (*)

(*)funny thing judging from their political comments is theyre all american republican voters, now is that a correlation or something wider

I think you are mixing me up with someone else because:

- I'm not American.
- I'm far from republican (hell I'm in the porn biz now), I'd probably be considered a socialist since I'm from Montreal.
- I use Google for searches, not Bing.
- I use Spotify for music, not Zune.
- Windows Mobile phones were garbage.

Having said that I do use IE9 for browsing, and I do own a Windows Phone 7.5. Either way...you may wanna get your facts straight before calling me out on a public forum

 

[RudeCurve]

Epic battle between developers...lol.

 

[SedentaryJourney]

bingo .. now me (I prefer windows, using comps for nearly 30years) but most of the ppl I speak to dont cause macs 'just work' yes they're well designed. I hate it and I assume ERP and his mates do as well but are we the general populace

I hate it when people identify smart, painstakingly thought-out design with stupidity. Your main point, however, I agree with. The consumer market loves the Mac, and they love iOS even more. Hence Windows 8.

I'm also doubtful that Mac users bother with a Windows license, unless they need a specific tool that can only be found on the Windows side.

 

[ERP]

It's be interesting to see sales figures for Parallels and VMWare on Mac, it'd give a good estimate of Windows sales.
It's just something that occurred to me recently, I hated macs for years having been scarred by having to develop on OS7 based machines back in the day, when my friends at work started trying to sell me on macs 10 years ago, the pitch was pretty much a great laptop, just run windows on it.
Again I don't pretend it to be a representative cross section.

It's mostly irrelevant anyway the Windows group makes the bulk of it's income from corporate licenses.

I'm going to avoid the Mac's just work debate (outside of limited hardware variation, I disagree).