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CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

money.cnn.com

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Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#41

Post by rst »

icegreentea wrote: post #2

"Microsoft's attempts to build a social network through Windows Live have failed to gain traction. It has no real answer to Facebook. " I take issue with this. Pretty much no one has a 'real' answer to Facebook. In fact, Microsoft didn't even really try. And whatever they did try, they actually gave up on. As I remember, when explaining the Facebook integration into the newest Windows Live "nobody wants another faceb…

Microsoft's "answer" to Facebook so far looks to me like they're trying to integrate with it, wherever they can make it make sense --- the most prominent sign of which was the recent Bing "social search" announcement. (This on top of their earlier investment and advertising deal.)

Unfortunately for them, it's been less of a splash than they were hoping for. Weekend before last, I heard the author of "The Facebook Effect" (good book, BTW) say that Facebook had had three major announcements in the two weeks before that: Skype integration, the new groups machinery, and some third thing he couldn't remember. The third thing he couldn't remember was Bing social search.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#42

Post by DavidBishop »

brudgers wrote: post #28

Saying "Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand" is somewhat analogous to saying "Mitsubishi is a Dying Consumer Brand." Though the structures are different, consumer products are only a part of their portfolio. Both have successful industrial lines, and both have flagship consumer lines that often draw flack. Importantly, both own highly successful consumer brands e.g Xbox and Nikon, respectively. What the article misse…

You are correct in that it's not all of Microsoft that is dying, but Microsoft is losing in many markets. It's dropped below 5% in the global smartphone market, and many leading companies have shied away from Windows 7 on tablets. The mobile market is what's booming and Microsoft has no dog in the hunt. Compare the stock price increases over 10 years of the leaders in mobile to Microsoft: - Apple up 2000% - Google up almost 400% (6 years: they went public late 2004) - Microsoft down almost 20%.

Yes, Microsoft owns the business market and will for the foreseeable future, although other companies, such as Apple, are making inroads, growing 57% this year (this only equates to a total 3-odd% but it is still an impact - Remember when Firefox was only 2%?)

I agree with you that to say "Microsoft is dying overall" is overplaying it, but to not see that Microsoft is missing it in many other arenas that may eventually impact their business line is equally incorrect.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#43

Post by blub »

cryptoz wrote: post #3

I firmly believe that most of Microsoft's failings in the consumer market come from their fear of the World Wide Web. Microsoft does everything they can to hide their users from the real power of the web, since everyone - including Microsoft - knows that a ubiquitous Web means fewer sales of Windows and Office. Their logic in locking users to Windows-based experiences is old, tired, and not going to work anymore. Peo…

What is so great about HTML5 and JS for me, the user? That you can get my location? That you can have video (just like Flash, except slower)? Or is it that you can store stuff on my machine? HTML5 is one more step in the direction of web pages pretending to be applications.

Reading about "the web" on HN is like reading the story of Icarus. HN'ers are so enchanted by web apps that they forget they can only fly on the web thanks to native software. They would like to replace everything with a browser.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#44

Post by tesseract »

sanderjd wrote: post #38
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was exactly what I thought about those commercials: "If you are the type who doesn't want a powerful smart phone, Windows Phone 7 is for you." Then again, it will be interesting to see if that resonates with a less technical market segment.

As a data point, I recently saw one of these with my girlfriend who is not super technical but not out of the loop either. The concept of rescuing us from our mobile screens resonated with her, but she was almost mad at the end to discover it wasn't a commercial for something involving real human interaction, but rather yet-another-mobile-screen-device. I wonder if they will end up angering both sides of the doucheba…

> The concept of rescuing us from our mobile screens resonated with her, but she was almost mad at the end to discover it wasn't a commercial for something involving real human interaction

Dentyne got this right.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#45

Post by Timmy_C »

Xuzz wrote: post #27
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The XBox uses the web in the best way possible for a games console - on-line gaming. Maybe it's just me but I find a console a rubbish browsing platform - I've got browsers on my PS3, PSP and Wii and never use them. It is possible that Microsoft just don't have a browser in the 360 because it's not a great place to put a browser. Microsoft own Hotmail, they've ported Office on-line, XBox supports on-line gami…

The Internet is not the web. Native games with Internet multiplayer aren't the web, they are the Internet. I don't know a single person using the online Office versions, because, well, they don't compare to the desktop ones. Yesterday, I saw a graph showing Hotmail losing about 10% market share, mostly to Gmail. Their new Xbox website broke every existing link on the domain. Mocrosoft does not get the web, even if th…

The sites built for marketing Microsoft products are often outsourced. So the fact that the new Xbox website was broken in any regard is the fault of a poor marketing manager and not a poor Microsoft developer.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#46

Post by timwiseman »

This article is overblown at best. Microsoft's core operating system and office suites remain absolutely dominant even if competitors are rising.

While Nintendo Wii certainly moves more units than the xbox, the xbox remains a successful competitive system with interesting innovations that largely focused on a different segment than the Wii did. While Microsoft is way behind in the phone segment, it is a bit premature to declare Windows Phone 7 a failure in the consumer market.

What this is showing is not so much that Microsoft is dying but that because other competitors are rising it is no longer the absolutely dominating force it used to be. This in itself is significant, but a far cry from dying.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#48

Post by maukdaddy »

scrrr wrote: post #18

Was Microsoft ever such a big brand? Google is, Apple is, Dell is, but with Microsoft it is more like many Brands: Windows, XBox, Zune.. I think the main things that people immediately associate with the actual word "Microsoft" might be mice and keyboards. But, (at least in my perception) they are slowly beginning to address the problem of decreasing user numbers. See their marketing at "Colbert Report" and, recently…

I don't know how young you are, but I'm guessing under 20.

There was a time when IBM was synonymous with computing. That gave way to Microsoft. During the late 80s and all of the 90s, Microsoft WAS the computer.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#49

Post by sanderjd »

face wrote: post #35
points wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. The fact the xBox gaming console has the power of a supercomputer, as evident from its fans and overheating problems, but doesn't even have a simple webbrowser is all the evidence we need. MS has never understood or indeed wanted the www to happen. They were able to hold back www development for 5 years+ with their IE6 shenanigans, but the cats out of the bag now.

An Xbox 360 has a 3.2GHz Xenon (three cores) and 512Mbs of ram [1]. Saying that it has the power of a supercomputer is a bit of a stretch (by about three orders of magnitude, #500 on the top500 list has five thousand cores [2]). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360 [2] http://www.top500.org * edit: formatting

It certainly doesn't have the power of a modern supercomputer, but it surpasses everything on Wikipedia's supercomputer timeline until about halfway down (using the admittedly poor comparison of GHz - GFLOPS). From that point of view, I think "power of a supercomputer" is fairly reasonable.

Re: CNN Money: Microsoft is a Dying Consumer Brand

#50

Post by jk8 »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #19
alanthonyc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also scared of phones. Check out their Phone 7 commercials. They appear to be catering to people who think people with phones are douchebags who walk around staring at their screen all day. I'm not sure how well this marketing strategy will work, because I am one of those douchebags, but it doesn't make me want to get one.

The message I got from the ad is that Windows Phone 7 would allow you to see if you had any updates on the homescreen itself, obviating the need for fiddling with the phone for a long time to access the same information.

Disclaimer: I am saying this without holding the actual device and without seeing a video.

Everyone, seems to think that we will be able to see updates on the home screen itself, which I don't think will work.

For example email: What will I see on the homescreen? who sent the email, when it was sent? will I see a brief message on the screen? How much information will I see in a tiny box/slice/tile. I don't think I will be able to see a lot of it.

Twitter: I think, I will be able to see the last tweet. A little helpful.

Facebook updates: I think it would work same as twitter.

The user has to launch an app to get the complete information. I think its bad if MS tries to make the phone into a taskbar notification system.

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