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Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

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Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#21

Post by rizzom5000 »

bad_user wrote: post #14
rizzom5000 wrote: post #10

While I've certainly seen firsthand the importance of AD in enterprise, and I agree that it will continue to sell a lot of Server and SharePoint licenses for MS - I think Office is probably a stronger most valuable asset for a variety of reasons. Among them, Office actually is MSFT's most profitable product and it actually currently doesn't face any noteworthy competition (not that AD does, mind you). Also, I had to…

Office has strong competition. I've seen businesses switch to LibreOffice under the threat of BSA. And Google Apps is just awesome ... being an online service it doesn't have all the features of Office, but it's within reach 24/7 on whatever device, wherever you are, the only requirement being an Internet connection. Being able to make changes to a document (collaboratively too) from an iPad or an Android device, whi…

I like Google Apps, but at the enterprise level there hasn't been much traction. Now MSFT has answered with SkyDrive and OfficeLive. It might be a stretch to suggest that Google Apps isn't competition, but I don't think it has competed very well at all to the present. Also, it doesn't look like LibreOffice is doing much better than OpenOffice ever did. Orgs try it, but often end up going back to Office - and every time it happens, it provides negative feedback for other Orgs who are thinking about switching.

Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#22

Post by DanBlake »

"In fact, so many people I work with don’t use Windows as their host OS."

Then the people you work with are a edge case minority.

Windows absolutely and completely dominates the desktop computer landscape in both enterprise and home. Most estimates have it at 90-95% penetration worldwide vs mac/nix.

For anyone who may say macs are now selling more than ever before and that MS is losing market share fast, remember that apple is not even in the top 5 for computer manufacturers. For every Mac computer sold, there is 90+ Windows equipped computers.

While MS may be in trouble in the phone/tablet market, they still are on extremely solid footing in the desktop market. The question just becomes, what will become a desktop computer in 5 years. Will we all abandon what it is currently and move to tablets?

Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#23

Post by rizzom5000 »

contextfree wrote: post #17
bad_user wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office has strong competition. I've seen businesses switch to LibreOffice under the threat of BSA. And Google Apps is just awesome ... being an online service it doesn't have all the features of Office, but it's within reach 24/7 on whatever device, wherever you are, the only requirement being an Internet connection. Being able to make changes to a document (collaboratively too) from an iPad or an Android device, whi…

Beyond Google Apps, Office faces major "competition" just from less of what people do with computers being about Office-like documents and more about less formally structured web activity.

This could ultimately be the end of Office, but at the moment, Rich Text docs and spreadsheets still rule the enterprise. And as far as that goes, with strong Excel-SQL Server (or other database), integration for data analysis, Excel may be the strongest product in the suite (and Excel might very well be the reason Office is so strong in enterprise).

I think this situation could change rapidly, but MSFT has the momentum, and I could also see Office remaining out in front. It's difficult to imagine someone coming along and supplanting Excel with something superior at the moment.

Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#24

Post by epistasis »

DanBlake wrote: post #22

"In fact, so many people I work with don’t use Windows as their host OS." Then the people you work with are a edge case minority. Windows absolutely and completely dominates the desktop computer landscape in both enterprise and home. Most estimates have it at 90-95% penetration worldwide vs mac/nix. For anyone who may say macs are now selling more than ever before and that MS is losing market share fast, remember tha…

By this reasoning, programmers and software developers are an edge case minority. Yes, they are only a small chunk of the people who buy computers, but they have tremendous influence over the future direction of the field.

Which is to say, paying attention to the mass of office workers does not tell you something about the direction of the software world, it tells you about what dogfood is being forced onto the workers at this moment in time.

Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#25

Post by guilloche »

epistasis wrote: post #24
DanBlake wrote: post #22

"In fact, so many people I work with don’t use Windows as their host OS." Then the people you work with are a edge case minority. Windows absolutely and completely dominates the desktop computer landscape in both enterprise and home. Most estimates have it at 90-95% penetration worldwide vs mac/nix. For anyone who may say macs are now selling more than ever before and that MS is losing market share fast, remember tha…

By this reasoning, programmers and software developers are an edge case minority. Yes, they are only a small chunk of the people who buy computers, but they have tremendous influence over the future direction of the field. Which is to say, paying attention to the mass of office workers does not tell you something about the direction of the software world, it tells you about what dogfood is being forced onto the worke…

Could not agree more

Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#26

Post by DanBlake »

epistasis wrote: post #24
DanBlake wrote: post #22

"In fact, so many people I work with don’t use Windows as their host OS." Then the people you work with are a edge case minority. Windows absolutely and completely dominates the desktop computer landscape in both enterprise and home. Most estimates have it at 90-95% penetration worldwide vs mac/nix. For anyone who may say macs are now selling more than ever before and that MS is losing market share fast, remember tha…

By this reasoning, programmers and software developers are an edge case minority. Yes, they are only a small chunk of the people who buy computers, but they have tremendous influence over the future direction of the field. Which is to say, paying attention to the mass of office workers does not tell you something about the direction of the software world, it tells you about what dogfood is being forced onto the worke…

If you have accurate stats for programmers/developers showing their desktop choice, by all means.

I would bet on Windows being well over 90% still. Remember Microsoft sells worldwide, not just to silicon valley. How many programmers in China do you think use Macs?

Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#27

Post by jtchang »

irq wrote: post #20
jtchang wrote: post #11

This guy is spot on. I've done quite a bit of time in the corporate environment running middleware systems such as LDAP and AD. Google Apps does not have a viable solution because it is not in house. There is no easy way to extend the schema and integrating with Google Apps is actually quite difficult. There are tools to help you integrate from Active Directory to Google Apps but not the other way around. Also Active…

> LDAP (which is essentially AD under the hood) This is false. LDAP itself is nothing more than a protocol (that's what the P stands for). There are very popular implementations of this protocol (OpenLDAP being just one) but even they are not "AD under the hood". AD = LDAP + Kerberos + Microsoft proprietary extensions So if anything, under the hood of AD you will find LDAP, but not the other way around.

I had that reversed. AD is at its base LDAP.

Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#28

Post by bad_user »

rizzom5000 wrote: post #21
bad_user wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office has strong competition. I've seen businesses switch to LibreOffice under the threat of BSA. And Google Apps is just awesome ... being an online service it doesn't have all the features of Office, but it's within reach 24/7 on whatever device, wherever you are, the only requirement being an Internet connection. Being able to make changes to a document (collaboratively too) from an iPad or an Android device, whi…

I like Google Apps, but at the enterprise level there hasn't been much traction. Now MSFT has answered with SkyDrive and OfficeLive. It might be a stretch to suggest that Google Apps isn't competition, but I don't think it has competed very well at all to the present. Also, it doesn't look like LibreOffice is doing much better than OpenOffice ever did. Orgs try it, but often end up going back to Office - and every ti…

So I haven't seen big Orgs switching to Libre/OpenOffice - since they have the resources necessary for whatever licensing and because they get special deals too and because MS Office is a lot better than Libre/OpenOffice, then they have no real reason to switch.

However, the big problem Microsoft faces is that one reason Office is popular is because of piracy, which is like this freakishly big elephant in the room. I can bet that most home users that use Office do not have a license for it - I've seen this happening with small to medium businesses too in my country at least.

And for a small to medium business, what makes more sense? Shelling out the cash for Office licenses or going with a completely free and legal alternative? Considering most such businesses don't actually need Exchange integration or other niceties that MS Office provides, the choice is pretty obvious under the threat of being caught.

And this is the big problem for MS Office - it's an awesome software package, but judging relatively to its upfront cost to home users or small/medium businesses? Well, the extra value provided starts to fade in comparison to a $0 price tag.

Re: Microsoft's Most Valuable Asset

#29

Post by rizzom5000 »

epistasis wrote: post #24
DanBlake wrote: post #22

"In fact, so many people I work with don’t use Windows as their host OS." Then the people you work with are a edge case minority. Windows absolutely and completely dominates the desktop computer landscape in both enterprise and home. Most estimates have it at 90-95% penetration worldwide vs mac/nix. For anyone who may say macs are now selling more than ever before and that MS is losing market share fast, remember tha…

By this reasoning, programmers and software developers are an edge case minority. Yes, they are only a small chunk of the people who buy computers, but they have tremendous influence over the future direction of the field. Which is to say, paying attention to the mass of office workers does not tell you something about the direction of the software world, it tells you about what dogfood is being forced onto the worke…

I largely agree with what you're saying, but at some point some of the workers eating the dogfood become the managers buying the dogfood. Sometimes (hell, maybe the majority of the time) their decisions are self-serving and uninformed; but sometimes their decisions really are based on making the organization as successful as possible under their current circumstances.

It's at this point that we look at what the majority of dogfood buyers are buying and realize that the influence of software developers is probably less than the influence of the people buying the software (sorry for restating the obvious there).

Anyway, the point, if I have one, is that the mass of office workers probably does tell you something about the direction of the software world -- and in fact, if we consider the net worth of IBM, Oracle, SAP, CSK, MSFT, Intuit, Autdesk, etc.; we might find we are at odds about where the 'tremendous' influence is coming from, if there is any such thing as 'tremendous' influence at all.

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