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Microsoft, Past and Future

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Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#91

Post by hcentelles »

jrs99 wrote: post #88
DrJokepu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I find surprising is that, in the process of writing a historical review on Microsoft, anyone would ignore the fact that MS has repeatedly identified areas of profit, moved in, failed spectacularly, iterated aggressively, and ultimately become dominant ... When was the last time they have actually managed to pull this off? Maybe the Xbox? It was never dominant or an area of profit. .NET? Never dominant or a di…

Microsoft isn't even close to where apple was in terms of hitting a low.

Maybe hit that low is what they need to make a comeback.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#92

Post by kalleboo »

josteink wrote: post #83
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which problems do Surface tablets solve? For example, iPhone completely changed my life overnight, mostly due to its navigation features and ability to look up phone numbers. I think Surface will only be dominant if it solves a problem for people. So, which problem does it solve, and why is it useful for people?

iPhone completely changed my life overnight, mostly due to its navigation features and ability to look up phone numbers. I'm not disputing that the iPhone changed smartphones forever, but looking up numbers was something existing smartphones had apps for, long before the iPhone.

And Google Maps with GPS was available even on dumbphones...

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#94

Post by gum_ina_package »

sz4kerto wrote: post #41
simonh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS currently has an advantage in digitizer features on the Surface. But if a swing like this was going to happen, for the reasons you suggest, it would be happening right now. Furthermore, even if such a swing does begin, you are assuming two things: Firstly that Apple will not respond effectively to MS establishing such a niche. Secondly that Android will also fail to compete for that niche. The problem is that all…

It's very difficult to change fundamental things in your well-established, popular OS. See Windows x86/x64, see the difficulties of redesigning iOS in version 7, see the disappointed people who buy an Android hybrid and try to use it as a laptop replacement. For some reason, I have all kinds of tablets at home -- iPad Air, Surface 2 (with RT), Sony Xperia Z, ... Currently I feel that it'd be a shame if the Surface di…

I think you're not seeing a swing because the devices are too expensive. However, as more of my friends buy new machines, I'm seeing more and more of them buy computers that have a "tablet mode" and digitizer.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#95

Post by ZeroGravitas »

dasil003 wrote: post #89
timje1 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet Exploder, stalling human progress since '95.

Actually it was the most innovative browser from '95 to '99.

Well that's one way to spin a monopolist giving away a bundled product for free and reducing the incentive for others to enter that market.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#96

Post by mgkimsal »

sz4kerto wrote: post #61
simonh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple performed a complete, ground-up redesign of their entire iOS UI layer from drawing board to shipping product in less than a year. Evolving a platform isn't a quick or easy task. It took Google maybe 3-4 years to pivot Android into a truly effective iOS competitor, and MS took even longer to respond because they had to start again from scratch. However adding a digitiser and better keyboard support, if they ever…

> Apple performed a complete, ground-up redesign of their entire iOS UI layer from drawing board to shipping product in less than a year. Well, but that's mostly redrawing the existing widgets, it looks different, but works like how it used to work. (They added some stuff like the control center on the bottom, but they haven't really _changed_ how things work.) Also, I don't consider it to be a successful restyling (…

I don't think it'll get devoured. iPad in general has had enough of a headstart to have an ecosystem grow around it. Whether individual consumers will leave iPad mini for one larger combined mobile devices, perhaps. But I think we'll see a trend of iPad minis get used in businesses and dedicated single-use devices (we're seeing it with POS some already - that will likely grow). Now, it may be that android 7" tablets take some of that market too, but... I'm not sure it will. cheap android tables (sub $100) aren't all that usable for day to day business stuff (I've tried a few - mighty slow, for starters), compared to the punchiness of an iPad mini.

The entire market for tablets may shrink if consumers opt for just one larger device, but iPad mini will likely still be a steady device for a long time to come. Now that I've said it, apple will drop them next quarter! ;)

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#98

Post by octo_t »

DrJokepu wrote: post #85
beloch wrote: post #28

What I find surprising is that, in the process of writing a historical review on Microsoft, anyone would ignore the fact that MS has repeatedly identified areas of profit, moved in, failed spectacularly, iterated aggressively, and ultimately become dominant, at least for a time. e.g. What killed Netscape? Microsoft's surface tablets are signs of big things to come. They're currently too expensive for what they are, b…

> What I find surprising is that, in the process of writing a historical review on Microsoft, anyone would ignore the fact that MS has repeatedly identified areas of profit, moved in, failed spectacularly, iterated aggressively, and ultimately become dominant ... When was the last time they have actually managed to pull this off? Maybe the Xbox? It was never dominant or an area of profit. .NET? Never dominant or a di…

Azure is ramping up towards something like that.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#99

Post by josefresco »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #95
dasil003 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it was the most innovative browser from '95 to '99.

Well that's one way to spin a monopolist giving away a bundled product for free and reducing the incentive for others to enter that market.

Did you even use Netscape in the 90's? While most of the non tech loved it's bloated and "friendly" interface, the tech crowd I ran in used IE because it was lean, fast and didn't try to be some sort of "suite" that took over your PC.

Sure MS leveraged their dominance in the OS world with brutal effectiveness, but Netscape was far from the ideal browser. In fact, Opera was our "Firefox" of the time as it could fit on a floppy disk (I'm dating myself here) and seemed lightweight in comparison to even IE.

Speaking of FF, Firefox was born out of Netscape's overall crappiness/bloated nature. IE didn't start sucking until after the US gov came down hard and MS essentially threw their hands up and abandoned innovation as a result of being pounded in the courts. Firefox re-lit the fire of web innovation (along with the whole web 2.0 movement and post dot com bubble rebuild) and then Google simply out Firefoxed Firefox with Chrome.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#100

Post by quesera »

> Here’s my stab at it: Microsoft services, sending data to and from every networked device in the world. The next ubiquity isn’t running on every device, it’s talking to every device.

Yikes. If anyone can find Microsoft-sized margins and volume in that business, it will be more destructive than an OS monoculture ever was.

"Cloud" is a low-margin high-volume business, perfect for players like Amazon and Google, with little boutiquey heroku bits thrown in to vacuum up the value-add-at-any-price edge case customers.

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