What's behind Microsoft's fall from dominance?

[yssing]

I havde heard that MS will fall song since the 90s, its not going to happen.

And regarding win8, you may or may not like it, but it took my mother a very short time, less than 1 hour, to learn it. It is actually very user friendly.

[SysAdmin]

@fishy_fiz

Hmmm, I don't see any comments from me in this thread. I only linked to a technology news item for the Other Operating Systems forum. If you have no interest in this tech news move along to other threads please. Nothing to see here for you. The Washington Post Business section is a very reliable media source. Amazon's founder just bought the Washington Post for $250 million dollars.

[SysAdmin]

If it weren't for MS, we'd be using much less powerful hardware than we do now.

I respectfully disagree, I would say MS has set the the IT industry back at least 10-30 years. You don't want the 100's of links I could post backing this up. Thank goodness for the internet where true innovation is able to thrive and grow. Win7 & XP are not bad if you need to run a certain application or have a business need for them. I would say they are not particularly good either. Kind of utilitarian and boring. There are some cool software/hardware products on Windows from 3rd party developers.

[fatboy]

If it werent for MS, we'd be using much less powerful hardware than we do now.......

Because it was inefficient bloatware that needed powerful hardware to do anything useful...the complete opposite of Amiga OS;)

Who needs high-end multi-core CPU's for day to day stuff when you have Android for example on low power devices with CPU's running <1Ghz !?!

The only thing I truly like about Windows is the excellent emulators out there (Fusion, UAE, Spectaculator, FBA, MAME, MESS and so on). I can do office stuff on my Linux laptop.

[odin]

Windows still does make for the best games console. While MS is going through a rough patch, they still have so many resources at their disposal not to mention pretty much the entire enterprise and business market. It's still going to take a planet killer to take MS down at this point, but they must get their act together and adapt or they'll keep losing market share. I think the first thing MS needs to do is reform their management structure and company spirit. A new inspiring leader would help a lot (instead of that current beancounter idiot).

[stefcep2]

I havde heard that MS will fall song since the 90s, its not going to happen.

And regarding win8, you may or may not like it, but it took my mother a very short time, less than 1 hour, to learn it. It is actually very user friendly.

Was that on a tablet or PC?

If it was a PC could you mother do what she does on a PC just as well on her phone or  a touch tablet?  If so then she's probably not someone who needs a PC anyway. In which case there's probably no compelling reason for it to be a Win 8 phone or tablet.

[smerf]

Hi,
Just going to say to all you apple fanboys, government employees own more PC's than apple will ever think of using or selling, and that isn't counting the gamers or the casual user. The only ones who use apple products are the ones that know absolutely nothing about computers. They have to call apple to find out where the on switch is at.

[psxphill]

In which case there's probably no compelling reason for it to be a Win 8 phone or tablet.

The compelling reason is that it's by Microsoft and they are a software company. You can run Windows 8 on hardware that shipped with Windows XP. They are less likely to leave you out in the cold.
 
Apple stop offering OS updates after a few years, so you're forced to upgrade your phone.
 
With Android you're lucky if you get one update by your manufacturer and its likely to make your phone unusable. I have an android phone and I'm fed up with substandard software.

[fishy_fiz]

I respectfully disagree, I would say MS has set the the IT industry back at least 10-30 years. You don't want the 100's of links I could post backing this up. Thank goodness for the internet where true innovation is able to thrive and grow. Win7 & XP are not bad if you need to run a certain application or have a business need for them. I would say they are not particularly good either. Kind of utilitarian and boring. There are some cool software/hardware products on Windows from 3rd party developers.

Like it or not, MS *has* forced growth/progression in hardware. As a nice side effect pretty much every other computing device has progressed.
NVidia and Ati competed for the top spot in pc gfx performance, AMD and Intel have done the same. Core logic chipset features is also another battle, along with devices that rely on it.
All these things and many more took place on the pc (windows) battlefield, and have syphoned their way through to other devices, be it consoles, mobile devices, or whatever.

DirectX is the industry leading multimedia API, and sets the standards for graphics quality/performance (opengl was once ok but has been trailing for many years now(theres a reason next to no commercial games use it)).

[persia]

It's dead Jim.

[stefcep2]

The compelling reason is that it's by Microsoft and they are a software company. You can run Windows 8 on hardware that shipped with Windows XP. They are less likely to leave you out in the cold.
 
Apple stop offering OS updates after a few years, so you're forced to upgrade your phone.
 
With Android you're lucky if you get one update by your manufacturer and its likely to make your phone unusable. I have an android phone and I'm fed up with substandard software.

I don't have any apple or android devices so I can't comment, but MS has a very long history of making hardware obsolete with their OS upgrades.

In fact it was the Vista disaster that told them people would not play the hardware upgrade game anymore, forcing them to make a faster booting more responsive , less resource hungry Win 7.  Some say more so than even XP SP 3 on old machines.

No-one really knows what path they will take as Win 8 matures on phones and tablets- they might just exclude certain CPU's, GPU's, screen resolutions, especially now that they own hardware manufacturers like Nokia and make their own tablets.  Its in their interest to force you to update your phone and tablet hardware, just like everyone else does.

[LaserBack]

DirectX is the industry leading multimedia API, and sets the standards for graphics quality/performance (opengl was once ok but has been trailing for many years now(theres a reason next to no commercial games use it)).

some game developers yet uses OpenGL
for ex ID software games are all OPENGL,ie quake 2, quake 3, quake 4,doom 3, wolfstein,Rage etc
Doom 4 is not out yet but will be using OpenGL ID engine 5

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

With Android you're lucky if you get one update by your manufacturer

That has to do with your carrier and the particular model phone.  Google keeps releasing updates, it's up to Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobil/etc. to push them out, and there's no money in it for the carriers - they can sell more phones if they don't release the updates - hence why so many Android users are stuck on 2.3.6.  Personally I have a Galaxy Nexus and have gotten all the updates, the Nexus line is "flagship" and not as limited by carriers hesitation.  Also they come with a lot less bloat than other Android devices.  Def. recommend.

Read the brief description here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Nexus

[fishy_fiz]

some game developers yet uses OpenGL
for ex ID software games are all OPENGL,ie quake 2, quake 3, quake 4,doom 3, wolfstein,Rage etc
Doom 4 is not out yet but will be using OpenGL ID engine 5

ID are pretty much the exception to the rule, but even Carmack admits that d3d is superior. Their software also uses DirectX for everything other than rendering anyway.

[whabang]

Microsoft's main problem is that they've been too slow to join the mobile revolution. Now that they do, all the haters scream that they're ****ed and the fanboys shout about it like it's Messiah coming down from the skies.

At the end of the day, it's just a battle between technology companies, and the tide of battle has changed direction because consumers want things as simple as possible, and they don't want to upgrade their hardware every six months.

Apple were smart enough to figure that out a few years ago, and anyone who has ever tried to teach someone else to install Windows drivers knows that this is time that people simply don't want to spend. I simply needs to work.

Windows XP had enough drivers to "just work" when it was released. Today, people are calling support lines in despair and can't understand why it doesn't just work - all the other hardware they've plugged into their 10 year-old piece of crap has always worked.

This is why the big bucks in the gaming world are coming from consoles, and why people deliberately buy tablets and large phones - they want things to be simple. Buy a phone, buy an app, do your thing. That's it.

In the future, computers will be much less diverse and much more standardized. App stores are the way of the future. Malware programmers all over the Globe has made that perfectly clear.

Personally, I'm worried about the future. With today's kids growing up with their locked down tablets the interest in computing will wane. Tomorrow's programmers will learn everything in school, and will be forced to operate with closed development kits specialized for specific platforms. Computing, as we know it, is slowly being killed off because all we need now are media consumption devices.

But hey, at least the Pi is selling well.

[psxphill]

That has to do with your carrier and the particular model phone. Google keeps releasing updates, it's up to Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobil/etc. to push them out

I don't like the nexus hardware, no sdcard slot and worse cameras than my 2 year old phone. But each android version they push out is basically hard coded for their phones, which is why it's so hard for manufacturers to port them to last years hardware. Google change the os enough each time that you can't just use the old drivers etc.
 
The other manufacturers don't help as they use binary blobs for drivers that they don't update, plus they can also make changes to the os to get their drivers working. It's a major problem for someone trying to clean up the mess.
 
So with Android you get a choice you can either:
 
1. be forced to buy a nexus, which might be supported for three years (they have stopped supporting the first two already).
 
2. live with being stuck on the version of android the phone comes with.
 
3. upgrade to a cyanogenmod build for your phone that has been ported by a school kid and has drivers that crash or don't work.
 
 
I don't have the money to buy apple stuff & I don't have the money to buy a new phone when my old phone could actually run the latest software if google could get their act together.
 
Android has really left a bad taste in my mouth, something I've never experienced with Microsoft. Microsoft force the operators to accept updates (I think apple do too).
 
Androids Linux origins really show through and it's not something that works commercially.