What's behind Microsoft's fall from dominance?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

@psxphill has obviously never had to be in charge of an IT department with limited resources and a stretched-thin budget facing having to rewrite their enterprise software for compatibility and retrain 15,000 non-technical users who can barely use a pencil sharpener, and just want to be able to (quote) "get their work done"(TM).  

[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

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

The majority of people are sheep and will buy whatever you manipulate them into buying.

Such venom!  The majority of people don't really care all that much, they just want something that works (even if "works" defines a sub-optimal level of performance for us geeks), and is at a reasonable price.  The huge number of available models, many of which are given away for free ("with a two year contract", yadda yadda) is moreso the fuel behind Android's growth.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I currently have the choice of 4.3 with no camera light, touch screen bugs & random battery drain because google keep trying to keep devices on all the time or 4.2.2 with random reboots due to a buggy wifi driver.
 
For both of those google maps doesn't work well for some reason the screen just jumps around. Neither one of them supports the FM radio either. There are other bugs and missing functionality, but those are the ones that really affect me.

IMHO if you're having that many problems you need to hard reset the device and start over again from scratch with a fresh install of only the core apps you use.  That or buy an iPhone, because Android clearly isn't the operating system for you.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

The sheep are revolting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4PkMPAlMFo

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I've heard Classic Shell on Sourceforge.net makes Windows 8 almost tolerable.

I've got a dozen things in my WBStartup drawer to make AmigaOS almost tolerable, is that the same thing?  

j/k, no hack will resolve Windows 8's incompatibilities with certain enterprise apps (insert other long list of complaints here), so that still makes it a no-go for my company.

In a semi-related note, I do freelance IT work in addition to my main job.  Just today had another customer contact me requesting to downgrade him from Windows 8 back to 7.  This particular person's complaint?  Jerky DVD playback with third-party applications, because Windows 8 no longer includes DVD playback capabilities as standard.  I *hate* DVD's, and even I facepalmed when I saw this decision by Microsoft.  :p

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I'll make sure not to install it, almost tolerable would be a step down for me.
 
DVD playback was only ever included in windows 7 home premium/ultimate/enterprise, it wasn't included in earlier versions of windows or the other windows 7 versions. IIRC Microsoft had to pay license fees which was a percentage of the cost of Windows. Lots of machines don't even have optical drives anymore & it wasn't that good either, cyberlink was always better.
 
It makes sense for Microsoft to drop DVD support because it isn't cost effective.
 
I don't miss windows media centre either, early adopters could get it for free but even that wasn't worth it for me.

Media Center is attrocious, but all versions of Windows 7 AFAIK can play DVD's directly through Windows Media Player, I just tested it on a Windows 7 Professional box.  Also for giggles I popped a DVD into a freshly installed Ubuntu 13.04 laptop I have sitting here, and the DVD began playing in the built-in "Videos" application.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Mac OS can still natively play DVD's, correct?

So it seems like Microsoft was the only major player to remove DVD playback capability from their OS and force users to have to hunt down 3rd party applications.  Now mind you, I hate DVD's so really couldn't care less, but it just seems a bit... premature... to remove DVD playback, when there are still a large percentage of the population who use things like Redbox, no?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

It's just following the same pattern.  Office XP - terrible.  Office 2003 - great.  Office 2007 - terrible.  Office 2010 - great.  Office 2013... you get the idea.

For laughs read some of the reviews on amazon.com.  Office 2013 has close to 90% 1-star reviews, and Office 365 is even worse.  :p  If they don't shape up it'll be LibreOffice or Google apps after this!

PS - with your license for Office 2013 you receive downgrade rights to Office 2010, so you can run either.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

It allowed Microsoft to reduce the price of Windows 8, which is much cheaper than Windows 7.

Just FYI, see attached screenshot, made today from neweggbusiness.com.  If anything Windows 7 is cheaper since they have the 3-pack option.  Below this was Windows 8 home, which was retailing for $99, but I'm a business user and only buy/recommend business-class solutions.

This pretty much throws the whole argument out the window... not only is Windows 8 less capable, it costs more, too.  Way to go, Microsoft!  *facepalm*

Edit:  haha, look at all the low reviews for Windows 8.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

They don't come with DVD playback, the user has to install a codec or standalone player like VLC to enable it. Same as Win8.

Ubuntu 13.04 can play DVD's using it's built-in "Videos" application, no 3rd party software or additional downloads required.  Don't believe me?  I just did it, fresh install of Ubuntu only a couple days old.  I'd be glad to shoot you a video.  Although if someone really wanted to watch a lot of movies on any system, I'd still recommend VLC.

My only point in bringing this up was, that if someone buys a new computer out of the box, someone who doesn't know a whole lot about computers (unlike everyone on this forum obviously, yadda yadda), and see the label for DVD on the drive, pop in a disc... they should be able to play it with no hassle.  This is just such a basic feature these days that everyone expects to be able to do it without having to think about it, ya know?

Anyhow, carry on with your other arguments now.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyxLGSMtqtM  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

It's not less capable, you can buy a copy of Windows that includes DVD playback. It appears that Microsoft increased the price of Windows 8 in February, you should have bought it sooner.

You've completely missed the point.  In the face of rampant criticism (and I don't mean just on this forum - look at the thousands of reviews on any major website you care to google) one of the few options Microsoft has is to slash prices... which is exactly what they've been doing with the Surface lately... but instead they chose to raise prices?  That's why the *facepalm*.  Ah, nevermind.  I give up.  And as for "should have bought it sooner", yeahhhh, no.  :p

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I'd take your point more seriously without the pantomime.
If you can't make you point without LOLing, facepalming etc then don't bother.

Clearly you are a towering juggernaut of intellectual activity.  If my "pantomime" is so much below you, then please ignore it in the future.  I'll do the same for your posts also, since you don't really seem to contribute anything to the subjects that actually interest me in this forum.  Life is too short.  Have a nice day!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

IEstimated number of Windows 8 sales are over 40 million copies, and while the initial offering for W8 was a bit of a stinker, 8.1 is a lot more enterprise friendly.  I could honestly park you in front of my 8.1 machine, and you'd be hard pressed to find it gimped in the least.

But hey, don't let me interject irrefutable numerical sales numbers into your arguments

Doubtful.    But I believe this oft-quoted number has been refuted by a number of trustworthy sources.  That that's 40 million copies of the software that have been shipped to resellers and OEM's, etc., but not the number that's actually been put into consumer's hands, which is much lower.  In other words, a lot of those "40 million" are still sitting on store shelves.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Still more expensive than Windows 7.  The real question is, why would anyone pay to upgrade, when desktop computers are getting used less and less by average consumers?  They need to incentivize this pricing if they expect it to sell in volume.  Of course their real market is still pushing to bottom-feeding consumers buying computers at box stores like Best Buy, Walmart, etc.

(quote) "Windows 8.1 will cost the same as Windows 8 did this time last year, with US pricing starting at $119 and Windows 8.1 Pro costing $199; an extra $10 gets you Windows Media Center." -

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/384244/windows-8-1-lets-pc-makers-start-from-scratch?_mout=1&utm_campaign=pcpro_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter