Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?
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We are seeing less dependency on Windows across organizations. As more and more apps become purely web based the relevancy on operating system and specific browser goes away.
Exchange\Office 365 which was thought to be the bread and butter of email has many viable competitors on the market.
The licensing of Windows Servers is getting more expensive and confusing. We are starting to see many apps run on both Linux/Windows servers now. With virtualization, no Linux knowledge is needed to run Linux based appliances.
Active Directory, while still very strong, doesn't have the market share it had 10 years ago.
Microsoft Mobile OSes and the Surface have been a failure. The share of Microsoft Mobile keeps decreasing into nothingness.
Where is Microsoft Going in 5, 10, and 15 years?
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From a financial perspective the Surface has not been a failure: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/26/microsofts-nadella-says-surface-sales-growing.html.
I see Microsoft phasing out the OS side of its business. I don't know how long that is going to take, but I believe that is the only way for them to stay in business long term.
I'd love to see Active Directory for Linux.
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The only strong market share that I see Microsoft having is in consumer and client computers. The problem is retraining the user into using Linux and not being afraid of it. Because of the strong need for Windows on client devices increases the reason why AD is still strongly needed. I think that this is the only reason why Microsoft has a future anymore.
However, this story on Slashdot doesn't help much either.
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I think microsoft will still have a foot in the door for a lot of places, especially as they move to a pay per service function. Like office365 is a continual monthly cost.
Which a lot of businesses see as reasonable.
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@DustinB3403 said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think microsoft will still have a foot in the door for a lot of places, especially as they move to a pay per service function. Like office365 is a continual monthly cost.
Which a lot of businesses see as reasonable.
This is seen as reasonable because companies don't have to spend money on a dedicated IT person for email, nor the costs of licensing, hardware, storage, backups, etc. If you were to cost compare O365 to 4-8 years of Exchange with CALs for mailboxes, Office licenses, hardware, storage, backups, and training (at least) for the current IT staff, then you're going to see that O365 is significantly cheaper than hosting your own Exchange on-prem.
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@NerdyDad said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@DustinB3403 said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think microsoft will still have a foot in the door for a lot of places, especially as they move to a pay per service function. Like office365 is a continual monthly cost.
Which a lot of businesses see as reasonable.
This is seen as reasonable because companies don't have to spend money on a dedicated IT person for email, nor the costs of licensing, hardware, storage, backups, etc. If you were to cost compare O365 to 4-8 years of Exchange with CALs for mailboxes, Office licenses, hardware, storage, backups, and training (at least) for the current IT staff, then you're going to see that O365 is significantly cheaper than hosting your own Exchange on-prem.
However, there are a few caveats to this as well. O365 does distribute your data geographically, but does not maintain backups of the data. You will have to consider backing it up somehow, either via PS or Veeam.
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I think that the OS side will be around for decades at least, if not centuries. But I expect it to be open source or at least free within a decade. My guess is that Microsoft is going to back off on the desktop to the point of "use it if you want" and just not care about it. Their focus is going to be hosted applications (SaaS) and SQL Server.
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@NerdyDad said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@NerdyDad said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@DustinB3403 said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think microsoft will still have a foot in the door for a lot of places, especially as they move to a pay per service function. Like office365 is a continual monthly cost.
Which a lot of businesses see as reasonable.
This is seen as reasonable because companies don't have to spend money on a dedicated IT person for email, nor the costs of licensing, hardware, storage, backups, etc. If you were to cost compare O365 to 4-8 years of Exchange with CALs for mailboxes, Office licenses, hardware, storage, backups, and training (at least) for the current IT staff, then you're going to see that O365 is significantly cheaper than hosting your own Exchange on-prem.
However, there are a few caveats to this as well. O365 does distribute your data geographically, but does not maintain backups of the data. You will have to consider backing it up somehow, either via PS or Veeam.
Are you sure that they do not back it up? Not giving you access to backups is not the same as not having them.
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@NerdyDad said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
The only strong market share that I see Microsoft having is in consumer and client computers. The problem is retraining the user into using Linux and not being afraid of it.
Simply stop saying it is Linux. Magically, they don't fear it.
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@Kelly said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I'd love to see Active Directory for Linux.
We've had it for years. It's not MS' own AD, but you can manage it with the MS tools as if it were.
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I agree with @Kelly about them starting to lose the OS side of things.
If all applications are operating system agnostic, then is there any need for Windows desktops? Ideally you could run this applications from Linux Mint or Ubuntu. An even better alternative would be to use Android as a thin client. Most users wouldn't need any training and you would not need to license each client.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think that the OS side will be around for decades at least, if not centuries. But I expect it to be open source or at least free within a decade. My guess is that Microsoft is going to back off on the desktop to the point of "use it if you want" and just not care about it. Their focus is going to be hosted applications (SaaS) and SQL Server.
Isn't Azure pretty flaky?
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@DustinB3403 said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think microsoft will still have a foot in the door for a lot of places, especially as they move to a pay per service function. Like office365 is a continual monthly cost.
Which a lot of businesses see as reasonable.
Of course monthly or perpetual is a better business model, but there are plenty of alternatives offering the same service.
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@IRJ said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@scottalanmiller said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think that the OS side will be around for decades at least, if not centuries. But I expect it to be open source or at least free within a decade. My guess is that Microsoft is going to back off on the desktop to the point of "use it if you want" and just not care about it. Their focus is going to be hosted applications (SaaS) and SQL Server.
Isn't Azure pretty flaky?
Very. And expensive, too. But quality and price are not what drives most buyers so that's not a big deal. Marketing is the primary driver of sales, even to business. Azure is making money hand over fist.
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@IRJ said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@DustinB3403 said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think microsoft will still have a foot in the door for a lot of places, especially as they move to a pay per service function. Like office365 is a continual monthly cost.
Which a lot of businesses see as reasonable.
Of course monthly or perpetual is a better business model, but there are plenty of alternatives offering the same service.
The trouble with the alternatives is name recognition. Microsoft is an easy name to remember.
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In 15 years MS is a desiccated rotting husk of its former self, with revenues less than 50% of what they were in 2010. Most of those revenues will be 5-10 employee SMBs who "need Office" as the enterprise customers will be leaving in droves by 2025. And they'll still be trying to sell their mobile OS, only it will be on its 30th iteration and 30th name since 2006, and still have less than 1% market share. Their CEO will constantly be having press conferences about how relevant they are, esp in mobile space. You will see all sorts of expensive commercials showing people how cool their new stuff is, but nobody in the real world will actually use it.
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@momurda said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
In 15 years MS is a desiccated rotting husk of its former self, with revenues less than 50% of what they were in 2010. Most of those revenues will be 5-10 employee SMBs who "need Office" as the enterprise customers will be leaving in droves by 2025. And they'll still be trying to sell their mobile OS, only it will be on its 30th iteration and 30th name since 2006, and still have less than 1% market share. Their CEO will constantly be having press conferences about how relevant they are, esp in mobile space. You will see all sorts of expensive commercials showing people how cool their new stuff is, but nobody in the real world will actually use it.
That is pretty much what I was thinking
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@DustinB3403 said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@IRJ said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@DustinB3403 said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think microsoft will still have a foot in the door for a lot of places, especially as they move to a pay per service function. Like office365 is a continual monthly cost.
Which a lot of businesses see as reasonable.
Of course monthly or perpetual is a better business model, but there are plenty of alternatives offering the same service.
The trouble with the alternatives is name recognition. Microsoft is an easy name to remember.
I think Google is becoming a bigger name than Microsoft if it hasn't already become bigger.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@NerdyDad said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@NerdyDad said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@DustinB3403 said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I think microsoft will still have a foot in the door for a lot of places, especially as they move to a pay per service function. Like office365 is a continual monthly cost.
Which a lot of businesses see as reasonable.
This is seen as reasonable because companies don't have to spend money on a dedicated IT person for email, nor the costs of licensing, hardware, storage, backups, etc. If you were to cost compare O365 to 4-8 years of Exchange with CALs for mailboxes, Office licenses, hardware, storage, backups, and training (at least) for the current IT staff, then you're going to see that O365 is significantly cheaper than hosting your own Exchange on-prem.
However, there are a few caveats to this as well. O365 does distribute your data geographically, but does not maintain backups of the data. You will have to consider backing it up somehow, either via PS or Veeam.
Are you sure that they do not back it up? Not giving you access to backups is not the same as not having them.
This is about the only reference that I could find involving backups.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn440734(v=exchg.150).aspx
Even that is not crystal clear as to how they handle backups, unless they are not handling backups but just copying the data geographically.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@Kelly said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
I'd love to see Active Directory for Linux.
We've had it for years. It's not MS' own AD, but you can manage it with the MS tools as if it were.
I meant Microsoft Active Directory for Linux. I would love to see their core server services licensed individually and platform agnostic.
