Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?
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Windows CE powered the Sega Dreamcast.
NTG used to manage CE devices for hospitals. We built custom software on them for years.
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Windows CE was a much bigger deal for Microsoft in the late 1990s than Windows 10 IoT is today. If you think CE was an "experiment" then what is Windows 10... not even trying anymore?
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@scottalanmiller said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@Carnival-Boy said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
But I don't see how operating systems are a weakness - over 400m devices running Windows 10 so far?
Yeah, for Windows that isn't a good number. Their size is shrinking as the market grows. That's not good. And the desktop is their best spot. Their server market is being destroyed. And as that goes. the desktops become that much more precarious. It's their foundation that is eroding.
Of course it's shrinking. Fewer and fewer people need a full blown PC, top that off with the fact that PCs are lasting much longer these days than before, so sales are slumping as most would expect.
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@Dashrender 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?:
@Carnival-Boy said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
But I don't see how operating systems are a weakness - over 400m devices running Windows 10 so far?
Yeah, for Windows that isn't a good number. Their size is shrinking as the market grows. That's not good. And the desktop is their best spot. Their server market is being destroyed. And as that goes. the desktops become that much more precarious. It's their foundation that is eroding.
Of course it's shrinking. Fewer and fewer people need a full blown PC, top that off with the fact that PCs are lasting much longer these days than before, so sales are slumping as most would expect.
But the sales of their competitors are not slumping. They are growing.
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Also, in 5 or 10 years MS will have at least 3 different versions of Skype, OneDrive, Teams, Sharepoint. Nobody will know the difference between the different versions, and basic features in each wont work at all.
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If Windows stops becoming the number one choice of business users, Microsoft will be damaged very badly. They cannot lose that market. They would lose consumers, servers, and pretty much all their OSes. Windows is in top of the operating system space is because it is seen as the standard for the majority of users. If they don't use Windows at work, they will stop using it at home. Applications will stop relying on windows since it is no longer than standard and in turn it would not be used in new servers as often.
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@IRJ said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
Windows is in top of the operating system space is because it is seen as the standard for the majority of users. If they don't use Windows at work, they will stop using it at home.
That's the thing, though, it's not and hasn't been for years and MS isn't very concerned. Windows 10 already gave up mobile, laptops, embedded devices and really... even trying. Let's face it, it's not even a good effort at a competitive desktop. Microsoft is happily giving up market share and that's just desktop. They gave up the server race years ago. They still have a good product, but their OSes are not their bread and butter and have not been for years. Their OSes don't drive the market (outside of the rapidly evaporating desktop and video game space) and MS has worked extremely hard to refocus everything that they do currently to be OS agnostic.
I don't think MS really cares, at all, that they have an OS and for good reason. It costs too much to make, takes focus away from their money making products and holds them back.
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@IRJ said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
Applications will stop relying on windows since it is no longer than standard and in turn it would not be used in new servers as often.
Which is what MS wants and why they are rapidly porting everything that they can to other platforms, mostly Ubuntu and Suse.
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I found this:
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XBOX is bigger than Windows desktops!
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Important note on their revenues, Azure and O365 are showing up in things like Server OS revenues even when MS is the customer. That's important to note that while their server business appears to be growing, it doesn't mean that the sales of it are. They could have that be a pretty big number someday while being hte only customer of it - in theory.
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@scottalanmiller said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
XBOX is bigger than Windows desktops!
They gave away windows 10, so I'm not surprised
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@Dashrender 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?:
XBOX is bigger than Windows desktops!
They gave away windows 10, so I'm not surprised
They had to!
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@scottalanmiller said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
@Dashrender 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?:
XBOX is bigger than Windows desktops!
They gave away windows 10, so I'm not surprised
They had to!
Why exactly was that? oh, and it's not free now. Vista was more or less a flop, yet people still paid for Windows 7.
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@Dashrender 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?:
@Dashrender 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?:
XBOX is bigger than Windows desktops!
They gave away windows 10, so I'm not surprised
They had to!
Why exactly was that? oh, and it's not free now. Vista was more or less a flop, yet people still paid for Windows 7.
Vista wasn't really a flop, it did quite well in business and to say it was a flop means you are either discounting Windows 7 or ignoring Microsoft's traditional "every other" OS strategy on the desktop. Vista did exactly what it was supposed to do and was, by all accounts I know, very successful. It had one job, get people over the pain of XP and prepare them for Windows 7. And it did that.
Windows 10 is not in a similar position.
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From what I am seeing Windows 10 is to help prepare the end user (whether consumer or enterprise) for something such as Windows-as-a-Service.
Pay mon they or annually to keep using their product.
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@NerdyDad said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
From what I am seeing Windows 10 is to help prepare the end user (whether consumer or enterprise) for something such as Windows-as-a-Service.
Pay mon they or annually to keep using their product.
I hear this a lot and I have to say I have literally zero faith in it. I don't see Windows 10 doing anything that suggests a move like that. If anything, it's the opposite. I see this being the last time anyone will pay for Windows. It's going to be free after this. Making people pay monthly for their OS would be the death knell for Windows. Most people, and I mean 98%, never "pay" for it at all. They buy a computer, they use it. Take that away, people will switch, instantly. It would be a mass migration off of Windows and MS knows that. Linux and Mac would be circling vultures.
It's very different. MS is not that foolish. They know that having Windows out there, for the time being, is important. The free-er it is, the more it won't go away.
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I know what will happen to MS on my gear if they continue down the path they're headed
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ef/ce/d8/efced83473ff02b46644c0529c4c6512.jpg
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Well, this will prolong the lifespan of Windows on the desktop: http://news.softpedia.com/news/nsa-approved-windows-10-cleared-for-classified-use-512841.shtml.
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@Kelly said in Where do you see Microsoft in 5, 10, and 15 years?:
Well, this will prolong the lifespan of Windows on the desktop: http://news.softpedia.com/news/nsa-approved-windows-10-cleared-for-classified-use-512841.shtml.
If the NSA has cleared it, it'll likely still be there is 2040.
