microsoft lost decade

[npnw]

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer

[MichaelW]

Interesting article, and a sad story IMO.

[Bill Cravener]

Good read! I have a sense that the coming failure of Windows 8 and MS’s consequential falling stock value will finally be the end of Ballmer. But it may come to late to save the company.

[sinsi]

Ballmer has been with Microsoft since 1980 but was mainly on the financial side of it, that's what is so sad about Microsoft now.
Once Bill (love him or hate him) left and Steve took over they went downhill, looking for the bucks - maybe his 8% growing so rapidly clouded his vision.

Look at MS before he took over, Windows and Office. Now they are splintered, working internally against themselves.
I don't think they will go bankrupt over win8 but it will hit them hard. See ya, Steve.

[hutch--]

Very good article, a prophecy for the near future of Micrrosoft. I have never been a fan of Ballmer and the idiotic performances turned me even further off. I remember when Microsoft was a company of technical expertise, the janitor could code a boot sector in HEX from memory. Years later most of their staff did not know that C was a programming language and they had to look in the archives to find out what MASM was.

The split from being programmers to IT people then to clerical workers is the roadmap to the pending failure of Microsoft on its present course, a once clever technical company starting to be populated by mediocrity driven from within.

It needs a corporate raider to hit it, gut it and reconstruct it and it might just get going again but I would not hold my breath.

[Gunther]

... the janitor could code a boot sector in HEX from memory. Years later most of their staff did not know that C was a programming language and they had to look in the archives to find out what MASM was.

That's the point, hutch and it's a tragedy. Very good article.

Gunther

[mywan]

I really doubt that MS is going down due to Ballmer or Widows 8. Worst (or perhaps best) case scenario is that it does take them so far down that they must entirely reorganize, downsize, and innovate for survival.

The feature set of the Iphone/Android is at least in principle quiet easy and technically feasible to beat by miles. Especially if you consider how easy it would be to dock with and act as the brains of other expensive devices traditionally in their own market category, removing a huge chunk of the cost of things people may not be able to afford otherwise. It has excellent photo processing capabilities, why shouldn't I be able to dock it on a telephoto lens? Google/Apple/etc., could grow an awful lot of market share by making 10 thousand dollar pieces of equipment within everyone's reach. It's been modified to work as a microscope, but lacks that feature by default. My USB microscope sucks as it is. With the proper software, app and client, it can used used as a webcam. Why isn't it plug and play ready for that already with a choice between usb/dock or Bluetooth? The range of sensors, including temp, PH, light, humidity, etc., etc., is endless, taking over about anything Arduino does. You could even do I-plc for home automation, with the phone scheduling everything and warning you if your fish are in trouble. It may even replace your desktop computer by docking on a flat screen with a full sized keyboard, mouse, and network storage drive, local or cloud based. Perhaps your flatscreen monitor/tv should start sporting the high end graphics card and extra processing power for the gamers.

This barely scratches the surface without even considering emerging tech like controlling the phone through thought. There is no reason for Iphone/Android to be limited to selling the primary device alone, when it could by default offload so much of the cost on so many high cost items, and can completely subsume entire high cost niche hobbies/industries while cutting cost across the board. Not that they haven't made excellent progress in that direction.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/iphone_accessories

Smart phones are the future of computing and electronic gadgetry/control in general, putting traditional windows on a road to nowhere. Only MS has a long way to fall and lots of time to get their act together. Many years in fact. The more they get hurt now the better chance they have in the future. Windows 8 is almost like a pathetic reactionary attempt at jumping on a future they don't quiet get, or even know where we are in that future at the moment. Their still in the 1970s Popular Mechanics frame of mind.

[K_F]

Smart phones are the future of computing and electronic gadgetry/control in general, putting traditional windows on a road to nowhere.

Har Har Har...  ;)
What platform would one develop hardware/software for all these gadgets on ?
And companies that do the development would need some form of computer admin...
.. and other companies would need powerful platforms to run their big systems.
ARM is good for gadgets but nothing more that that... there are processors more powerful than Arm and use a lot less power.

Afraid not.... MS, Apple, Linux will be around for a long time.... Gadgets will change for sure.
MS's (and everyone who likes it) stupidity is the cloud.. as we all know clouds evaporate when things get to hot.
 

edt:- must check grammar ... must check grammar !! 

[anta40]

What platform would one develop hardware/software for all these gadgets on ?
And companies that do the development would need some form of computer admin...
.. and other companies would need powerful platforms to run their big systems.
ARM is good for gadgets but nothing more that that... their are processors more powerful than Arm and use a lot less power.

I think what mywan meant is there is a sort of paradigm shift in software developments. Developers used to write lots of desktop apps, then web apps, and now mobile apps. In my city, the demand for desktop apps is not high anymore. Most people prefer web and mobile apps.

Of course PCs still has it use, e.g as the development platform used by the mobile developers themselves. And lots of tasks are better done using PC. That's why smartphones are not the total replacement for PCs.
On the other hand, I believe most banks are still using mainframes to store/access data, not gadgets.

;)

[mywan]

Smart phones are the future of computing and electronic gadgetry/control in general, putting traditional windows on a road to nowhere.

Har Har Har...  ;)
What platform would one develop hardware/software for all these gadgets on ?
And companies that do the development would need some form of computer admin...
.. and other companies would need powerful platforms to run their big systems.
ARM is good for gadgets but nothing more that that... their are processors more powerful than Arm and use a lot less power.

Afraid not.... MS, Apple, Linux will be around for a long time.... Gadgets will change for sure.
MS's (and everyone who likes it) stupidity is the cloud.. as we all know clouds evaporate when things get to hot.
 

I'm not giving up my desktop or locally stored apps either. You are also right one of the faults with the present cloud push is the notion of cloud only, which is silly. The exclusivity of Google Chrome OS working only with web applications is a fatal blow imo. Even if local storage is effectively just a USB or locally networked drive I don't think people will ever forgo their personal computer and storage space for a cloud based system, no matter how well received or how many cloud based apps are integrated into the system.

As far as what platform to develop hardware/software for all these gadgets you have USB, which is not OS dependent so long as the driver exist. You have JavaScript, which is platform independent. You have tcp/ip network services, which are standardized and platform independent, and doesn't require an actual internet connection to implement and use. If you keep your windows app reasonable clean of BS running it under Wine on Linux flavors is trivial. Even short of all this, the majority of developers has already moved to web applications that are platform independent. Hence the push for cloud only systems, which is going a bit too far.

Iphones and such have even become an indispensable in the administration of some manufacturing plants in surprising ways, including the administration of PLCs on the assembly line, flow and inventory control, etc. When we perceive Iphones as something that relates to subset X, and computers as something that relates to set Y, these are mere prejudices resulting from what we've learned to expect given our experience with existing technology offering.

So when I say smart phones are the future of computing, I'm not suggesting that people will be completely weaned off of the core advantages that only a desktop system provides at present. This is Googles error imo. I am suggesting that smart phones will be functionally extended to provide this desktop functionality, through docking and other connections, which moots much the the hardware requirements for an effective desktop and administration systems. You could borrow someones else's desktop system without their OS, desktop, security credentials, or other tools, simply by them undocking their smart phone and you docking your smart phone on their system which is now effective devoid of an OS. The worst mistake you can make to presume technology will maintain the same boundaries between gadgets that are standard expectations at present.

The people who can think outside of these prejudices induced by the niche functions of differing devices will be the ones defining the future of technology. The bandwagon effect of jumping or porting everything to one best paradigm is fallacious. Smart phones are well positioned to provide the foundation piece for this plurality of paradigms. Only very few are thinking more than 1, maybe 2, steps ahead.