Wake Up Vista Before You're Irrelevant
TechCrunch has picked up an interesting story for both Vista fans and haters:
Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald told a conference audience yesterday that Microsoft’s Windows product is collapsing and must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been.
They specifically pointed out the slow adoption rate by businesses - just 6% to date - and the fact that the Vista code base is so large. That means changes take years, and only high end computers can really take advantage of it anyway.
The past few months have seen a great deal of negative attention on Vista (check it out here, here and here, to name a few).
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington also makes a good point about today's webcentric society, as many users care less about an operating system and more about what Internet browser they use. I would argue most users probably just need to make sure they can download pics from their digi cam, plug in their printer and maybe a webcam. Beyond that, the average user is not doing a whole lot.
Arrington notes online apps like Google Docs that have made working on the desktop less relevant today, and I agree. Vista could be flawless but the habits of people are changing so much that few people will care or notice. Flaws don't go unnoticed, however.
Microsoft makes a ton of revenue on sales of software that sit on the computer. $15 billion a year for Windows alone, and another $16 billion for Office and Exchange Server in 2007. That’s 60% of Microsoft’s total revenue, and profits from those groups float the rest of the company. Microsoft isn’t a viable company without their consumer and business desktop software profits.
Arrington ends his blog post with a great question: Is Microsoft interested in fixing their product, or are they interested in staying relevant:
The real question isn’t “What can Microsoft do to fix their Windows product?” but rather “Even If Windows and Office were perfect, would it be enough to keep Microsoft relevant in the medium term?” I think the answer to that latter question might be “nope.” And that, of course, is why they want Yahoo so badly. Online advertising revenue is their only real hope of long term survival.
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No wonder Microsoft is desperate. it will be a bad marriage, Yahoo is open to users now, with Microsoft involvement it will get worse and will try to tie up every program on the net with their desktop software. I hope Yahoo stays independent.
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Gradually, everything is getting web centric. The day will soon come, when people will want a light OS with a great browser and good security. Microsoft is lucky that Mac OS is not that universal and Linux hasn't been adopted to that extent by business and power users. Otherwise, it would have a fight on it's hands.
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@■ Saikat Basu (Maverick)
Gradually, everything is getting web centric. The day will soon come, when people will want a light OS with a great browser and good security. Microsoft is lucky that Mac OS is not that universal and Linux hasn't been adopted to that extent by business and power users. Otherwise, it would have a fight on it's hands. All we need is a good and simple OS, microsoft OS has too many bugs. I do almost everything in a browser -
@■ Chris V. Thangham
All we need is a good and simple OS, microsoft OS has too many bugs. I do almost everything in a browser
I think that Microsoft in a way does not discourage piracy of its software. Esp. in India the tech boom wouldn't have come about without pirated software and OS. India is predominantly a Microsoft kingdom. Add a Comment
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