Microsoft’s biggest news was that the next version of Windows would run on the style of cell phone chips that power the iPad and other tablets today,” Mintz reports. “It proved it with a series of demonstrations on half-built computers; on the monitors hooked up to those machines, the software was indistinguishable from the current Windows 7.”
“Microsoft’s missing tablet served as a reminder that the world’s largest software maker remains years from a serious entry into this new category of devices,” Mintz reports. “It also raised more doubts about whether Microsoft Corp. will ever be able to grab a meaningful piece of this fast-growing segment. If it can’t, Microsoft Corp.’s dominance of personal computers may become increasingly irrelevant as people embrace ever-sleeker portable devices.”
MacDailyNews Take: This is the way the borg ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. (apologies to T. S. Eliot)
Mintz continues, “It’s hard for anyone to applaud Microsoft without noting the threats posed by the growing popularity of Apple Inc.’s iPad. It’s also hard to see Windows as a tablet contender amid an onslaught of new tablets running Google Inc.’s Android software… Those concerns have been weighing on Microsoft stock, which has hovered around the $20 to $30 range for the past decade. Apple, on the other hand, has seen its share price more than triple since the first iPhone was announced in early 2007. Last year, Apple’s market capitalization surpassed Microsoft’s, making Apple the second-largest U.S. public company after Exxon Mobil Corp.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Once upon a time, nearly 6 years ago to the day, many laughed at us for writing this:
As we have always said, even as many short-sightedly waved (and continue to wave) the white flag, the war is not over. And, yes, we shall prevail. For the naysayers: In 1929, Ford held just over 61% of the U.S. market for automobiles. GM’s market share stood at just 12%. Ford was thought to be invincible, with GM regarded as a niche auto maker. Probably, some analyst at the time said, “The reality is, long term, GM will always be a niche player.” But, in 1936, just seven years later, Ford held just 22% of the market for new automobiles while General Motors held a 43% share. No company is invincible. Not even Microsoft. – MacDailyNews Take, January 10, 2005
Who’s laughing now?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “JES42” and “James W.” for the heads up.]
Go Ballmer go!!
Keep up the good work.
May you stay forever!
laughing all the way to the bank
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Yeahbut, Kinect is just rockin’ the socks off folks. It’s the next big thing dontchaknow? Fuggatabout that Courier stuff. Ballmer’s just messin’ with Apple, makin’ ’em spend all those R&D bucks on an iPad that’s just a passing fad. Microsoft is the king. Just you wait and see! Can I get an Amen!, ‘Tang?
Which also will make their desperate attempts to jigger with their sales numbers (saving one quarter’s profits to report in the following quarter to make it look continuous) even MORE desperate.
MDN, sounds good.
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But…. I will have to add that the people at Microsoft are not TOTALLY stupid.
Over the years I have seem Microsoft come up with some good ideas. Many, Apple has had the foresight to include in its Apple products. I see some nice ideas from the CES this year. Not sure if the technology is ready yet but the ideas are nice.
The important thing is for Apple to remember that a dying tiger can still be a tiger… Sometimes….
Just a thought,
en
Bonus: the article contains quotes from Rob Enderle! Although, sadly, Rob’s take on Steve Ballmer’s suitability for babysitting have apparently been omitted.
Microshaft definitely on its way out.
(It’s about time.)
Is this the face of capitulation?
You mean there weren’t doubts before they talked about their timetable?
“Microsoft’s missing tablet served as a reminder that the world’s largest software maker remains years from a serious entry into this new category of devices,”
This is a pretty telling statement….
Microsoft is a software company, not a hardware company. They have chastised Apple for years for being “closed” since Apple has a vertically integrated system and here they are trying to do it themselves.
They want to play both sides of the argument and every time they try to do something like this it just proves that in the end they know Apple’s approach is better.
They slashed the price of the Big Ass Table from $12,000 to $7,600. The lines are around the block. LINK
Microsoft and Boeing, both Seattle area mega-businesses are floundering.
MS can’t seem to do much besides try to copy Apple, and Boeing can’t seem to design and build new airplanes anymore (see the 787 and 747-8 programs, which have both seen major delays in certification, with the 787 more than three years late!)
Funny coincidence, Ford just passed GM in Canada to become Number 1 in vehicle sales for the first time in 50 years.
Does this mean that Microsoft could make a comeback 50 years from now?
Who’s laughing now? Maybe Ford.
Damn, I think msft is in bigger trouble than anybody knows. Msft is exhilirated by kinect sales which they probably lose money on and now they come to the CES with nothing more than a bunch of PC parts.
Google is the new Borg.
Can’t wait for the Android patent lawsuits to start costing Google.
Especially can’t wait for Baidu, Facebook and Apple to challenge Google with Search.
Raised doubts? As if they assumed microsoft could bring something. Anyone willing to take an objective look realized microsoft died about eleven years ago. It’s just such huge, bloated corpse it takes a long time to rot. Both Ballmer and Gates before him are technologically illiterate. The only thing they ever innovated was the use of predatory contracts, licensing, partnerships, and business practices in the naive landscape of 80s-90s technology.
To Eldernorm’s point, the people at microsoft are not stupid. There are many brilliant engineers there, and they will never be guided toward innovation, or even allowed to go on their own. The leadership is brain dead and chaotic down through several impenetrable layers of management. The skill level of the guy at the top is equivalent to a sales manager at a local auto dealership.
Somehow appropriate: the hallways at One Infinity loop are wide and filled with light. The halls at redmond are narrow fluorescent labyrinths.
@Follower
How the heck does Enderle continue to be quoted by the media?
I’ve been here a long time, since I remember that MDN take!
Having to display computer guts at CES is EXACTLY why Steve stopped keynoting at Macworld SF. It put the company on the tradeshow’s time schedule not the other way around.
Poor Microsoft, they’ve already lost the tablet wars, and are making their last stand in Portugal against Napoleon. The question is, whether they can comeback like Wellington or whether they’ll run away.
“Windows will continue to be everywhere” said Ballmer. Does he think that just by saying that it will come true?
If ever there was a point when you have to say the end is in sight for Microsoft it was that keynote and this CES.
As Horace Dedyu said:
“At this year’s CES two unthinkable things happened:
The abandonment of Windows exclusivity by practically all of Microsoft’s OEM customers.
The abandonment of Intel exclusivity by Microsoft for the next generation of Windows.”
Making it the most exciting CES, ever.
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http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/06/this-is-the-most-exciting-ces-ever/
Okay, so I just read the AP article. What I really think happened is that Microsoft drank the Intel koolaid, and believed Otellini when he told them that Atom would develop quickly enough to be put into low-power tablets, so that Microsoft would never have to adapt their OS to run on ARM chips. While Steve Jobs didn’t believe Intel’s low-power Atom roadmap compared to ARM’s, clearly Ballmer did.
Now, that Apple has brought out a snappy tablet that is a success based upon ARM architecture, and Intel has yet to come out with a thrifty-enough Atom, Microsoft has had to scramble and announce their ARM SOC initiative, which seems ludicrous given that it has to be at least 2 years away from reality.
The failure is Microsoft’s inability to think long-term strategically, and to trust their partners like Intel for far too long.
“…on the monitors hooked up to those machines, the software was indistinguishable from the current Windows 7.”
When all one has is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To Microsoft, the solution to every problem is “Windows”. They’ve got nothing else. That’s just one reason they’re failing.
It will take Microsoft quite awhile to copy each and every iOS function and navigation paths. Just printing out all the screen shots to post prints in the hallways outside engineer’s offices would be exhausting. Copying is hard.
MS and Intel’s backwards (and I do mean BACKWARDS) compatibility finally bit them in the proverbial backside. They are at least two years from any meaningful ARM support. And that’s just the OS, not counting the apps.
Meanwhile, Apple’s huge OS transition and multiple chip architecture transitions have finally paid off.
BIG TIME.
“Instead of unveiling an elegant response to the iPad, Microsoft came to the tech industry’s premier gadget show with a collection of exposed computer guts”
I am as diehard as anyone I know when it comes to Apple, I even have a Lisa.
But… Just like Apple was brought back from the brink by Steve Jobs, it *could* happen at msft. They obviously have the money and the engineers, they just need real leadership, leadership that allows engineers to innovate. The Surface thing looks promising.
So they may look like a dying tiger but I don’t think they will disappear, as much as I want Ballmer to stay there till the end the shareholders have to wake up eventually, clearly the board is all a bit off based on the last several years ( I bought stock just to keep him in charge)
Maybe they will simply become the xbox company?
The only thing I can’t figure out is how they get Steve Jobs to take over as CEO at MSFT?
@Pirates:
“The only thing I can’t figure out is how they get Steve Jobs to take over as CEO at MSFT?”
Not going to happen. Ever. Steve can’t stand M$ and it’s inherent DNA. I’m sure one of his goals in life is to see M$ become one of those entities that the next generation never mentions… because they never heard of it… but if they did it might go like this:
“Microwho? Soft? Oh yeah, didn’t they used to make mice for something called PCs in the old days… and keyboards? And, okay, it’s ringing a bell now… they had some kind of game machine that was as big as a closet, right? And my technical history books says they were the only company to impose an involuntary tax on those PC makers manufacturers, under penalty of being cut off of something they called Windows. Sounds so weird… and so like, old and fossilized.”
@ Al
Only in Canada.
Microsoft will not disappear overnight but they will slowly degenerate like IBM and be irrelevant.
Great shot of Ballmer T Clown copycat in your Poll MDN. He looks so……….dumb!
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