“Microsoft is in deep trouble, their two main product lines are failing, and the blame game is intensifying,” Charlie Demerjian writes for SemiAccurate. “Steve Sinofsky gets the blame this time for the failure of Windows 8, but the real problem is the patterns that are so clearly illustrated by these actions.”
“Microsoft is largely irrelevant to computing of late, the only markets they still play in are evaporating with stunning rapidity,” Demerjian writes. “Their product lines have stagnated, creating customer lock in is prioritized over creating customer value, and the supply chain is controlled by an iron fisted monopoly. Any attempt at innovation with a Windows PC has been shut out for over a decade, woe betide anyone who tried to buck that trend.”
Demerjian writes, “In the end, Windows advanced only to the point of undercutting any competition, and even then to the minimum extent possible. The rules in Redmond were, “Do not change anything unless it is to crush someone doing something innovative”. They didn’t unless they did, and it worked. And the market stagnated… In such a situation, a company has two choices, both of which are quite stark. They can radically change their ways or they can wither and die. Before you point to Windows 8 and say, ‘But they are changing and innovating,’ hold off a moment, it isn’t what you think… Even if they wanted to, they are culturally far beyond the point of being able to. What was a slow bleed of marketshare is now gushing, and management is clueless, intransigent, and myopic. Game over, the thrashing will continue for a bit, but it won’t change the outcome. Microsoft has failed.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: A toast! To Monkey Boy, for as long as it takes!
Our initial impression is that Microsoft, in trying to cram everything into Windows 8 in an attempt to be all things to all devices, will end up with an OS that’s a jack of all trades and a master of none (which, after all, ought to be Microsoft’s company motto)… We simply do not see the world clamoring for the UI of an iPod also-ran now ported to an iPhone wannabe that nobody’s buying to be blown up onto a PC display.
From what we’ve seen so far, Windows 8 strikes us as an unsavory combination of Windows Weight plus Windows Wait.
Not to mention that probably no one on earth knows how much or what kinds of residual legacy spaghetti code roils underneath it all (shudder)… No matter what, if Microsoft’s going to ask Windows sufferers to “learn a whole new computer” (and that’s exactly how they’ll look at it, regardless of how Microsoft pitches it), millions will simply say, “Time to get a Mac to match my iPod, iPhone, and iPad!”
As if they needed it: More good news for Apple. – MacDailyNews Take, June 6, 2011
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… No company is invincible. Not even Microsoft. – MacDailyNews Take, January 10, 2005
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “BTL” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Slate reviews Microsoft’s Surface tablet: Too slow, mercilessly buggy; why is it so bad? – November 6, 2012
Microsoft’s bloated Windows RT eats 16GB of Surface tablet – November 5, 2012
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Gizmodo reviews Microsoft Surface RT: Do not buy; inferior to Apple’s iPad; the worst of both worlds – October 25, 2012
The Verge reviews Microsoft Surface RT tablet: ‘The whole thing is honestly perplexing; who is this for?’ – October 24, 2012
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Microsoft airs first TV ad for Surface tablet (with video) – October 15, 2012
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Acer CEO to Microsoft: ‘Think twice’ about Surface tablets – August 7, 2012
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Microsoft’s Buffoon, er… Ballmer throws down gauntlet against Apple – July 10, 2012
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Microsoft’s downfall: Inside the executive e-mails and cannibalistic culture that fueled Microsoft’s lost decade – July 7, 2012
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Dear Microsoft, Steve Balmer and Bill Gates: What is up with your obsession with keyboards? – June 28, 2012
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While there’s some truth to this, let’s remember they say they same things about Apple.
Doom mongering has been a human institution since the dawn of time and promises to be a growth industry now among certain dissatisfied and disenfranchised elements.
Lets forget about Microsoft.
Google/Samsung are the new Microsoft. And the ear is heating up!
odd assumption that MSFT failed.
1. FAILURE
they failed since day 1 1975-04-04 (Apple founded 1976-04-01). Windows 1.0 launched 1985-11-20, 21 months after MacOS 1 (1984-01-24).
2. BITCH
MSFT’s entire point was whoring itself (licensing) to all manufacturers for monopolizing domination, hm, dominatrix.
3. DILUTION
whoring yourself, spreading your legs so widely, only results in quality dilution. chaos. diarrhea. viruses. shall one go on? Msft is no different from Michael Dull Dell. he’s hailed as a genius yet come on, what has he accomplished besides diluting PCs so much, it’s raw shit? if that’s innovation, help humanity!
4. DISGUST
taste was never its forté. not in OS. not in software. not in marketing. not in packaging. not in UI. not in expos. not in business practices. not in innovation. not in management i.e monkey CEOs. not in nada. definitely the least sexy co. worldwide!
5. FLOP
msft has not succeeded in any venture or project in over a decade, whilst apple has catapulted to the stratosphere. msft, once a stock darling, has been surpassed by apple it gave $1B to in 1997, by 2010 May1, when AAPL’s cap reached $221B vs msft $219B. aapl has never budged since & msft is now worth a measly $27/share or $225B whilst aapl is $540/share or $500B.
in last decade msft lost more than 1/2 its worth and Billy Gates of Hell lost as much of his personal fortune, no longer making him the world’s richest man or its smartest as he keeps failing in advising his schmuck neanderthal ceo to behave like a human and think at least.
Media Center?
Surface Table?
Surface tablet?
Zune?
Windows Mobile?
Vista? Longhorn? Win 7? Win Me?
all total flops. either doa or rotting.
what about those 100 smartest scientists around the world msft hired at $1M salary + bonus each that in 20 years have produced jack shit of value to society?!
6. etc.
i could list an endless dirty laundry list of why msft was doomed from day 1.
the only reason it took msft 3 decades to start bleeding is thanks to long-term contractual licensing with corporate buyers, not to mention breaking contracts has penalty clauses and to change one’s entire system is costly as well. from the consumer point, msft has lost a long time ago.
so, finally it started to bleed.
for in today’s open, social culture world, middle-age-type journalism of the 70s/80s no longer fools the public who is much more aware of scams, media lies, disinfo, bribed journalism, irresponsible news networks etc.
IT used to rule firms. they lied to management about Macs etc. as problem-free or problem-less equipment cuts their jobs. you still feel that pressure today, as corporations still have Blackberries or Androids for droids (non-human robots) vs Apple’s more humane solutions, though it’s improving as managers finally bypass IT.
then again, if Big Blue, IBM, which cornered the market like a God, failed, disappeared, at least with PC/OS biz, as they now sell commercial carpets & tiles! (besides their successful IT consulting biz), why in the world would a much more stupid msft surpass or beat IBM?! msft’s monopoly is, but the bleeding won’t stop. as they say in germany: water has no head, it escapes, oozes no matter where. blood is not much thicker.
msft has been doa since day one. even as a high schooler i knew it, told the daughter of the head of ibm in london in 1986. so, for those of us, who think, think different, think beyond the hype or media lies, who see things clearly, we always knew it wouldn’t last.
some of us partied a long time by investing in msft early but those glory days are long gone. funny that some of those “smart” early investors fell just as asleep as msft and didn’t sell before the bleeding, believing in the stupidity that always was a pipe dream.
sure, it’s sad, as msft outsources and allows so many lives, yet selling shit can only fool people for so long. as much as it helped pay outsourced salaries, it screwed with users’ lives, in wasting time with chaos, crashes, viruses, upgrades and wasting so much time & money, that it was never worth it. its fans were so much in it, like scientology, that it was a pain to find alternatives. but consumers & corps. have finally shifted their stubbornness.
when shit hits the fan, it’s time to find alternatives. life nowadays is not about bloatware but zenware. experience, not buttons or menus.
SUCCESS:
let’s hand it to msft:
they have flopped or failed the least in only 1 domain: it knows best, of any co. worldwide, how to bleedin’ waste money! it is totally sinful to waste billions on nothing. if you waste it anyway, at least give it tot he needy, homeless, hungry, uneducated, or fix the usa’s worst infrastructure in the western world!
If soups were named after their most prominent ingredient, they’d all be called “water soup.” They are named after the ingredient that is least evident. (How many ounces of chicken were there in YOUR last bowl of chicken soup?)
Therefore I conclude, and Ballmer has demonstrated, that the more a company talks about innovation, the less innovation it has. Microsoft talks about innovation, but it has none. Apple doesn’t talk about innovation, and that is just about all they do.
I walked into an Apple Store. An employee asked if he could help me, and I said, “No, I just came to see if you invented something I didn’t know I needed.”
Incidentally, Ballmer won’t be fired unless he fires himself. He owns a controlling interest in Microsoft.