OSDev.org

XCHG wrote:I think it is a genius marketing idea to literally "force" people to use the new technology. I like this about Microsoft.

Well, I certainly hope you never become the CEO of a multi-billion dollar technology company. Personally, I believe a company should make money by providing value to its customers, thereby providing value to its shareholders.

Microsoft does neither. People often use their products because they have no choice. Their stock price is flat and they're sitting on piles and piles of cash, burning it on things like the Zune to try and stomp out competition rather than provide actual value. They are the antithesis of free-market capitalism, as are all monopolies.

Colonel Kernel wrote:Their stock price is flat and they're sitting on piles and piles of cash, burning it on things like the Zune to try and stomp out competition rather than provide actual value. They are the antithesis of free-market capitalism, as are all monopolies.

Well if they are stomping out their competitors by doing so and as you said, there is no value to their products, then their competitors are even worse. Because they don't seem to be able to bring value to their products as much as Microsoft seems to do so that other people will use the competitor's software instead of Microsoft's variations.

Last time I checked Microsoft was getting thoroughly stomped by the iPod in the portable music player market, by Google in the search engine market, and by Symbian-based phones, RIM, and the iPhone in the mobile phone market. Their hegemony over desktop PCs is an accident of history. It has nothing to do with the quality of their products, only their ubiquity.

As far as consumers choosing alternatives, you have only to look at the accelerating up-take of Firefox, Mac OS X, and soon ultra-mobile Linux-based devices like the Asus Eee PC to see that Microsoft has peaked. It is today what IBM was back in 1990.

I sure hope so. However, I fear that Microsoft has not played all its trump cards already, or to their full extend.

Software patents, bundled software and the big money coffins allowing Microsoft to sue anyone to their heart's content are the "big three" any competition will have to fear for years to come.

The fourth is the omnipresence - which has crumbled thanks to Firefox, OpenOffice et al., but will remain a stronghold at least another decade. Musicload.de, for example, biggest vendor for online music in Germany, works only with MS Internet Explorer and MS Media Player, period. Games <=> Windows. Yes, there are games for Linux, too, but few, and old. Yes, you can run many games using Wine / Cedega, but it's always an additional hassle.

And, while Linux has caught up in many fields and actually leads in yet more, it's still hard to find competent help with your problems, either on- or offline. Plus, when you step off the beaten track, Linux loses much of its polish. When looking for scanner / DVB recently, I felt like being tossed back into the 1990'ies: Try compiling this beta driver from that website, but it will hang every other time... WTF?

Bottom line: The behemoth is wounded, yes, but it is far from being vanquished. And, I might add, while there's Linux today, that merely brought one other competitor into the playing field. Still far from being a level ground for real competition.

It's about time someone said something positive for Microsoft. If it wasn't for Microsoft, the console market would be 99.9% controlled by Japan. It's not to say that's a bad time (Apple, MS, IBM, etc. are all American) but I think it's good to have the major corporations in a particular field spread over several countries, so one country doesn't end up owning 100% of the world's wealth.

I agree with [Solar]. May I also add that Microsoft has the money to do whatever they want, literally.

[Colonel Kernel],

About phones and etc, it is not big deal to create a phone for Microsoft I believe. Look at XBOX for example. Who thought Microsoft, a software based company, could create such a game console? It gave Sony something to cry about I think.

I can imagine how companies like Apple will get on their knees if Microsoft started creating phones and other simple gadgets. I think Microsoft is trying to give its competitors a chance to make money a little bit

XCHG wrote:I can imagine how companies like Apple will get on their knees if Microsoft started creating phones and other simple gadgets. I think Microsoft is trying to give its competitors a chance to make money a little bit

Why should Microsoft get into the risky and costly business of cell phone hardware?

I don't see they're "stomped". They have a fair market share in a market that sells in quantities making desktop sales look utterly insignificant in comparison. Who cares if they have only 5% of the market (complete guess) if that's still orders of magnitude more than Windows copies sold in the same time period?

XCHG wrote:About phones and etc, it is not big deal to create a phone for Microsoft I believe. Look at XBOX for example. Who thought Microsoft, a software based company, could create such a game console? It gave Sony something to cry about I think.

You're forgetting the fact that neitherthe XBOX or the XBOX 360 have broke even for Microsoft and they are currently down something like $4 Billion.

Huh?

2007 business report quotes USD 51.12 billion turnover (+15%), USD 18.52 billion return (+ USD 2.05 billion).

Note the ratio - one dollar profit for three dollars turnover... to my knowledge, no other major player in the business comes even close to that.

Other numbers of note: USD 7.12 billion (!!) spend on R&D, 55 million Vista licenses sold, 71 million office licenses sold.

Oh, and that means that Microsoft's profit exceeds the amount of worldwide foreign aid spendings (~ USD 10 billion depending on sources) by a comfortable margin, and compares favourably with the gross domestic product of quite a few countries of this world...

Go go Microsoft

@solar: I'm going to assume you are responding to me. I was specifially talking about the division of Microsoft that develops the xbox, not microsoft as an entire entity.

Yep... cross-financing, another one only a big player can pull off. If you become "too successful", they can simply give away their competing product for free (and cover the losses with the profit of other departments) until your startup business falters. Cf. MSIE / Netscape.

Solar wrote:Yep... cross-financing, another one only a big player can pull off. If you become "too successful", they can simply give away their competing product for free (and cover the losses with the profit of other departments) until your startup business falters. Cf. MSIE / Netscape.

I bet they're glad they don't fall under UK law. That's classed as "predatory pricing" and is illegal - a product (including all accessories, games in this case) cannot be sold for a loss. Large lawsuits against Stagecoach (bus company) for doing this to create an artificial monopoly in britain, brought on by the competitiion commission.

As for the Xbox - I mean seriously, even the head designer admitted it was an x86 in a different case! That's why it was so big, because it had a proper x86 mobo and perpendicular cards! Pff. That's also why Halo 2 was the best game on it... :S

JamesM wrote: I bet they're glad they don't fall under UK law. That's classed as "predatory pricing" and is illegal - a product (including all accessories, games in this case) cannot be sold for a loss. Large lawsuits against Stagecoach (bus company) for doing this to create an artificial monopoly in britain, brought on by the competitiion commission.

Well that's the reason why we don't have a British-company as big as Microsoft in the UK

Ah, a believer in unreglemented capitalism.