- 91 percent of $1,000-and-higher retail computer sales now go to Apple.
The question here is: What is the percentage of sales of systems over 1000 dollars in the same time frame for microsofts decline in this measurement? Have more or fewer systems in that price range been sold?
- Microsoft’s quarterly financial results, in which revenue fell $1 billion short of projections and declined 17 percent year-over-year.
Is this the Operating system division or the whole company?
- To be clear, Microsoft remains a very profitable company. However, they have never before reported year-over-year declines like this, nor fallen so short of projected earnings. Something is awry.
While the profits might be less, how much more money was spent on R&D for new arenas microsoft is entering into? Microsoft has a huge R&D department and as such if they are spending more on new areas of development, I wouldn't consider the decline to be all that negative.
- Microsoft’s operating system business is not new, and it has never been particularly cyclical. Windows revenue, prior to this just-completed quarter, has only ever gone in one direction: up.
Is this decline attributed to more users switching to MAC or other OSes or is it attributable to an overall economic decline?
- One argument is that the fault lies with the global economy, not Microsoft itself. However, Google is doing just fine, and Apple reported record non-holiday-quarter numbers for its just-ended quarter. Apple operates in the same economy Microsoft does, and Mac sales are up.
The same question as I posted above comes into play here. How much has Apple's expenditure situation changed over this same timeframe? What types of projects is Apple, or Google for that matter, currently engaging in R&D for? Google I can see quite a bit for so the argument in this statement might hold true more-so for Google over Apple.
- Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts. They’re a software company whose primary platform no longer appeals to people who like computers the most. This is true in many markets with broad appeal, not just computers. Microsoft is looking ever more so like the digital equivalent of General Motors. Car enthusiasts lost interest in GM’s cars long before regular people did; the same is happening with Windows.
The computer enthusiasts mentioned here are the ones who typically grew up when computers first began to take off. For that genre, they grew up with Windows as it matured and as such anything else other than Windows is a welcome change. The modern genre of computer user is being exposed to computers at a younger age and as such a much different set of computer software. The younger and newer computer enthusiast genre is being exposed to linux because it is no longer a thing of just the "hacker" or "geek". linux is becoming easier to use. Apple is also in this same boat. Microsoft and the "typical" PC platform took off early because of the ability to operate on a variety of platforms (originally IBM's 80286-80486 platform, but more so the new intel IBM-Compatible platforms). Apple remained proprietary for most of it's early career. It was only recently that they moved from the PowerPC architecture to the x86 and Intel platform with the release of OSX and the switch to Darwin/*nix. With that change, Apple has had ample oppurtunity to expose a whole new genre of users to it's technologies. Thus people are now open for something new or in the case of the newer computer user just another option (in addition to *nix, solaris, osx, windows, etc). I really don't think that it is so much they lost the heart of computer enthusiasts so much as the newer generation is simply being exposed to more than just Windows and is learning more. Does this mean Microsoft will go away anytime soon? Not likely, but it does mean Microsoft has to work harder now to innovate and come up with ideas.
- No one seems to be arguing that Windows 7 is something that will tempt Mac users to switch, or to tempt even recent Mac converts to switch back. It doesn’t even seem to be in the realm of debate. But if Windows 7 is actually any good, why wouldn’t it tempt at least some segment of Mac users to switch? Windows 95, 98, and XP did.
Why would Mac users switch from something that works? Is Microsoft trying to make users buy a whole new computer just because a new OS works? Or is it trying to give the existing users what they want. I would not buy a new computer simply because of Windows 7. I would not swap from a system I know and love just for the sake of swapping. Will some switch? Sure. Will a lot of them? Not likely because what they have already works.
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