Comments on: The decline and fall of the Wintel empire

CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos explains why recent missteps by Microsoft and Intel are not simply happenstance.

[djugan]

Wintel -- yes, but read more closely.....

"Gibbon describes how the political and military leaders of Rome shifted from concentrating on governance to personal enrichment. The quest for continual growth outstripped their ability to control a sprawling land mass covering contrasting climates and various tribes. Augustus, the first emperor, clearly saw the problems with expansion, but his vision was discarded."

Now, you make the call.

The decline and fall of the Wintel empire

The decline and fall of the Wintel Empire lays in mental mind block you have in the USA against mobile telecommunications technology. This is very, very apparent when we watch your TV shows they are sooooo technologically dated. It is highly apparent by the mere fact in the UK we call it a mobile phone or ?mobi?, you guys call it a cell phone (Which refers to mobile telecommunications technology of the 1980s). 80% of 15 year olds have a mobile phone in the UK. Hey Guys wake up and smell the coffee!!! IT?S THE MOBILITY IN THE MOBILE. WI FI: It missed the boat WAP got there first. DESKTOP: showing it age now it needs a big boost in data storage and transfer speed to regain its position.

What happened is the real people who utilise technology (ie the non-tech people) have leant size and speed isn?t everything. It is far more effective to concentrate on improving the quality of the data. So the NEW BUZZWORD IS DATA RATIONALISATION, it is cheaper and possibly far more effective than hardware upgrades. To conclude the latest mobile phones now have built in cameras with data storage cards and MP3 players. There?s a new Daddy in town and his name is ?Mobi?, wake up America.

UK/US

Perhaps you misunderstand the US. Many in the US could care less what you call a phone -- "mobi" or not. In fact, Motorola, a US company, is the second largest manufacturer of mobile phones in the world (like the ones you use in the UK).

In addition, the US is not geographically confined to an island; therefore, there are considerable differences in how mobile services work in the US. A significant population in the US lives in the suburbs of the major cities. The elevators are large and roomy -- unlike the closet-sized elevators of London. These differences are profound and make your comparison a difficult one. Both are great countries: neither are second to the other. Also, unlike many European countries with poor landline service, the US has excellent landline service.

I would find it to be a stretch that the American consumer is not in-tune with technology. The ten trillion dollar economy of the US is in large part of a cause of the American consumer consuming technology products and services. It's hard to be the worlds largest economy and stick your head in the sand at the same time.

The Action Moves to the Middle Tier

This article focuses on the core technology sector. Commoditization is stabilizing that sector. The action has moved to the middle tier vendors who build over that technology for content owners and producers.

As Deep Throat said, "Follow the money", the computer insider could say, "Follow the semantics." I don't necessarily mean the Semantic Web because that is yet another source of core technology. I mean figure out where the large and busy data pipes are and who is integrating with whom.

[David Arbogast]

Laughable

In college, papers such as this receive high marks because of the thought and creativity involved in writing such a piece.

Outside of the educational world, articles like this really make me laugh. I have been reading articles about the end of 'wintel' since the early 90's.

Here's a clue... if you have to reach as far back into history as the fall of the Roman empire to find justification in your belief that Microsoft and Intel will collapse, your theory is probably flawed.

Think about it. We live in a capitalistic society, where money is power. You are suggesting that the most successful software company and the most successful microprocessor company are about to collapse. And why?? Because of... Linux? Linux is a single piece of software, not a company. 'Linux' does not have money or employees... it does not have a research division. What it does have, is over 200 patent violations, only one managed code environment, and a large number of unpaid developers. And how about Intel? Who will replace them? LoL... not AMD. Study business... in particular, study the businesses that you are writing about. (hint: look at past court settlements) When you figure out why AMD will never be able to topple Intel, you can send me a letter and admit your mistake. The same mistake that self-proclaimed academics have been making for over a decade.

What a laugh.

Interesting perspective

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I don't agree or disagee with the statement that Microsoft and Intel aren't going anywhere, however if people in those companies have the same mentality that you do they will lose out to companies on the rise. That fact is that while our society relies on hierarchy, it also rejects one that is too large. I actually envision a company Sun or SCO, and not the general Linux community as Microsoft's biggest threat, although if you look at the server market, I think they've already taken a beating. If Microsoft and Intel do continue to thrive, which they have not done recently, it will be because of the game that people like Bill Gates enjoy. I'm pretty sure material objects are fairly irrelevant to him. Microsoft is really all that he has. Even this will bore him after a while, there is too much desire to "dethrone him", and eventually someone else will take over or soemone will have more drive.

[ahzzmandius]

Learn from history, or be doomed to repeat

Linux has dozens of companies behind it, all working on individual parts. Ever heard the phrase "greater than the sum of it's parts"?

Secondly, Why is it that AMD ws the one to sucessfully do what Intel wanted to do and couldn't? Namely, bridge the gap between 32-bit and 64-bit worlds in a way that was backwards compatible.

AMD and Linux may not have massive victories, but hey, that's how Rome was destroyed. Small one at a time victories of the small guys all around them.

You really should read up on your history, it has an amazing penchant for repeating itself in the weirdest ways. :)

To The Author:

You should be a bit more specific in your analogies. There was an insufficient level of detail in your correlations for most people to see what you were trying to point out here.

[lgmbackman]

about OSS/Linux resourses

I think you should read this for instace.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2631955248.html

"It boils down to two things: Microsoft has infinite money, and the rest of the world, combined around Linux, has infinite money".

About Intel, they lost their memory business long ago.
AMD will gain in the processor business, and that is very good for all of us.
Besides it is not a only Intel/AMD world in the first place.

Lintel

In the late 1990's I purchased a Gateway PC. Gateway could deliver the machine faster by shipping with an AMD processor. Intel, I was told was backlogged. I wanted an Intel machine, because my first PC was a 486/66 Intel running Windows, which provided good service. I didn't want to wait weeks or a month for my new PC, because of Intel. My first PC was a Leading Edge. Today, Leading Edge is gone, Gateway has closed their stores and I still run AMD processors on machines I build from scratch. I think the bundling concept has run its course. Windows works fine for most users, but as Linux becomes easier it will become more common. If Linux machines are marketed stronger, like Linux distributions on CD with documentation are, this could advance Linux on the desktop rapidly. If Intel were to get more serious about Linux, like IBM has we could see Lintel rise as the new networked computing leader. In the networked economy, you must deliver faster, better and cheaper or face the music. Microsoft appears to be slower, bigger and as a result more expensive. What a swan song.

[charlie cooper]

Not so loony

Fair points but I think you're overstating the case -- or perhaps underestimating the challenge posed to both MS & Intel. Two great companies and two great track records. But look at recent history. In the last few months, both MS & Intel have had their share of missteps. Why? Maybe it's structural and maybe it's because of new challenges in the market -- or both.

[ahzzmandius]

missteps

Look at it this way. In the past, those missteps were nothing because Intel had a firm grip on the market. AMD has continually chipped away at it ever since the "better than intels" 386 cpu that beat it clock for clock.

The same is true for microsoft. Small missteps are the road to loosing the war. MS has been continually tryign to break out of it's protected area with VERY limited sucess. Meanwhile, Linux has made massive inroads in just about every area that it has been pointed at.

There will be no massive, spontaneous downfall. Rather, like rome, the two will die off with a sigh over the following 20+ years unless they reinvent their internal strategies and passion for the conquest.

Like Rome, both have grown complacent and lazy. Both have pushed their borders into loosing war areas. Both are struggling to gain inches where once they gained miles. This is how Rome fell. Not with a bang, but with a barely heard sigh as dozens of Davids walked all over the Goliath.

[Razzl]

"Mobi Dick" and the Fall of the Roman Empire...

It has been genuinely entertaining to read an article by someone literate enough to quote lots of Gibbon in relation to the hubris of Microsoft. Please feel entitled to do that any time, you've earned the right. Nonetheless, I remain skeptical about whether Microsoft is really in the danger zone for the Fall. If most current consumers in the entire market are using their product, and if Longhorn emerges soon and satisfies the public again, then their dominance may be comfortably assured for another decade before we get to shine Gibbon onto their fatal flaws again. How many decades have to go by before we decide these troubles were just a bumps in the road? Rome survived its "fatal" flaws for centuries...

And I think I speak for all of America when I say that people who still call their toilets "loo's" (a 19th-century Cockney pun on "Waterloo=Water closet") aren't as ahead of the times as the correspondant may think and won't be naming our phones for us any time soon, thank you...