Comments on: Microsoft's desktop prowess: Blessing or curse?

Tethered to its Windows operating system, the company has desktop power that has been a financial blessing but is becoming a strategic curse.

[t8]

Totally agree.

The Web is the platform by which Windows is one way to serve it up.
Windows is not the only way to the Web.
Therefore putting Windows first means that the Web is second for them.
The conclusion is that they will never win the Web because there are competitors such as Google where the Web is number 1.
If you are going to compete on the Web, then go all out.
Microsoft is not no1 on the Web because they half-heartedly develop for the Web because there focus is elsewhere.

[Lerianis]

I hate to point this out but Microsoft is NOT dying at all. Not even in the slightest way, and we are ALWAYS (I will repeat this in a BIG BOOMING VOICE TWICE MORE) going to have computers and operating systems.

We are NEVER going to have a computer that solely has it's OS on servers somewhere else in the world, because there is always the possibility that those servers will go down or become unreachable. Now, will we have LESS stuff to download onto the smaller OS's on our computers? The answer to that is yes, and that is one thing that even as a Microsoft fanboy, I get on MS's case about: their software is BLOATED.
Not with applications, persay..... it's more bloated with drivers for devices that are EONS old that they should offer online if anyone needs them, not on their software disks. That is where the main bloat is coming from.
There is a little other bloat with other stuff: Windows Mail, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, Internet Explorer, etc. that I wish that they would allow me to choose or not choose to install on my PC. But, they have a very good reasoning for not allowing me to do that, and all together..... they take up a pretty small amount of my hard drive, compared to even other programs on my computer.

[The_Decider]

They are dying, that is indisputable.

How long it takes before they are dead or whether or not being consigned to a small corner of the computing world is death is up for debate.

Microsoft is irrelevant. They copy others, and are not longer feared among OEM's(which is where most of their power came from).

If you are a company that is irrelevant you are at the very least dying.

[catch23]

>>They are dying, that is indisputable.
that is pure BS. And every time they post yet another record profit, it shows.
Irrelevant? You've never worked in the real world, have you?
Anyone who has would laugh in you face.

Your wishful thinking doesn't make the world go around.

[jeremyblaze]

"Microsoft is irrelevant. They copy others,"
Really? Who hasn't copied others? Apple - nope stole from Xerox. MS - stole from everyone's ideas. IBM - steals everything it can. Google - hmm, either 'steals' or simply improves upon (chrome is very much built upon others work, the search engine itself is just a better version of say Alta-Vista). Oracle just buys everything it can't crush.

"They are dying, that is indisputable."
Well, Office is stil the standard. Windows is still the most commonly used OS. Hotmail is still kicking, although not winning. Xbox is very popular. IE is still dominant And whether are still using XP or Vista guess what, they still are stuck to the Windows platform.

"If you are a company that is irrelevant you are at the very least dying."
Just a few years ago Apple was having obituaries published weekly, and all they needed was the iPod to become relevant again. MS still HAS those products. And unless or until something completely supplants Windows or Office they will continue to be hugely relevant. What they aren't is a terrifying monopoly anymore.

[mgc6020]

FOOL....NEVER is a VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME! Are you telling me you know what's going to happen in the next 5 years? The next 25 years? The next 250 years? The next 1000 years? You don't know what technology is around the corner. Maybe someone WILL come up with a revolutionary break through and OS's on computers WILL be a thing of the past. Don't pretend to know...BECAUSE YOU DON'T YOU ARROGANT FOOL.

[jeremyblaze]

What a waste of an article. MS is dying.... MS tried to hijack the web... Can we have some new information, facts, statistics, or even insight. While I agree with the principle that MS is becoming less powerful, this article does nothing to back it up. Fanning the flames for eyeballs I suppose. However, its not the Mac/PC argument, its now I guess the Google(cloud)/PC argument. Hooray for another class of fanboy.

MS has a luxury only a few other companies have - cash to throw at new markets. It is also hobbled by anti-monopoly lawsuits and other issues. Your vague argument that Windows is irrelevant is not because they tried to hijack the web, but because they can't dump everything into a PC that Apple can dump into a Mac. Our Mac laptop came with some cool and some useless software that Apple has thrown in, making it seem like a complete solution. In reality, though, buying a new PC for 500 and adding Office Home for $80 and Norton for $50 is all most people would ever need.

The OS will never go away. Too many things the operating system has to take care of in the background. All users might see is the UI, but there is so much more. My Blackberry gets on the net for me, and has become my net appliance of choice, but it can't print to my HP ALL-In-1, it cant accept a scan of a document, nor allow me to install any of the powerful programs I *might* need to use (photoshop, fireworks, flash, etc) or do a simple task of photo manipulation or burn a CD. And yes, many of those functions could theoretically be handled on the cloud, but why? Even it though is running an OS - BBOS 4.5. So MS just needs to find its next big thing.

BTW, with all the fuss about how 'cool' the newest Apple products are, MS has been successful in creating a sub-cult of their own. The Xbox has developed some serious cred in the gaming world. To them, the Xbox IS cool, and once MS learns how to leverage that on the web or PC side, it will be the preppy cool Apple kids vs. the alt. cool MS kids.

MS isn't my favorite company, and I know this is just a blog, but this article is posted on a journalistic site with absolutely no journalistic work being done. In fact, my reply has been in-depth than the original article, which isn't saying much.

[tbsteph]

Some may "trust" their data being in an Internet cloud. But, based on Google's recent EULA faux pax for Chrome, there are those who will claim ownership of same.

[johnwest72]

I always know when the author of an article in my RSS feed is "vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management". I can tell by the Microsoft attack embedded in the article. Hmmm... content management, sorta like Microsoft Sharepoint. I'm sure you have absolutely no reason to be biased at all, even if you happen to be in direct competition with MS. Write your blog on Alfresco's web site, where you should be biased, instead of trying to maintain a fascade. Writing about open source? Give me a break. Most of your articles are anti-Microsoft, and just short of useless.

John

[pfletcher]

Open Source Developer - just another way of saying 'I wasn't good enough for MS or a game company' :-)

[W Macaulay]

Windows is a mixed blessing, and Vista even more so (there is no compelling reason to upgrade). But the desktop computer is so necessary, and so much professional software has been developed for it, that for many professions, cloud computing isn't going to happen. Our Autodesk software is heavily tied to Windows and I do not see Adesk developing for Linux soon. The desktop, and an OS to run it, will be here for the foreseeable future. And that OS (at most offices, virtualization notwithstanding) will probably be some flavour of Windows. I do bemoan the fact that we can't use OSX, but we get by just fine.

[softwaredesignengineer]

People who say that the desktop and an OS for it is irrelavent do not know anything about software.

[sanjayb]

"Think about it: do you really care anymore which operating system you use?"

A year ago I may have answered no but yes I do care. Especially now since I recently bought a Mac Book Pro. Although a lot of stuff I do now is on the Web, I still look for my OS to give me the necessary tools and platform to make me productive. The ease of use of the Mac OS has been a real eye opener for me. A lot of the day to day stuff I do is much simpler now.

I don't think we have reached a point yet where the OS is transparent to us.

[TxemiC]

Do not discount Windows so easily.

See this post and its conclusion:
http://tech-talk.biz/2008/09/08/eee-pc-linux-or-xp/