Comment by dmfdmf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmfdmf | Hacker News Reader

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I see two big issues with Microsoft.

First is that they have drifted away from a basic principle that made Bill Gates a billionaire -- backwards compatibility, or at least when backwards compatibility had to be broken there was clear benefits and an upgrade or conversion path to ease the pain. Surface RT, Surface Pro, Win8, etc are just confusing choices to any customers thinking of a purchase. I'd rather just buy an iPad, quite frankly.

Secondly, Microsoft is still bitter and stinging over the old "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials. Those were epic, hilarious commercials that stuck a cord with users and that MS never countered. They should have blasted back with the truth -- yeah, Macs are cool but when you want to get real work done you use Windows. Instead they were silently stewing with resentment. Surface and the Surface marketing campaign can be summed up as MS's attempt to show the world that they are "cool" too just like Apple. But as most people know, trying to be cool is uncool and everyone laughs at the attempt. MS needs to embrace and be proud of their identity and stop trying to me-too Apple and just build products that work and run the world.

Macs are cool but when you want to get real work done you use Windows

Speaking as a Mac user (who considers what he does to be real work), I think it would be more cutting to play on the games aspect of Windows. That really is the One Thing™ Windows has over other OSs

I do not use a macbook but totally agree with you. And in comparision with linux it would just change in "Linux is cool but when you want to play AAA games and use our proprietary office suite you use windows"

That was Microsoft marketing talking, not me ;-) I use both types and they both have their strengths and weaknesses.

>They should have blasted back with the truth -- yeah, Macs are cool but when you want to get real work done you use Windows.

You have a funny definition of truth.

The reality is most businesses and 85-90% (? I don't know the latest stats off the top of my head) of computers are still running Windows.

computers or PCs? Those would be very different numbers if we were talking about all consumer devices that compute.

That is a fair point and what MS is really afraid of but consumer device are not going to replace desktop computers, at least in my opinion.

Right. But the desktop computer market isn't really growing, and it is actually beginning to shrink. Post PC doesn't mean we all stop using PCs, it just means that the PC market has peaked and we can't expect much growth there.

Some of that is due to the recession/depression (depending on your worldview).

The rumors of the death of the desktop have been greatly exaggerated. WinXP is (finally) reaching EOL and they can't run forever even if you don't care about security. Win8 is the new Vista and people are happy with Windows 7 for now.

The economy is doing fine now and the PC market has only began to start shrinking. No one in the tech industry, even Intel and Microsoft, are seeing growth potential in the PC industry, but perhaps you have some special insight that we are all lacking.

The economy is not fine. You can't fix a credit fueled housing market bubble and subsequent crash with $4T in more debt. The Fed papered over the worst of the crash to minimize the political consequences. I don't agree with all of his analysis but http://danielamerman.com this site has some good explanations of what is going on. See his discussion on Hiding a Depression.

The PC market can't grow forever, how close it is to saturation I don't know but there is still a lot of money to be made in mature markets like autos, etc. MS needs to get its act together and defend its market share or it might end up like GM.

No need to be americacentric, the PC market is stagnant even in China, which didn't go through any of these crashes (yet).

I'm not speaking for MS, but I think they want to be seen as a growth company, not a stable, mature company. They want to maintain their market share, but the "opportunities" for new growth probably lay elsewhere, so you'll see investment away from PCs into areas where new money can be made (while still trying to preserve old money, of course). Even the car needs a new remake to create new market share and hence opportunity; e.g. Tesla and electric cars.

Actually the truth was -- Yea Macs don't have malware because nobody targets OSX...Yet.

Or maybe it is because it has a better security model, less buggy software, prevents unsigned installs by default, and runs applications in a sandbox? See also malware on iOS vs Android.

By the way, OSX is hitting 15% market share in the US.

Could it be that they are betting on ARM and x86 processors? Given the fast pace of technology development on ARM, if they keep sticking on to Intel, they might lag behind others in terms of what they can provide.

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