http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/355342/micr ... ompetitive

Shaw doesn't exactly answer the main criticisms there...

They have too many fingers in too many pies. They will mess up in many of them. They want to dominate too many areas of the computer industry. Some areas of their business are doing well, like peripherals which are clearly better than many of their competitors. OS is improving and Office is still world leader. Search is getting better. Though I would agree that they are clumsy, not so sure about uncompetitive.

I agree, they're quite capable of bringing mediocrity to everyone.

If they were to start up now, the only things to survive would be the Office software and the peripherals.

Everything else, especially the OS, would die very quickly

IMO of course.

I always said for ages that MS made the best mice and keyboards you could get. I have MS mice on the computers I use at work and one of them is a Mac . However in the last couple of years I think their design team has gone off the boil a bit. Their stuff isn't bad or anything, it's just a bit... dull. They haven't done any mice as nice as the bluetooth intellimouse explorer in the last 5 years and their keyboards are rather now rather generic. Today, I'd say logitech is doing nicer kit than MS is, albeit a bit more expensively.


I wouldn't confuse ubiquity with quality. Windows 7 is definitely an improvement over Vista & XP and is selling well because people recognise it's an improvement in ways they actually need. I wouldn't call Office 2007 an improvement over Office 2003 and I don't really see (from what I've tried of it) that Office 2010 is pushing things much further on either. Office has largely stagnated, adding features nobody really needs in favour of actual dramatic improvement (in fact some of the changes are actually retrograde). I suspect the problem is that Office is so ubiquitous in business that there are a huge pile of things they would like to change but can't, because big corporate customers expect them to be there. Essentially, it's popularity is not a benefit, it's a hindrance. Office has such a lock-in that it doesn't really need to compete and this, I think, is very much to it's detriment.


Mainly because they can't stand the fact Google has stolen their lunch in that area. Reacting at some point after a newcomer has already stolen the market from you doesn't really strike me as being 'competitive' in the traditional sense. And they can't compete with Google in this area via their usual tactic - 'we have more money than you and we're going to keep spending it until you give up' - because
a) Google actually has more money than it knows what to do with
b) Throwing money at a search engine doesn't necessarily improve it


Microsoft are 'competitive' in markets only where the enormous financial resources that the office & OS monopoly gives them allows them to simply ou-spend the competition. In markets where competition is defined not by resources but by innovation, agility and the ability to discern what the customer actually wants (rather than what you want to give them) MS almost inevitably fails.

Games consoles, MP3 players, mobile phone/PDAs, Online search... they've failed to compete in all those markets simply because they couldn't just out spend the competition. MS are 'competitive' only insofar as they have the ability to write the biggest cheque.

Jon

And the gaming systems, Mediaroom. ED&D in general actually.

And what about Apple? They would be left with the portable market.

Jon, how have MS failed in the games console market? They have a leading piece of hardware that they are generating sub revenue from and have been having steady and good sales. Zune they were late to arrive and lost in that respect despite having arguably better hardware on release than equivalent Apple products, mobile phones, they aren't exactly short of customers still with HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson to name a few. You have also failed to recognise the other markets they are in such as Car control systems. Ford has a large contract with them for the ICE/navigation in the US cars and Hyundai signed a new deal recently with MS for similar. Don't see Apple doing anything like that.

Really? And there was me thinking the Wii had sold about 5 times as many units as the Xbox 360... They have a console platform that's doing better than the worst performing platform on the market. Woohoo. This is 'leading' as in 'best of the losers', yes?


Taken in isolation, the 360 is making a profit. However given the Xbox division was several billion dollars in the red when the 360 was launched and then had to spend at least another billion sorting out the RROD fiasco, overall the 'Xbox' has not been a real success yet. 10's of millions profit on 10's of billions investment is no way to run a company. In fact, I'd say it's a perfect illustration of my point. Only a company with untold billions in the bank and almost no requirement to actually make a profit on the venture would have kept the Xbox division alive to the point where the 360 is now. The Xbox has been an enormous money pit and the only reason it's still here is MS had enough JCBs full of cash spare to fill up that money pit. If the Xbox project were a separate company, it'd have gone under years ago.


You can't really honestly be claiming the Zune is anything approaching competition to the iPod, surely? If it's so great why have they never even bothered trying to sell it outside the US?


All of whom appear to be migrating to Android. Although the effect of Google getting into the market themselves may have an interesting effect on the third parties attitude towards Android. The bare fact is WinMo has been around in various guises since the year 2000. Pretty much as soon as it was presented with any decent competition (Blackberry), it's market share collapsed. Only MS could have stayed in a market they weren't making any impression on for a whole decade.

Aside from anything else, WinMo is a dog of a product. It's technically backward and the interface is awful (try connecting to a wifi hotspot with a winmo phone. No really, try. I'll go get a coffee..) The iPhone came out three years ago, people have been making touchscreen winmo phones ever since and only now is winmo about to get an interface that's not optimised for use with a stylus. WinMo is the only mobile phone OS that the manufacturers try their best to hide it from the customer by putting custom GUI's over the top. The only thing winmo ever had going for it was activesync in the business sector and that's gone now, since the iPhone can do it too and Android probably will soon as well (since MS switched Exchange to using EWS rather than MAPI, i.e. fooishly gave away the leverage their server product was giving WinMO).

I'm sorry, this bit is a rant but I have to support winmo phones at work and by GOD they are awful. Utterly, utterly awful. Stool water of the worst kind. We're a Voda contract shop and you know what? Since the iPhone became available on Voda business contracts I haven't had one single person request a winmo phone. Not one. before it was about 30% winmo, 70% blackberry but now it's pretty much 50/50 blackberry and iphone. Nobody actually wants them. I am of the opinion nobody ever did, they just tolerated them because they were the only game in town. And these aren't eejit fashion victims. I tell you, unless windows mobile 7 is utterly spectacular, winmo will be a dead product as far as I'm concerned within a year.


Apple don't need to. The car manufacturers put compatability systems in off their own bat because the vast majority of their customers have iPods. And anyway, as far as I'm aware, Apple has shown absolutely no interest in making 'The iCar'. So MS is beating Apple in a market segment Apple isn't apparently interested in and has no products for sale in. Again, woohoo. Aside from that, there's currently no way of telling if Microsoft Auto is making any money, or if it's just another system for which there is no actual demand but which is being held up by Microsoft's complete insulation from the commercial imperative. I'd be very very surprised if anyone has bought a Ford rather than say a Dodge because it's got MS software in it.

Look, I'm sorry, but just having products in a market does not by definition mean MS is 'competing' in that market. In many segments MS exist in, they are only in there at all because the OS/Office duopoly bankrolls that presence beyond any level of corporate sanity. if MS were a company where each division had to make a profit on the products it makes, the only products it would be making are desktop computer software, server computer software (I tell you, I actually like Exchange 2010), keyboards and mice. Everything else would have gone to the wall by now. Everything.

They may have done, but the sales figures for games is pretty terrible past the first party titles. Take out SMG, Wii fit/sports resort/play and the Wii doesn't sell much at all. Add to the fact the console is previous generation hardware they had no initial cost in research that MS and Sony had with their consoles. From launch they were the only company to make profit on a console... because it was £180 for £100 previous gen hardware.

Leading as a best of the losers it's still profitable. If you made £200 but your competition made £300 you'd be hapopy you weren't the sap losing £10 every time someone bought their console.

As I said before, your facts are incorrect. ED&D is one of the few departments within MS to generate profit. I know this for a fact. I worked in it, the only other department to generate profit is the large licencing IIRC, all others either break even or generate a loss.

http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=6775

That is hardly doing badly making nearly $400 million profit in a year, and that includes the fact sales are down

Yes but the Wii isn't a REAL games console, it's a family.

It's about as powerful as the origional xbox. It Can only play last generation FPS ie only COD3.

The vast majority of thier games are aimed at the family market, women and young children (markets previously untapped).
Therefore it is barely a games console in the way the playstation (1,2,3), the sega (megadrive or saturn), The nintendo (64, snes and nes) or the Xbox (orig or 360) ever was or are. The problem with the Wii is that they are bought widely with coningents of games that are hardly ever played or appreciated meaning developers gravitate towards their quick, cheap and profitable games, that are unlikely to be pirated.

I hate the wii personally and it is definately not a natural gaming console.

Yes but as a fun device that the whole family can enjoy the Wii has huge advantages.

Ok, at this point we've reached the stupidity event horizon and I'm getting off.

Jon

Like incest?

The Wii can't really be classed as a next gen console, not because it isn't HD but simply because there is NO advance in core hardware from the previous generation
It's DS/DS Lite/DSi/DS LL
All of them use the same hardware, play the same games (except DSI ware) and use the same controls

You can't call a system that doesn't even process anything above stereo next gen, it's previous gen re marketed.

The PS3 may sell well, but Sony still lose a chunk per console sold. It's the only loss leading console on the market, and has been since launch
http://thetechjournal.com/electronics/s ... sold.xhtml
Sony lose $400 million, MS make $400 million (Nintendo haven't released figures yet). Nintendo make $6 on each Wii sold, Sony LOSE 6c per $ on a PS3 sold, so for a (US price) $300 (current 120gb slim) they lose $18. Microsoft have been breaking even/making profit on consoles since 2007

With all due respect, bollocks.

XBox division posts $1.9 billion loss. Check the timestamp on the article.

That really is my final word, but do carry on.

Jon

9 hours ago
http://play.tm/news/28931/sony-cut-losses-on-ps3/ losses down to $18 per PS3

Microsoft profiting by console sales
http://www.techspot.com/news/23612-micr ... dware.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia ... 32150.html MS reducing costs on production by 40%
Both of those are from 2006 in fact.

Gamesindustry.biz ... they might be the 'biggest' site, but they are about as trustworthy as the Sun or Daily Mail in my view. I'm not registering to view an article when I have 2 other sources saying otherwise.

I'm sorry and don't want to sound like a troll but it isn't. As a gamer the Wii is the console that has NO interest to me, its graphics are outdated for a start. It can't play any of the modern titles that are on the Xbox, PC or PS3. So how is it a next gen games console. All it has is a faddy motion sensing remote that seems about as useful to me as touch screen tech on mobiles (then again I'm not one to follow such trends)

The Wii sells because it appeals to a much larger market of older people, families, women and young children.

Ok it's a subjective area but "real" gaming comes from titles such as: COD, total war, Football manager, FIFA, pes, fallout, elder scrolls, C&C, bioshock etc

Not by Wii fit or brain training its like the xfactor or big brother of gaming, which I wager you unlikely to call me stupid for saying " Xfactor isn't real TV" but it has the same sentiment. So please meet remarks rather than insult and avoid.