winindthedust

Microsoft's Mobile Misfortune

HP can't be happy with M$'s new commercial. PC manufactures make very little on the low end, and here M$ goes and promotes their low end profitless loss leaders, and then presents themselves as the savior to the economy.

Truth be told, Windows is the most expensive component on a PC. Vista Ultimate compared to Leopard on price? Then publish the minimum specs to run the OS and other useful software.... now we're getting somewhere!

Netbooks have forced M$'s hand. All the manufacturers were selling Linux on netbooks to keep the price down.... M$ had to bring it's XP price down to almost nothing, to get the OEM's to play ball. With Windows 7, M$ is between a rock and hard place... they can't continue to give it away, like XP in the case of netbooks, yet, if it's all about price, how can they compete & make a profit in this market?

Indeed, Mobile phone manufacturers will enter the netbook market with their OS's; there is NO WAY M$ can compete with either Windows Mobile or Windows 7 in this area, unless they give it away, which they can't do.

Further, as is seen by their latest marketing, M$ has conceded the desk top OS battle to Apple. They aren't even attempting to compare OS's or software anymore... they are comparing the price of hardware, that they don't even make, to that of Apple, when everyone knows Apple doesn't make low end junk. By making the OS irrelevant to the purchase, they just further made their whole Windows business irrelevant to the consumer... very dangerous tactics that I think will backfire profoundly.

Last, what does the average person use a computer for today? Really....

Email & web browsing. Why do you need Windows?

Next in line would be:
Photos, Music, Movies... Everyone concedes, the cheapest, easiest way to to handle these items, is to buy a Mac. Easy, all in one, trouble free, no hidden costs. Apple competes on value here, not price.

After that, people do occasionally use a word processor & maybe spread sheet... Again, why do you need Windows? The Office monopoly is broken. Office runs on a Mac, but ironically, if M$ is competing on price, why in the world, do they sell THE most expensive productivity software available? Google Docs is free. Symphony is free. iWork isn't free, but it is dirt cheap and Apple is trying to tie additional must have services into the suite. Software as a Service and open source has killed the Office monopoly forever. iLife on a Mac has cornered the lifestyle applications, Internet Explorer is simply irrelevant, and come to think of it, so is Outlook. What do you have left? Businesses that have Windows only software. However, as alternatives become available, and businesses upgrade, M$ will no longer be able to survive on Windows alone. They NEED a new vehicle, and they know it. That's why they've been trying so hard to get into search, SAS, as well as hardware with Zune & Xbox. They have very little time to get it done, and they know it. The tight competition on the low end with Linux & new OS's, the monetizing of software service on the web & open source, and Apple owning the high end as well as a complete ecosystem of useful products- all combine to put Microsoft in a tight squeeze, indeed.

There is ONE way that I see that they can come out of this with a nice piece of the pie... but unless Balmer is reading this, and wants to get out his check book, I wouldn't share it for anything less then a million bucks.