What's the future for Microsoft?

[Yellow Fang]

They must be getting rather worried about Google in particular. If Google are offering free word processors, e-mail, web-browsers, and I hear, a whole integrated operating system, what are Microsoft going to sell? If you take into account the growing penetration of Linux and Open Office, surely MS are having sleepless nights.

 

[ttcycle]

They'll have to make a dent in the monopoly that MS packages have in workplaces and Openoffice is excellent but there are some formatting issues with cross compatability with MS packages that need to be ironed out. Long time coming I say- get rid. I think their first mistake was making people pay for the packages when they got a new laptop/computer-made people question the cost.

 

[rh100]

Their profits may take a dent, but MS are huge in the workplace. The range of server and application software, sharepoint and all the rest. I can't see many companies fragmenting to unproven OS's like Google's and office suites like open office, some may for the financial benefit, but surely it would cost in retraining of staff, both users and support. They may just have to change tack slightly, but I doubt they are overly worried. What would replace Active Directory??

 

[chris667]

The big advantage they have is history.

Companies have been using Microsoft products for decades; retraining everyone is going to cost a lot of money.

Also, what you get with Microsoft products is a known quantity. We know they're expensive, but they're not too expensive, and you can open the spreadsheet you wrote in 1987 in Excel for DOS with Excel 2007. Their faults, while well known and exploited, are generally manageable. There's lots of superior products about, but that doesn't matter at all.

Of course, this is only on the desktop; Linux is king in all sorts of things, particularly the server market.

 

[Downward]

Went to a conference about Microsoft licensing. Lets just say the reluctance of 99% of IT departments to change will ensure MS has a strong future.

 

[ttcycle]

Open office has the same interface as word packages more or less and wouldn't require masses of retraining but I agree that the domination of MS in the workplace isn't going to be toppled easily.

 

[rh100]

Large corp's are slow to move aswell in IT. Many enterprise networks still use IE6, because many apps and intranets were designed around it, same as XP, it was the dominant OS- everything works on it so why change? there was a news report awhile back that government employees were moaning about being stuck on IE 6.

Also, I am studying to get server certification in IT, having alredy got the desktop stuff. The 2003 series of certificates seem to be as relevant now as ever, their doesn't seem to be much call for the new range of stuff, such as Vista and Server 2008 certificates.

I think Chris667 has it right, there was a saying that anyone who bought IBM wouldn't get fired - maybe the same can be said of MS.

 

[marinyork]

Any retraining for even trivial tasks is seen as cumbersome and some vast burden by many companies. Microsoft might have some sleepless nights in other countries, but not in this one .

 

[beanzontoast]

I think the issue for the future will be the reaction of customers towards the evolution of internet-based apps.

We're used to a world where - apart from e-commerce, social network sites and general web browsing - most of the work we do uses entire apps installed on our own machines rather than ones hosted on a server you can only get to when you are connected to the net.

I see the move to internet based apps as something that people won't be in a hurry to trust. It will be interesting to see how much of Google's offering is internet based and how far Microsoft moves in that direction. If I was Microsoft, I would be very cautious. I can see a lot of people wanting to stay with what they know - apps and data under their own control on their own machines - rather than seeing more and more functionality devolved to the internet. If this is the case, Microsoft could have a very strong future indeed.

 

[amnesia]

As much as I hate Microsoft products, they do have the market sown up in the office. Until manufacturers start selling HUGE quantities of PCs / laptops with LINUX / Open Office (etc) to home users businesses will stick with the software that people know.

It's starting to happen though... a few people offer a choice of O/S, but there should be a cost saving for not taking MS products.

I can almost manage without any MS software, but my TomTom software only works on Windows.

 

[marinyork]

I would point out that microsoft could in theory be doing all right in the console market. Their big error there was not buying up a movie studio!!!! That and their downloads are not as good as they could be. If future consoles sold as well as the 360 and they sorted out the download problem...

 

[Davidc]

Microsoft's business model may not last for ever, but it has a while to run yet. The conservatism of large enterprises is amazing. One large local authority in the west of England changed to Star Office with little difficulty and minimal retraining and saved a fortune in licence fees, but it doesn't seem to be catching.

I must say that I'm not happy with the idea of on-line accessed software. Too often I need it when away, and coverage of mobile internet at decent speeds away from towns is still poor or non-existent.

 

[marinyork]

There's no 3G coverage in my house and I live in a highly urban area, I never understand why people think it's more widespread than it is. Still flaky.

 

[beanzontoast]

If MS decides to move more towards the web-based access of Office apps, it would leave the way clear for OO to become the major offline office application.

I too have reservations about the wisdom of making apps too internet-dependent. The notion that all pc's are going to become more like terminals while the actual software programs (and data) are held off site isn't one I find appealing; even given that many business operate closed networks in this way already, it's not something I'd want to adopt at home.

 

[rh100]

And what happens if Google or whatever providers doesn't pay their electric bill, servers go offline and data lost. Is placing all your data storage with a seperate entity a good idea? If they go bump, so does your data, if MS went bump and your data is stored onsite, you wouldn't lose anything except for SW support and updates.