I think this article is more than a little bit extreme.
Their first example is that PC sales fell in Q3, and they blame it on the iPad? How about the fact that people held out buying PCs because they knew Windows 8 was on its way?
I think this article is more than a little bit extreme. . . .
Same here, but it may have some validity.
Most everybody I know just wants a computing device that works when they turn it on and is quick and easy to figure out (and has a shutoff button).
love 'em or hate 'em (pretty neutral myself - happy to sit on the fence ) can you seriously imagine a world without Microsoft, or more specifically, without Office.
there are lots of Word equivalents that seem to be very capable of opening .doc files, but I've yet to find a replacement for Excel that will open my .xls files and not bugger up the formulas.
Realistically, most companies would probably love to be doing as "poorly" as Microsoft may be right now.
I absolutely detest Office and all its rubbish.
As volunteer treasurer for a registered charity I used Excel to assist in presenting financial reports to the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commissioners.
I found that when my spread sheet was run on a slightly later version of Microsoft Office the sub-totals did not balance.
I found that some of my Macros were no longer understood by the later version of Excel,
and even worse - its paper-click Wizard did not submit the correct arguments in the correct order either.
When job hunting I found that my Resume had the last line of page 1 appearing as the only line on the top of page 2 when emailed attached to another computer.
I have never had such grief when Open Office was updated.
i used to only use Corel, especially WordPerfect, but found when i was sending out my resume, companies only wanted the Word format.
so i was forced to learn it and have only used Office since.
I've tried OO but have found it cannot handle anywhere near all of Excels 300'ish formulas.
you may not like Office but if it didn't have the monopoly, and the inherit standard it has forced on us, image all the competing formats; Libre, OpenOffice to name a few. there would be half a dozen different standards.
I'm yet to see an other contender come close to matching Excels power.
(but I do hate the damn ribbon, geez, how hard was File, Edit, View, Tools.....)
(but I do hate the damn ribbon, geez, how hard was File, Edit, View, Tools.....)
It gave far too much power to the user, so it had to go
Realistically, most companies would probably love to be doing as "poorly" as Microsoft may be right now.
You bet'cha.
But still, I think they feel a threat . . . and I think they are right somehow.
Persons from 1 or 2 generations after me want a computer the size of a pack of cards that will do everything and still just work. Apple has the edge on that, i guess, if just looking around is any indicator.
A few days ago, I made a purchase from a guy who just swiped my card on a portable thingy, hooked to an iphone but no wires. Scared me . . . I had to wonder where that transmission went, who was sitting nearby with some sort of sniffer app, how honest is this vendor, what if his portable thingy gets stolen, etc. These Issues don't seem to occur to the new kids. <--- Confessions of a paranoid dinosaur. :-)
I would think that 99% of the people using the internet owe their start on a machine to Microsoft. I personally feel they have made a HUGE contribution to the way the internet and media is today.
Sure, things evolve and change, that is the nature of things. But I wouldn't write Microsoft off yet.
Modern life dictates that we do things faster with less user input. We want instant, we want it now. Microsoft the big outfit which brought us the systems most of us use today will have to adapt to the shrieks for instant everything.
Children of tomorrow will know how to get things instantly via apps and their slim laptops/tablets but it will be the people of yesterday who knew how to put the things there in the first place.
There was a report on the TV news about those handheld portable devices such as the iPad and smartphones taking sales away from new computers. Personally I'd rather have a desktop computer versus a handheld portable device.
I absolutely detest Office and all its rubbish.
I would absolutely detest having a computer without Microsoft's Office Publisher installed on it, Publisher is a prerequisite and must have for me. I've never found a suitable free/open source alternative to it, and I seriously doubt I'd bother replacing it will a free/open source alternative due to all the Publisher templates I've made over the last 14+ years. I could however live without Word since there's other very similar word processing programs around which are either freeware or open source.
The days that Microsoft "ruled the computerworld" are over. Nowadays there's more competition. So, Microsoft certainly has to tread carefully. Desktops and laptops won't be obsolete tomorrow. They will coëxist alongside with tablets. E.g. typing on a tablet is simply a horrible experience. Just give me a good old fashioned keyboard. And I don't think I will switch away from my current Word version. Newer is not always better.
There're a number of things I would like to see improved on a tablet before I even would consider switching to a tablet. And all that weird "cloud" stuff. Too dangerous, IMO. No thanks. So, I'll continue to be a Microsoft customer.
The days that Microsoft "ruled the computerworld" are over.
Maybe not "ruling" it, but they won't disappear. Think of their involvement with portable devices like Windows Phone, etc. Also they have Microsoft powered systems in cars such as KIA's UVO system, etc.
E.g. typing on a tablet is simply a horrible experience. Just give me a good old fashioned keyboard. And I don't think I will switch away from my current Word version. Newer is not always better.
Not a huge fan of touch screen typing myself. For my tablet, I use Thumb Keyboard (ONLY in portait view, I do not type in landscape) and on my phone, I use SwiftKey (and now SwiftKey Flow beta)
one downside to us only having MS all these years is that we know the programs well and have a swag of data written in them.
having just started using Ubuntu, I am finding it hard to get my data across to the Linux platform and still be able to use it in all it's glory.
especially my Excel spreadsheets which have pretty in-depth formulas which the open-sourced Excel wanna-bees can't handle.
we are tied to MS even when we try a different OS, we still want things to behave like Office.
Personally I think most of what was said by everyone so far is somehow correct.
I find that these days I use my MS desktops at home (MS Office installed), my Mac OSX when traveling (MS Office installed) and my Android smart phone when in my motor vehicle (it has KingSoft Office installed) & UBUNTU with OO installed operated only as a hobby. I did try using Ubuntu and OO for several months prior to retiring and due to problems with data exchange with clients I had to go back to MS Win 7 and MS Office (and happy to do so)
Just to make sure I can access all documents across all platforms I usually PDF everything.
So for me it's Microsoft and Adobe, like most of us it's what we started with, we know it very well (including some of it's minor inherent issues) we have many $$$ invested in the software (as do many major corporates).
The question I hear regularly is "but can I still open it with my existing MS software?"
Whilst I think that Microsoft will be on the top rung of the ladder, it will share this position for many years to come..........plus there are many already wondering what Windows 9 will look like!!!!!
I think Microsoft is in trouble.
The computing landscape is changing and they are being attacked on all sides. The average user is moving to smart phones and tablets. Even MS office is being ditched by a lot of college kids and students. I know a lot of my peers have started using Google Docs for everything simply because its free and their documents are available on every device they have. I don't think the hard core excell user will ever switch but I believe the average user might not have any reason to bother paying for Microsoft software. I cant tell you how many iPads with keyboard cases I saw in the last half of my college career.
I also read this article today:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/8/3744314/gabe-newell-valve-console-living-room-steam-box
If valve seriously embraces linux gaming computers that are meant for being used in the living room, then MS may very well lose the pc gaming crowd as well. These computers may ship with windows but its really looking like valve is pushing for better graphics support in linux. I don't think Linux will become the new favorite desktop OS because of this but it will probably take a serious portion of the gaming market. Steam is a HUGE player in gaming. They have the best games and often the best prices. I cant wait to see how this turns out.
, then MS may very well lose the pc gaming crowd as well.
I honestly can't invision openGL or anything else coming close to what DirectX offers, though. Would certainly be interesting though!
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/133824-valve-opengl-is-faster-than-directx-even-on-windows
Valve claims their source engine actually runs faster in Open GL. That article says that open gl supports all of the same features ast direct x. I'm not sure how true that is but that article caught my eye a few months ago. I'm actually kind of excited about this. I would love a well put together pc/console hybrid.
...I don't get it...it's like you're all nerds or something...
