Forbes Analyst Calls Game Over For Microsoft

Chatboy 91

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Feb 25, 2011
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I'm calling bullshit man person. The words spewing out of your mouth are INSANE!

People have been calling the death of Microsoft for years now. But, with their huge market share in the computer market, combined with the sales they've gotten on a console that's been going strong for 7 years now, I think it's safe to say they're fine for now.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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I pretty much stopped paying attention when the guy claimed that people were buying tablets instead of desktops. No, you idiot. People are not replacing their desktops; they are(with some few exceptions) using tablets as well as their desktops. And if it seems that tablets are outselling traditional PCs(and I've no doubt that they are), it is only because they are being developed and marketed in competition with smartphones, which are typically replaced every year or so, rather than the 4-5 year cycle most people run with for PCs.

Basically, smartphones sell well right now because a 2 year old tablet has a lot more problems with new software than a 2 year old PC. The tech is advancing more rapidly because it is still trying to catch up with x86.
 

Callate

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I'm not in a position to predict the market as a whole. But I will say: I don't want to spend the rest of my life working on an under-powered tablet. I don't want to see companies like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia go out of business. So I certainly hope Hartung is blowing smoke.

Microsoft seems increasingly determined to make its interfaces "elegant" in pursuit of Apple without any consideration that their so-called "elegance" is literally a bane to many of their core customers. It may require a savage beating to get that lesson through the necessary heads, but it shouldn't require a fatal one.
 

geizr

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Okay, I'm squarely in the Apple/Mac user camp, but this kind of analysis is pure BS; it seems positively preposterous to me, and I refuse to just believe such analysis based on one small segment of Microsoft's total business. The sad thing is, this is precisely the kind of faulty, shallow thinking that goes on all the time with tech-news concerning tech-businesses. Microsoft is far too large and still massively dominant on the desktop and in the enterprise to just vanish so quickly.

Honestly, this sounds to me like the typical stunt of some Wall Street analyst with a vested interest in having the stock of a specific company take a sudden nose-dive so he can swoop in a buy it all up cheap and then profit later when the stock returns to normal value. To accomplish this, he'll release some bullshit article with a page-view grabbing headline to create FUD in less savvy investors, who then proceed to sell their stock in the company, lowering the stock price. With the stock lowered, he'll then buy it up, and when the "inevitable" doom fails to materials (as always ends up being the case), he'll make a killing selling the stock back to those same naive investors who are now desperately trying to grab a piece of the pie before it's all gone.

The other possibility is that his publication is in desperate need of some revenue from page-hits (been a strong trend with publications like Forbes and Business Insider over the past couple of years) and creating another BS article about Apple isn't working as well anymore (only so many times you can keep crying "wolf" before everyone just starts ignoring you). So, creating a BS article about the imminent doom of Microsoft had more possibility to generate a new wealth of page-hits, thus generating ad revenue.

This kind of bad, hidden-agenda analysis runs rampant in the tech-press, and it is usually aimed at Apple, because it's so easy to grab eyeballs off the Internet by putting Apple in the headline. This is the first I've seen it aimed at a non-Apple company. It's bad analysis when aimed Apple, and it's bad analysis when aimed at Microsoft. It's bad analysis when aimed at any company at all, because it's just purely bad analysis. Unless I hear Microsoft is actually losing significant (like 20-30%) mind-share, market-share, and site-licensing in the desktop OS, server OS, Office product space, and enterprise platforms space, any statements to Microsoft's sudden demise will be held as incredulous and suspect to complete disbelief as being nothing more than pure bullshit that has been uttered by either some delusional, ignorant tech pundit/blogger or some Wall Street/corporate dweeb with an hidden motive.
 

Sylveria

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Xan Krieger said:
Fappy said:
40% of Microsoft users still use XP? Does that exclude businesses or something?
I know I still use XP though I might get windows 7 later this year.

OT: Personally I don't think it'll die, Apple sucks so hopefully things will turn around.
I know I used XP until last year when I got a new PC with Windows 7 pre-loaded. I completely skipped Vista and I see little reason to drop the immense expensive of getting windows 8 until I get a new computer in 2-4 years.
 

iniudan

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Apr 27, 2011
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Fappy said:
40% of Microsoft users still use XP? Does that exclude businesses or something?
No that include business, actually business is the main reason the number would be so high, since lot of them are basically stuck with software programmed for windows XP (which was a really bad idea to get in the first place, has windows XP was basically a consumer reiteration of Windows 2000, to compensate for the ship wreck that was ME), that the development team has no yet updated to anything newer, despite XP going out of support next year.
 

thesilentman

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Jun 14, 2012
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This guy seriously thinks this? I hate MS with all my being and even I can prove that they won't die soon. Nevermind that MS cares less abo-...

j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
Wouldn't surprise me. Microsoft seem to care less and less about actual gaming with each passing day.
Well, I'm beaten there. An interesting point to make is that they seem to care less about developers as well. I'm not going to bend down to MS and make Facebook squares. Hell no!

GenGenners said:
Dexter111 said:
GenGenners said:
None of that report makes sense. This is MICROSOFT we're talking about here.
I don't think he's that far off about Microsoft (they're probably going to follow IBM at some point in the near-to-far off future), but I don't believe hedging on Apple or the "Tablet market" makes sense, since I see both of those going the same way in the coming decades.

This is a rather long and interesting article about how and why "Microsoft lost its Mojo" that's definitely worth reading: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
Reading the article now. Pretty mind-blowing.
Reading it now as well. Pretty cool, but I should check to make sure that the facts are correct. I'm getting a feeling that something's off.

Fappy said:
40% of Microsoft users still use XP? Does that exclude businesses or something?
Unfortunately, no. The number one reason for this is price. Windows 7 Professional is damned expensive coming at 200 USD a single license. No, Office is not included. XP also wasn't as bad to set up as Windows 7 is at times due to special limitations that businesses need to set. My dad's company just switched to 7, and they're still having trouble getting virtual desktops to function.
 

Smooth Operator

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I really wonder what sort of universe these people live in, MS owns half the bloody software market you numpties, and in the western world it goes the same for the console market.

Look I'm no fan of their power drunken ways either but have a little perspective.
 

Fappy

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iniudan said:
Fappy said:
40% of Microsoft users still use XP? Does that exclude businesses or something?
No that include business, actually business is the main reason the number would be so high, since lot of them are basically stuck with software programmed for windows XP (which was a really bad idea to get in the first place, has windows XP was basically a consumer reiteration of Windows 2000, to compensate for the ship wreck that was ME), that the development team has no yet updated to anything newer, despite XP going out of support next year.
I guess I am just too used to working in the software industry where they generally like using up-to-date tech... except for Microsoft Outlook >.>
 

SinisterGehe

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May 19, 2009
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I sold my few stocks the same day they announced Windows 8 and the first drop spike happened. I got my money back that was for sure but that was about it.
I am not buying any stocks tied to Microsoft long as they think Windows 8 is the next step in computing.

Hell my office (in which I work) had 2 computers with Windows 8 in them (pre-installed, we got them cheap so we didn't complain) and the fucking thing was useless barely anything worked on it, for some reason it took 100G (1/10th) from the SATA and 62G ( 1/3rd) from SDD drive and we couldn't uninstall the fucking thing and change them to windows 7. The fucking OS was like a parasite, we couldn't get in to bios and when we did the fucker didn't let us boot from Windows 7 install disks. So me and one Pete from Interface design banded together and spent 4 hours (2/3rd) of our work hours getting rid of the damn OS. Finally we did manage and installed 7 and got them working in ~20 minutes.

That was enough for me about Windows 8 and convinced me that when Gabe said that they start focusing on Linux based systems in the future - he was bloody fucking right.

Also who smartass fucking engineer thought it would be good idea to force touch pad controls on to OS that is designed to computer WITHOUT TOUCHPAD. And then force it to be on always...

But yeah I am sticking to XP and 7 until Microsoft stops trying to be Apple and makes the Windows 9 a real OS for tower computers.

But yeah all private stock owners of Microsoft I recommend you to sell also. They'll notice some point... If anyone bothers to buy them soon.
 

A_Parked_Car

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Oct 30, 2009
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geizr said:
Okay, I'm squarely in the Apple/Mac user camp, but this kind of analysis is pure BS; it seems positively preposterous to me, and I refuse to just believe such analysis based on one small segment of Microsoft's total business. The sad thing is, this is precisely the kind of faulty, shallow thinking that goes on all the time with tech-news concerning tech-businesses. Microsoft is far too large and still massively dominant on the desktop and in the enterprise to just vanish so quickly.

Honestly, this sounds to me like the typical stunt of some Wall Street analyst with a vested interest in having the stock of a specific company take a sudden nose-dive so he can swoop in a buy it all up cheap and then profit later when the stock returns to normal value. To accomplish this, he'll release some bullshit article with a page-view grabbing headline to create FUD in less savvy investors, who then proceed to sell their stock in the company, lowering the stock price. With the stock lowered, he'll then buy it up, and when the "inevitable" doom fails to materials (as always ends up being the case), he'll make a killing selling the stock back to those same naive investors who are now desperately trying to grab a piece of the pie before it's all gone.

The other possibility is that his publication is in desperate need of some revenue from page-hits (been a strong trend with publications like Forbes and Business Insider over the past couple of years) and creating another BS article about Apple isn't working as well anymore (only so many times you can keep crying "wolf" before everyone just starts ignoring you). So, creating a BS article about the imminent doom of Microsoft had more possibility to generate a new wealth of page-hits, thus generating ad revenue.

This kind of bad, hidden-agenda analysis runs rampant in the tech-press, and it is usually aimed at Apple, because it's so easy to grab eyeballs off the Internet by putting Apple in the headline. This is the first I've seen it aimed at a non-Apple company. It's bad analysis when aimed Apple, and it's bad analysis when aimed at Microsoft. It's bad analysis when aimed at any company at all, because it's just purely bad analysis. Unless I hear Microsoft is actually losing significant (like 20-30%) mind-share, market-share, and site-licensing in the desktop OS, server OS, Office product space, and enterprise platforms space, any statements to Microsoft's sudden demise will be held as incredulous and suspect to complete disbelief as being nothing more than pure bullshit that has been uttered by either some delusional, ignorant tech pundit/blogger or some Wall Street/corporate dweeb with an hidden motive.
That was a great post my friend.

I really think this analyst is dramatically overstating his case. It actually reminds me of one of those forum trolls who push their trolling too hard and they come off sounding silly, because everybody can see they are just trolling.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Chatboy 91 said:
I'm calling bullshit man person. The words spewing out of your mouth are INSANE!

People have been calling the death of Microsoft for years now. But, with their huge market share in the computer market, combined with the sales they've gotten on a console that's been going strong for 7 years now, I think it's safe to say they're fine for now.
Going strong? Hello no. MS 7 years ago was on top. They've been reporting massive losses for years now. That and the sales of their OS have been severely kneecapped since Vista.

Just because people say that a company has been dying for years doesn't mean they aren't hurting if they're still around. When people say things like that, they don't mean immediately, they mean like a terminally ill person.
 

GoldenShadow

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May 13, 2008
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In my opinion, Microsoft never had any idea on what they were doing. Spending money on timed exclusive titles (Skyrim DLC) was stupid. They think it would make more people to buy Xbox to get the games on release day. Instead they just wait for the timed exclusive to run its course and buy it on PC anyway. Nobody was ever going to buy an Xbox because of this, it just pisses people off and shows Microsoft has no clue.

Then Windows 8, which is nearly universally derided, comes out and falls flat. It's not the must have like Windows 7. Its like they are looking at everyone else and copying them. First they copy Sony, then they copy Apple. Its not working, come up with your own ideas, if you have any.
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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And the PC Gaming Master Race shall laugh incessantly as they watch Microsoft pay the price for alienating them.
 

Formica Archonis

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Nov 13, 2009
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<img src="http://s91291220.onlinehome.us/formica/windows9thumb.jpg" align=right>A bit doom and gloom, this analyst is.

That said, there ARE problems in Redmond.

http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-nightmare-how-microsofts-business-really-could-collapse-2011-11
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmers-nightmare-is-coming-true-2012-11?op=1

But really, you got Ballmer running things. I'm not really shocked.

Me? I'm waiting for Windows &#9320;: Strongest Edition.
 

vxicepickxv

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Sep 28, 2008
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Fasckira said:
This seems against all the other reports I've read about Microsoft recently but then I'm not an industry analyst.
There are only 3 outcomes of any business industry event.

1. Company could make profit. This is newsworthy.
2. Company could break even. This is boring.
3. Company could lose money. This is newsworthy.

Welcome to the industry.
 

AlwaysPractical

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Oct 7, 2011
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The cynic in me wants to quote Logan on this, saying "remember that all these guys are typing these reports and these blogs into their macbooks".

On the other hand, I do kind of get it. Windows 8 is and might well remain quite a disaster. If driver support ramps up on Ubuntu, Microsoft will be in tons of trouble.
 

GonzoGamer

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Entitled said:
But Microsoft is so big!!! So there is no way that it can get any smaller!!!
I love this post.

What I'm left wondering is who would be a good corp to buy the Xbox brand? B&N could have something to add with a retail showing that's still surprisingly strong and have shown adaptability to the market. Disney would probably love to sink their teeth into something like that but they would likely bland it up and add even more advertising.
What about one of the big publishers like EA or Activision? Do either of them have a "war chest" for something like that.
 
Mar 5, 2011
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Microsoft selling Xbox would be the best to happen to PC gaming since Steam. In fact the best thing that could happen would be Microsoft going out of business and then Nvidia or AMD releasing a gaming optimized build of Linux for free.