Re: Apple's poor positioning for the age *after* x86

In article <2005091621190675249%danieljohnson@vzavenuenet>,
Daniel Johnson <danieljohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 2005-09-14 23:57:43 -0400, ZnU <znu@xxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
>
> > In article <2005091417440543658%danieljohnson@vzavenuenet>,
> > Daniel Johnson <danieljohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> This is quit wrong. Vista is the next phase of the rollout of the new
> >> managed runtimes. The Win32-dependent bits are to be replaced will
> >> all-singing, all-dancing managed equivalents. The 2.0 runtime will be
> >> delivered on every new computer.
> >>
> >> .NET will no longer be a big download you need to run certain things.
> >>
> >> It will just be Windows.
> >
> > Yeah, they're also bundling .NET, which is already available for XP.
>
> Right back to Win95, actually. They did something like this with Win32
> also. Remember Win32s?
>
> > "It will just be Windows" is a bit misleading, because Win32 is still
> > there, and much of the rewriting that was supposed to happen didn't
> > happen, so most of Windows is still written on top of Win32.
>
> It was only "supposed to happen" by people who did not understand the
> technology. Win32 was always going to be there; it would be suicidal to
> remove it and very silly to rewrite it in terms of .NET. Nor is the
> .NET technology suitable for use in the kernel; a new kernel was never
> in the cards.
>
> What MS is doing is putting *another* API in there. There will no doubt
> be some apps to show it off, also. But the important thing is the API
> itself.

Nobody expected Microsoft to remove Win32 or write Kernel code in C#.
What Microsoft originally did plan to do was rewrite a significantly
amount of higher level code in .NET -- presumably things like Explorer.
This whole aspect of Vista never really panned out.

[snip]

> > Oh, they keep at it, because they can afford to, but they lose money on
> > almost everything except Office and Windows. If you lose sight of that,
> > it makes Microsoft look a lot more scary than it actually is.
>
> Microsoft's greatest virtue as a company is this persistence. They keep
> plugging until they get it right. This is what makes them scary.

But they don't ever get it right in most markets. They haven't managed
to become a major player in most of the markets they've moved into in
recent years. They usually don't even make money.

They've largely become a paper tiger, even if public perception hasn't
quite caught up with this reality yet. Remember the days "Well Apple's
making money in the music market now, but wait until Microsoft shows up!"

Microsoft has now created its own platform for digital music, the
software for which is bundled with its monopoly operating system.
They've partnered with many other companies. They've even launched their
own music store. And Apple still has 80% of the market.

We're probably about to see a similar sort of thing play out in the
search engine market. Common knowledge is that now that Microsoft is
interested, Google could be in trouble. My prediction is, we'll never
see anything particularly interesting form them.

[snip]

> [snip]
> >>> They've promoted product activation and insane DRM schemes that would,
> >>> for instance, degrade the quality of video output for consumers who
> >>> didn't buy new monitors.
> >>
> >> Microsoft is offering their *real* customers what they want- really
> >> good copy protection.
> >>
> >> You see, MS's real customers are the people who *produce* the media and
> >> applications you consume. *Those* are the people they must win over.
> >> All else follows.
> >
> > It's not nearly that simple. The truth is, most of these crazy copy
> > protection schemes, don't really work.
>
> Microsoft is trying to make them work. They may fail, but if they
> succeed, software vendors everywhere will beat *yet another* path to
> their door.
>
> > So in reality, Microsoft is angering the people who give it money, in
> > order to *pretend* to do something for developers and content creators.
>
> Microsoft isn't really angering the OEMs who give it money. :D

Microsoft is angering the customers of those OEMs, which amounts to the
same thing.

[snip]

> > Moreover, with Microsoft's market share, Windows is too big to ignore;
> > are developers going to only write for other platforms if Microsoft
> > doesn't implement this stuff? Of course not.
>
> MS had a bad scare in the late nineties because developers did start
> writing for another platform- Java. Who is to say this can't happen
> again?

That wouldn't be likely to happen as a result of Windows not adding
nutty copy protection features. Actually, the kind of features Microsoft
is adding pretty much require low-level OS support; they're not really
something you could implement on a middleware platform without such OS
support underneath.

[snip]

> >> What Apple did was making the iPod the only "platform" (if you will)
> >> for big-name commercial music (which you get off the ITunes Music
> >> Store).
> >>
> >> That is the kind of entrenchement that MS has in the OS market, actually.
> >> :D
> >
> > I don't think that's such a huge part of the iPod's success; the
> > average iPod user has only purchased a few songs from the iTMS.
>
> Certainly the iPod was 'cool' before the iTMS was out there, but that
> does not account for the entrenchment: 'cool' is an ephemeral thing.
> Lock-in is more durable. :D

The iPod is certainly responsible for the success of the iTMS. I just
don't think the reverse is true, because there is not real lock in
there. There are many other ways to get music to put on your iPod. Some
of them are still significantly more popular than the iTMS.

> > Come on, I expect more than Edwin-like games from you. My argument here
> > is very clear; in markets where Microsoft isn't already completely
> > entrenched, other competitors, often using models very different from
> > Microsoft's, tend to beat Microsoft. If Microsoft's iron grip on the OS
> > market ever slips, the same thing could start happening there.
>
> This is not a tautology like the last one, but it is a truism. Where
> Microsoft succeeds, they become entrenched. Where they fail, not.

That's not what I'm describing either. I'm pointing out, as I've pointed
out repeatedly, that Microsoft is simply not that dangerous outside of
its monopolized markets, and that therefore, if those monopolies ever
start to crack, Microsoft could end up losing nearly everything -- it's
not too likely that Windows could fall to 60% market share without
falling to 30% shortly thereafter, in other words.

[snip]

> > Obviously Windows would take years to die off. But look at IBM's downfall.
> > While there are *still* companies with legacy systems running on IBM
> > mainframes, all these years later, IBM went from industry monopolist to
> > struggling-for-survival fairly fast.
>
> Struggling for survival? Surely it was never *that* bad. They had to
> adapt to world which they didn't dominate, because the mainframes they
> dominated had become irrelevant. But they weren't teetering on the edge
> of bankruptcy at any point... were they?

They were losing money hand over fist for a while. Can you imagine what
the perception would be if Microsoft posted a $10B loss for, say, 2009?

> >> It is true that now that Apple and Sun have started putting up a fight,
> >> Microsoft's life is not quite so easy. But they are no pushover. I
> >> think you may be underestimating them.
> >
> > I don't think so. Microsoft's near total inability to *profitably*
> > expand out of its two monopoly markets shows the company for what it
> > really is; a third-rate software developer that lucked into a good
> > starting position at the dawn of the PC era.
>
> This is wishful thinking. Your favorite product (whatever it is :D ) is
> not that good, and Microsoft's are not that bad. They are clearly the
> best in several important categories and are highly competitive in a
> number of others. They didn't do that by being a "third-rate software
> developer".

I just don't really agree with this assessment. At least not in consumer
markets.

--
"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get
them out of harm's way."
-- George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Microsoft is in deep trouble and now it is going to die
    ... WITH TWO OVERLAPPING events, Microsoft admitted what we have been saying all along, Vista, aka Windows Me Two, is a joke that no one wants. ... I personally am expecting a nicely steady growth of the Mac market share as Windows XP antiquates and people want something more modern and effective to which to turn. ... Another hilarious observation is when Mac zealots declare BMW this and Porche that and that market share isn't really important when all at the same time they cream their collective pants when OS x's market share jumps from 4.1 % to 4.1.00005%. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • SecurityFocus Microsoft Newsletter #176
    ... MICROSOFT VULNERABILITY SUMMARY ... Microsoft Windows XP HCP URI Handler Arbitrary Command Execu... ... PHPNuke Category Parameter SQL Injection Vulnerability ... Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer Vulnerability Identific... ...
    (Focus-Microsoft)
  • SecurityFocus Microsoft Newsletter #49
    ... Subject: SecurityFocus Microsoft Newsletter #49 ... Microsoft Windows NNTP Denial of Service Vulnerability ... Microsoft IIS SSI Buffer Overrun Privelege Elevation Vulnerability ... Microsoft ISA Server H.323 Memory Leak Denial of Service... ...
    (Focus-Microsoft)
  • SecurityFocus Microsoft Newsletter #153
    ... MICROSOFT VULNERABILITY SUMMARY ... ZoneAlarm Random UDP Flood Denial Of Service Vulnerability ... FloosieTek FTGatePro Mail Server Path Disclosure Vulnerabili... ... Microsoft Windows NetBIOS Name Service Reply Information Lea... ...
    (Focus-Microsoft)
  • [NT] Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (MS04-025)
    ... Get your security news from a reliable source. ... * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Service Pack 6a ... Navigation Method Cross-Domain Vulnerability ...
    (Securiteam)