Business users force Microsoft to back off Windows 10 PC kill plan Microsoft has backed down on its plan to hustle owners of certain PCs to Windows 10 by crimping support options. Redmond revealed the plan last January, when it decreed that PCs running 6th-generation Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs and Windows 7 would only get limited security and stability support until mid-2017. By March it backed …
"Surely someone senior inside Microsoft will be principled enough to ask if all the ill-will its nagging efforts have generated are really worth it?"
More likely, someone in marketing is saying, "If only we'd pushed Harder, we'd have hit that billion mark!"
"If it don't fit, use a bigger hammer.", is the marketeer's credo.
More likely, someone in marketing is saying, "If only we'd pushed Harder, we'd have hit that billion mark!"
Indeed. And now they've further fragmented their user base because of the unpopularity of W10. Having failed to understand that most users want a W7 style UI and launcher, they've resolutely pushed on with the fugliness of W8, retrenched a tiny and unsatisfactory degree for W10 (so any sane user still needs a third party shell launcher add on), the overall feel is a dogs dinner, and then they overlay that with a ground zero strike on user privacy. So in addition to the user base fragmentation, they STILL have billions of man hours of work to make W10.2 coherent and attractive for users. Hey boys and girls, THAT'S why W10 take up has been poor: The PRODUCT IS CRAP. And that's because you intentionally made it crap. You didn't have to, but you worked at it, and boy did you succeed.
My forecast is that despite the obvious success they could have from fixing the W10 defects, they won't do that. This is death by a thousand cuts. Just as Nokia Phones died of asphyxiation up their own behind (before Elop arrived), Microsoft are emulating that navel-gazing-from-the-inside strategy, as the influential employees destroy long term value whilst pursuing their own personal interests and ignoring long term investor interests, or what customers want. Back in 1995 that worked for lack of competition. Post 2010 it is an inelegant form of corporate suicide.
If the share price is what keeps Satya in his job then he is safe for a while yet:
25 -> 58, 5yrs (APPL 53 -> 108)
46 -> 58, 1yr, on Aug 25th that might have read 41 -> 58, (AAPL, 115 -> 108)
53 -> 58, 1 month, 10%, (AAPL, 97 -> 108, also 10%)
Obviously volatile but showing movement in the right direction for shareholders. And more consistently than another major tech outfit.
He hasn't been CEO for five years, so using the five year stock price gain is kind of silly. If all he does is stop Microsoft from wasting billions on failed acquisitions like Nokia and Acquantive, he'll be a big improvement over Ballmer even if the consumer Windows business starts sagging due to the overall PC sales slump.
The enterprise customers are already on subscription, and pay whether or not they upgrade to 10, so I really don't know why Microsoft feels they need to hurry them off older versions. The idea that customers buying Skylake PCs (i.e. just about any sold these days) would have only a year to upgrade them to 10 is ludicrous. Whoever came up with that plan has no idea how large enterprises manage their PC upgrades. Looking at how long it took them to get off XP should have been all the education they needed to see that this idea would never fly.
> stop Microsoft from wasting billions on failed acquisitions like Nokia and Acquantive
Microsoft have, for decades, bought companies for the sole reason of killing them. They may have done that with Nokia because they would not resign the agreement to keep with Windows Phone and already brought out Nokia-X (Android). Better a dead WP than a live Android from Nokia.
Fact is, Microsoft has a strategy and it is working. It matters little whether they outstrip Andoid in number of installed devices before 2017 or whenever.
What does matter is that almost every (or as many as possible) of the enterprise and home users stay on products like Windows and Office. This helps to lock in future and current demand for more interesting SaaS offerings further down. Meanwhile, everything stays nicely linked(in)TM with the basic tools (Windows OS and Office).
Gently shepherding everyone onto cloud-based, mobile solutions will continue to nurture market OS and SaaS dominance. When companies can choose between a platform that works on legacy hardware, can host *nix VMs, run on new shiny-shiny or cheap droidware they'll take the easy way out, just as they have always done. The other option is to manage multiple, forked platforms with all associated headaches. Most people prefer the easy way and will continue to pay for it.
So their stock price will keep going up or stay stable. Unlike some of his predecessors, Nadella actually has some vision. The mega ad-slingers and shiny-shiny sellers may not have any other vision than to make lots of money, until people find alternatives.
At the risk of sounding like a complete Redmond fanboi, I think MS could do very well in this brave new, world. If they could build a decent browser, smartphone OS and search engine, resistance would be almost futile.
Your downvotes are of course always welcome.....
Well that's fine for Office I suppose, but how does that support the Windows OS when you can access Offcie365 from a browser running on any OS? It also reduces lock in as once people are used to using Cloud services, compatible but cheaper alternatives become better choices for some.
Regardless of the success of Microsoft's cloud strategy, the idea that Linkedin is worth even remotely close to what they paid is ludicrous. They will be writing off an eleven digit sum within the next couple years, mark my words.
Reminds me of that fool Juncker, "what people need is more EU not a better run one", look how well that worked with the UK referendum. When will the bloated-ego ego-maniacs realise, those outside of their brain sphere have their own thoughts, needs, agendas and desires. Make them unhappy enough and they really, I mean really want to leave not keep taking the juice.
With Windows attitude to printers, (every new software load messes up half of mine) starting to make the quill pen look like the wave of the future, leaving certainly cannot be worse. In contrast, the old XP machine has not been used for months at a time, but once woken up it can still print like normal.
Could it just be this simple? Potential users have recognised Windows for the malware it is, and are (quite rightly) refusing to use it. That's all there is to it. MS appear to realise that they are losing the battle to sell Windows, but every move they make seems calculated only to make matters worse. A bigger hammer is pointless if you can't hit the right nail with it.
For the first time in their history, MS are faced with a marketplace in which there are real, viable alternatives. I'm beginning to wonder if the hole is just too deep to climb out of this time.
Forcing people off Windows 7 is not guaranteed to see them take up 10. Once they have gone elsewhere, I would say very few would ever come back. To permanently lose even a fraction of your customer base is attempted, if not actual, commercial suicide.
Windows 10 for enterpise. That will be the same windows 10 that has more gpos for chrome that is does for edge. Where not ticking a single gpo will automatically update itself with candycrush and twitter EVEN on wsus updating.
Not to mention start menu and taskbar defaults are a train wreck even on 1607 build. Roaming profiles that ignore gpos beacuse MS deem their vision of what you need to see should take precidence (but then work for logons AFTER initial profile creation)
W10 enterprise is a fucking train wreck.
Ape-ing Captain Daft...
"Surely someone senior inside Microsoft will be principled enough to ask if all the ill-will its nagging efforts have generated are really worth it?"
You're dealing with Munchkins in Merry old land of Oz. Or the 7th Dimension, or Children of the latter church of wonk. Microsoft bake intention based on spiritualist ritual with little concept of what's going on off-campus. The answer is new Windows....what's the question?
Yes, I liked it to. I wonder how they define the metric… IIRC companies did move pretty quickly to Windows: most of the enterprises I know completed this within two years of launch, after giving Vista a wide berth.
Enterprises are happy with Windows 7 and have around 3 years to plan the non-Windows future.
What's worse, is it reads as though Microsoft want to be shot of Windows 10... but they've been persuaded to keep it by [business] users.
I thought I'd woken up in some kind of weird parallel universe - but I don't remember being in a group of people including John Rhys-Davis and Kari Wuhrer.
"They could make that easier, then, by not having their OS bundled on most systems sold to end users"
I don't know about that. Conversation last evening:
80-year-old woman (currently owning 2 computers downgraded to W10): "If I buy a new computer how do I get Linux on it?"
Me; "When you get it, ring me."
These jackasses need to LISTEN to their desktop customers and stop pretending to listen to them.
If you are going to charge for an OS then you can't get away with treating them as data mining targets. Oh - and the UI is crap. They should give people the option of running a windows 7 aero type UI instead of forcing everyone onto a flugly mess designed to work on phones they can't sell.
Note to microsoft - this is supposed to be a desktop operating system - not an android data mining phone UI.
Microsoft need some people outside their over excited bubble, anyone following when this news was released earlier in the year, realised it was a ridiculous proposition in the timeframe they were quoting.
Linux Mint 18 (as one example) has past a point where the Linux desktop is both easier to install/cheaper to maintain for certain scenarios, but convention for some reason (MS big marketing budgets v zero marketing budget for Linux) keeps everyone using Microsoft.
The trouble for Microsoft, is that 'convention' gets severely eroded and questioned everytime Microsoft get over excited and start sprouting ridiculous propositions regarding cutting short Windows 7 support on certain platforms, because we know equally that can apply to Windows 10, looking forward. Face it MS, you're not Apple's model (yet) with only 5-6 platforms to support, live with it, stop feeling hard done by having to support a wider install base.
Microsoft by making things ever more difficult, there are plenty of good alternatives that look more attractive every day.
It is not just convention. Microsoft has both gamers and business users (like Trevor Pott) by the balls. Yes there is Libre Office, Steam, and I'm very happy for this and wish them well, but it is early days. For Linux to be good alternative for these two markets (not just viable), much more client focused software is needed, for users to choose from. As a gamer (well, not much and only sometimes) I really hope for Vulkan. As a business user ..... well, someone please find me good alternative to Outlook, which works with Exchange just as well.
Satya Nadella could (I think will) still release MSOffice for Linux, because I can't see MS offering MS SQL Server for Linux, without Office Integration Tools alongside it, this is Key. I also think he likes products to stand on their own two feet. Releasing MSOffice for Linux, would force Windows 10 to become a better product, to survive on its own and crucially be reliant on its own income stream.
The current Microsoft history sort of shows Windows 10 may have to deal with this (the release of MSOffice for Linux)
Windows Mobile* has been put through a similar fate, it wasn't the best Phone OS out there (in fairness, not helped in the way it was poorly marketed by MS). It's because both iOS/Android ecosystems made those other mobile OS's what they are, and are all the more powerful for it.
The thing that held back Android and iOS artficially at the time, was the lack of MSOffice, Windows Mobile was competing (just), but competing artifically, with a 'leg up', so to speak.
*Windows 10 mobile OS is still been developed though, even though Windows Phone (hardware) is all but dead)
Nadella just made each product separate entities that needed to survive in the market on their own two feet. Why suppress real potential MSOffice sales on iOS/Android to support an in-house lagging Windows Mobile OS?, if Windows Mobile is really that good (as Satya was probably constantly told), we can sell MSOffice on all three.
You can see the logic, but Windows Mobile just wasn't in the same league (not helped by Microsoft own mishandling by their Marketing dept)
Windows 10 Desktop is a much, much stronger entity, but if Microsoft starts to see Linux Desktop in the Enterpise take hold, I don't think he'll (Satya Nadella) think twice about releasing MS Office for Linux, the history of Windows Mobile shows he doesn't get sentimental regards Products, to protect them. If there are opportunites opening elsewhere, he'll take them come what may.
The real point is, does Linux need MSOffice for it to go 'mainstream', to defy the usual sticking with MS convention on the Enterprise Desktop.
"Satya Nadella could (I think will) still release MSOffice for Linux, because I can't see MS offering MS SQL Server for Linux, without Office Integration Tools alongside it"
If this is the case than he's taking a long time about it. I'm not sure about your SQL Server point. Swivel server on Linux allows him to offer it in Azure instances running Linux and is a matter of bowing to reality but I'd guess he wants all the desktop clients to be on Windows. There's also the little matter of every desktop Linux distro having LibreOffice, or maybe OpenOffice already there as soon as it's installed. There's only a percentage of users who are then going to fork out real money for something with the same functionality.
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someone please find me good alternative to Outlook, which works with Exchange just as well.
I don't even need to communicate with Exchange these days, but a decent email (PIM) client is needed. Evolution needs to be uninstalled/reinstalled on a regular basis. Thunderbird doesn't do calendaring.
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