back to article Microsoft betting on smaller Windows 8 devices and subscriptions

Microsoft's current financial team has been laying out the company's future strategy, and is hoping that a new rash of smaller Windows 8 PCs and cloud revenues will secure Redmond's future. During a call with financial analysts after reporting Microsoft's financial results for its third fiscal 2013 quarter on Thursday, …

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  1. qwarty

    Death of the 10" tablet

    Perhaps its a little early to call but with the Haswell and Baytrail part incoming, we must be approaching visibility of the end of the 10" tablet. Whether this year or holding on to next, even Apple is likely to switch to the attractive convertible and detachable form factors in the medium size mobile space.

    Microsoft being early in this future market is a plus for Windows, although obviously their late entry into pocket sized 7/8" sized devices is nothing to shout for them to shout about; I for one don't expect a competitor to the new Nexus 7 or retina iPad mini this Summer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Rental Market

      Looks like they are moving into the rental market, no one will ever be able to own their own software, instead they will be left to the whims of a landlord that can increase costs whenever they wanted, limit or remove whatever they want whenever they want.

      Ownership is out compulsory tithes are in. We are now beholden to our Masters......

      'Droit du seigneur' is next I suppose.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Rental Market

        'Droit du seigneur' is part of the OEM PC tradition - try to find a virgin laptop with no Windows license (or even the particular license one is looking for, e.g. a cheapie with a Windows edition that can join a domain).

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Waitaminute. Let me get this straight...

    ...after brutally murdering it, Microsoft's future is the Netbook? Well blow me the fuck down. People actually want those things? Battery life, small size, portability and cheap. Who'd have thought it? I mean really? What kind of crazy nuts would like that shit?

    Real customers want to pay $2000 for a 13" piece of plastic that you can't upgrade and whose battery lasts 4hours with all the blue crystals turned off. Really! Microsoft and Intel have telemetry that tells them this. I know, because they've spent the past three years pouring billions of dollars into marketing that attacks anyone who says anything different.

    Marginalizing your customers and trying to clockwork orange them "the message" until they open their wallets wasn't a viable business strategy? Holy shit. That's some game changing stuff right there. Next you'll be telling me they realized that an always-on xbox was going to cause bad PR!

    What's worse, people are starting to expect reliability and dependability from their systems; computers that last a decade! Stupid consumers wanting actual value for money and some semblance of ownership over the products they use. Who the hell do they thing they are anyways?

    The hoi polloi exist only to perpetually increase the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for large corporations! How dare they seek to decrease it? If they do that, how can we show unlimited, perpetual growth? Subscriptions must be forced on them at all costs. At all costs, you hear me?

    Creating products that consumers actually want to buy by actually listening to one's customers is not the path towards victory. A laser focus on driving up ARPU through lock-in, leveraging a monopoly in one area to obtain one in another and abusive licensing techniques is the only corporately acceptable path!

    Bang the drum loud enough and you can drown out what your customers are saying! Margins, margins, margins, margins! Can you hear me my friends? Margins, margins, margins, margins! No netbooks! No retail packages! Drive up the ARPU and increase your margins, margins, margins, margins!

    Tighten your grip. Tiiiiiighten it...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Waitaminute. Let me get this straight...

      TL;DR

  3. Tom 35

    Plans for double-digit decline

    Yes their wonderful touchy phone interface windows 8 is doing a wonderful job of killing off new computer sales.

    now people will be able to (not) buy smaller computers with a low end CPU just like they are not buying high end computers, and ultrabooks.

  4. Fihart

    Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

    Just spent an afternoon with a friend after she called me to help with her new Win8 laptop as she was suffering what she described as tears of rage trying to navigate Win8.

    The "swipe" action I inadvertently executed while using the touchpad kept producing a black border and a box containing the time/date and frequently replaced Internet Explorer on screen with something else -- luckily I discovered that pressing Esc key took me back.

    I couldn't find My Computer or Windows Explorer but after identifying a taskbar icon as representing folders I stumbled across a screen called (something) Assist which is basically My Computer under another name and style.

    Pointless. Bonkers.

    Next she wanted my advice on why, when trying to open a Word document, she had been whisked off to an offer to rent (not buy) Windows Office 365 for over £70 per year !!

    I steered her instead to the Open Office site.

    So a customer infuriated by Win8 turning her experience of her new computer into a struggle. And a potential application sale lost.

    Do Microsoft seriously think companies are going to adopt Win8 if it produces this kind of reaction, multiplied across dozens or hundreds of staff ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

      Took me a couple of days to learn how to use Win8. I love it now. Some people struggle with change and learning new things though. Always have.

      1. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

        >Some people struggle with change and learning new things though.

        Most of them seem to be in Microsoft management.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

      I'm sorry but I'm going to have to call bulls**t on this because Win8 does not do what you are saying.

      The "swipe" you claim to have made is a temporary pop up for the charm bar on the right of the screen, simply clicking anywhere outside the charm bar removes it. Also the charm does not replace anything on screen, to do that you have to pick one of the large, clearly marked options on the charm bar otherwise it just goes back to the normal screen. The escape key takes you back to the previous app which means you "accidentally" clicked one of the big icons that says search, devices, etc, its akin to saying I accidentally pressed the start menu in Windows 7 and somehow switched off my PC. Alt-Tab still works as a shortcut too.

      The task bar is on the desktop mode so that means you knew where to find it. My Computer still exists and there's an icon for it as standard on the desktop.

      Windows would not take you direct to an advert for Office365 when trying to open a word document. If you have software capable of opening word documents it will open in that software automatically like it has done on XP, Vista and Win7. If there is no software for it Win8 will direct you to the App Store first.

      You are quite clearly someone who's never seen or used Win8 as what you've described does not happen in real world usage and the stuff you said did happen you have to deliberately go out of your way to do.

      1. LarsG
        Meh

        Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

        'You are quite clearly someone who's never seen or used Win8 as what you've described does not happen in real world usage and the stuff you said did happen you have to deliberately go out of your way to do.'

        That just about says it all, about you and the operating system. Do we all have to go on re-training courses to actually get to grips with it. Moving from Win 7 or Vista or XP to Win 8 should not be an ordeal, but it is to some people and that is a fact so belittling someone who is struggling with it serves no purpose.

        Instead of berating someone and showing your immaturity, why not offer a polite explanation and help them out and not be so ignorant.

        1. hplasm
          Linux

          Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

          That's what you get if you have trouble with Win8 and ask for help.

          Derision- "Go and RTFM N00b!!!!"

          Oh the irony.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

          It's not a case of belittling someone who doesn't know what they are doing its calling someone out on lying about their experience to prove a fictitious point. Everything he claimed is false, pure and simple.

          There is a My Computer and Windows Explorer in Windows 8, you do not need to look for it as its on the desktop. There is no My Computer alternative on the task bar, its the exact same task bar from Windows 7.

          You can't just bring up the Charm bar and accidentally go a different screen, you have to click on one of the clearly marked options to go a different screen. If you do deliberately click on one of those options all the existing windows shortcuts, Alt+F4 to close, Alt+Tab to bring up all running programs and the Windows Key (takes you to the Start Screen instead of pulling up the start menu) still work in Windows 8 and solve the issue in Windows 8 like it would solve the same problems in XP, Vista and Windows 7. It would be like telling people Windows 7 is awful because you keep hitting the a windows key on he keyboard and Windows 7 takes you to the network settings screen,

          The only way her system would prompt her to rent Office 365 is if she had already signed up to a month's free trial and had been using Office 365 for over a month otherwise Windows 8 behaves exactly like Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 in regards to its file association.

          The poster was not looking for help, if the poster was they wouldn't be stating examples of the software doing something the software does not do.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Fihart

        Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

        @ Matt Evans

        You are wrong and unnecessarily rude.

        The very fact that you use terms like "charm bar" (whatever that is) and effectively admit that I (who have used PC since 1985 starting with MSDOS) may have become confused says all one needs to know about the misguided piece of software that Win8 is.

        I don't use Win7 regularly but that was far less of a culture shock and I'm not sure that even had I used Win7 more I would have been comfortable with Win8.

        Sure, given a longer spell with Win8 I would probably get the hang of it, driven by my curiosity about such things. But I'm not talking about people like us, my friend is far more typical of the average user.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

          @Fihart. I've also used PCs for 25 years. I had no problem picking up Win8 barely had to engage brain. Far more to learn when I first used an Android tablet and an iPad not that it was over-taxing.

          What grates to me about these Win8 comments is the way some people seem to pretend that a small learning curve is a Windows only thing?

          Shame your friend didn't know someone familiar with Windows. Your post read blind leading the blind. Ever tried helping friends with any other new tech?

        2. El Andy

          Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

          @Fihart: If you'd said "I've used PCs for years and when my friend asked me to help them with Windows 8, which I've never used, I found it difficult", people might have listened. However when you describe things that simply don't happen, or berate the removal of things like My Computer (which hasn't gone anywhere), then people unsurprisingly assume you're just making stuff up based on what you've read on the internet.

          See how that works?

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Fihart

            Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

            @ El Andy

            You are right, I was hasty. But judging by the upvotes I'm not the only one who feels something is wrong with Win8 compared to the relative ease with which one moved to XP (or in my brief experience) to Win7.

            Incidentally, 5 minutes ago received message from another friend -- in Upstate New York -- saying she had returned her new Sony Ultrabook which she otherwise loved to the retailer due to user issues with Windows 8.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

          It's not rude to point that someone is saying something untrue. It's not a case of you by your own admission being confused its you posting that things have been removed when they haven't, that something does an action it cannot and that new items exist when they do not. Even now you try to spin your factual errors as an issue with the software.

          1. Rukario

            Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

            @M attEvansC3:

            > It's not rude to point that someone is saying something untrue.

            Ok then:

            > There is a My Computer and Windows Explorer in Windows 8, you do not need to look for it as its on the desktop.

            No there isn't.

            1. Rukario
              Facepalm

              Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

              Meant to add... there's just Recycle Bin and two hidden desktop.ini files.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              FAIL

              Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

              >> There is a My Computer and Windows Explorer in Windows 8, you do not need to look for it as its on the desktop.

              >No there isn't.

              Factually incorrect as I'm staring at both on the left side without even straining an eyeball. I've been using Windows since 1.0 (blech!), DOS and other operating systems long before ranging unto punch-cards, magnetic & paper-tape, even 132 column printed paper on mainframes (1970). I'm pretty sure I'm one of the last id10ts on earth that can properly operate a card-sorting machine. Change has been around me since day one. Since Windows came into the world, Windows 8 is the very first version that I haven't been itching to hack the desktop, let alone the internals of the OS, to fix to something more reasonable. I can safely say that it's going to be almost a joy to teach a novice since there are fewer ways to nuke yourself accidentally which wreckage I have to clean up far too often.

              Obviously, if you are stuck in a rut, and it seems to be that XP is supposedly the one great desktop, apparently, then a successor will arise (yea ole invocations of the Year of Desktop Linux, oh my!) and Microsoft will have to figure out what to do NeXT. As if Windows 8 doesn't already share a lot with Job's NeXT which is why I happen to like it ;-).

              You can shoot the messenger with down-votes, you can reap in tons of up-votes, but a screen shot demonstrates that Computer and Explorer are still there on the left on a stock Windows 8 Metro desktop..

              [Think of the Metro interface as a two-dimensional dock. Now to teach it how to do tear-off menus! That ribbon along the bottom would be superfluous with a stylus or mouse then!]

              Me? I'm stick with Windows 8 and kicking the tires on Server 2012 which looks mighty fine as well.

              s/A Former Amiga Evangelist, btw.

      4. Tom 13

        @MattEvansC3: So what you're saying is he's holding it wrong?

        How very ....

        Jobsian of you.

      5. Daniel B.
        FAIL

        Win8 *is* killing both MSFT and the PC market.

        It's telling that most of the "pro-Win8" crowd are 'AC' commenters. Probably MS shills, who are also astroturfing on ZDNet (just read any Steven Vaughan-Nichols article, the shills will claim he's unprofessional, even when he's actually telling the truth). IDC is placing the blame on the sharp PC sales drop squarely on Windows 8. MS is probably trying to pull a Jobs here, but they lack the RDF, and even Jobs didn't go out and change OSX's interface like MS did with Win8. Launchpad, the iOSish app launcher is optional; TIFKA Metro is *mandatory*.

        People hate it. It seems it will kill MS this time, I just hope it doesn't take the entire PC industry down with them. I still need 'em to get work done.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Win8/Office365 driving customers away fromMicrosoft.

      I wonder if the most responsible course of action is to recommend that dissatisfied W8 purchasers return their machines, as one would do with any other appliance that is new and frustrating?

  5. Gil Grissum

    Build it and they will come?

    Not if Microsoft doesn't rethink it's pricing model with RT and Surface. Keep pricing them above the iPads and iPad mini's and they will continue to barely move off shelves. As for Office 365, I have no intention of buying a Microsoft subscription. Not every business and consumer customer will be wiling to help Microsoft make that billion dollars in subscriptions, annually.

    1. Richard Plinston

      Re: Build it and they will come?

      > Not if Microsoft doesn't rethink it's pricing model with RT and Surface.

      I think that they are about to. I suspect that 'Blue' will bring in a subscription model for Win8.1. The OEMs, or actually anyone, will get it free and it will work for 30 days or so until you sign up for a MS account and pay the annual subscription.

      This way they can cut the retail price while taking more revenue away from OEMs and retail, ie the margin on the licence component.

      2 or 3 years ago I saw a Windows XP (I think it was) 7" tablet. It actually had dual boot Android and Windows. The Windows was a _trial_ version. It was more expensive (x86 based) than any other 7" tablet and would require a couple hundred more for a licenced Windows plus a few hundred for MS Office (which was also a 30 day trial version).

      I don't think that they sold many.

      1. El Andy

        Re: Build it and they will come?

        I'd be genuinely shocked if they charge for Blue. It simply doesn't make sense from a business perspective. They need devs to develop for the Windows 8 Store and that means they can't afford to fragment the platform this early in it's lifetime. Blue needs to be ubiqituously installed on Windows 8 PCs if the Store, which is a potentially bigger cash stream, is to succeed.

    2. hplasm

      Re: Build it and they will come?

      "Microsoft betting on smaller Windows 8 devices subscriptions"

      There- that's more like it.

    3. Tom 13

      Re: Build it and they will come?

      When MS originally release DOS, it was like a license for them to print money. It was a decent product that did what people needed it to do. And since it was a new market, over the next decades they were able to innovate and build new stuff that like DOS continued to be a license for them to print money. The problem now is that they have become confused and think they own a license to print money instead of the right to go out and compete for customers. Until that is fixed all else is futile.

      1. Richard Plinston

        Re: Build it and they will come?

        > that did what people needed it to do.

        MS-DOS's greatest feature was that it kept out of the way. "What people needed to do" was WordStar, Lotus, WordPerfect, dBaseII, Turbo Pascal... DOS was irrelevant and was so very poor at displaying data that these programs bypassed it to do direct screen writes.

        Windows /386 was a success, initially not because of Windows programs, but because it could run multiple DOS sessions and thus run WordPerfect _and_ Lotus. Eventually actual Windows programs were developed and Windows didn't get in the way of working too much, with some exceptions:

        With Win95 MS brought in the original MSN which blocked access to the internet because MS wanted to replace it with their own. Netscape fixed that and MS had to concede and join the internet.

        With Win98 MS brought in 'Active Desktop' and channels. These simply were annoying and got in the way. Fortunately it was easy to turn off.

        Bob, and its derivative Clippy, also get in the way and are ignored or turned off.

        The _function_ of an operating system is to _keep_out_of_the_way_ while I do my work or play. Microsoft never learned this. They think that Windows is all people should need (plus Office). It has been getting more intrusive with each version. Windows 8 _deliberately_ gets in the way because it is promoting WP and Surface.

        1. Christian Berger

          Re: Build it and they will come?

          Well that's partly true. A good operating system however offers a clear vision of how software should interact with each other, and Microsoft never managed to do this. Which means that Windows will probably never be more than a way to start software and a zoo of different ways applications talk to eachother with the only one working universally being the clip board.

  6. Chairo
    Go

    Office 365's licensing model

    Is the best advertisement for OpenOffice/LibreOffice ever. Thank you so much Microsoft!

    And may you rest in peace!

    1. RonWheeler

      Re: Office 365's licensing model

      Some people aren't home users.

      1. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: Office 365's licensing model

        Not yet. But who - outside Redmond - can't see that there's going to be a stampede towards Open/Linux/Etc on the desktop, with a good few exiles heading for the spotless radiant unicorn-arse uplands of Planet Apple?

        Or at best, IT managers with desktops to IT manage are going to hang on to Win 7 until it has to be prised out of their cold dead hands with a crowbar, vaseline and WD40.

        1. El Andy

          Re: Office 365's licensing model

          @TheOtherHobbes: "But who - outside Redmond - can't see that there's going to be a stampede towards Open/Linux/Etc on the desktop"

          At a guess, everybody who has heard this claim repeatedly for the last decade or so, without any evidence of this so called "stampede" ever happening. But hey, you carry on telling us all that "Next year is the year of Linux on the desktop" and we'll all just quietly pretend not to be giggling at hearing the same thing repeated year on year.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Office 365's licensing model

            > But hey, you carry on telling us all that "Next year is the year of Linux on the desktop"

            You may not have heard but the desktop is dead, or at least dying, and the move has been to mobile where it _is_ "the year of Linux (Android)".

          2. Rukario

            Re: Office 365's licensing model

            > At a guess, everybody who has heard this claim repeatedly for the last decade or so

            This year is the fifteenth anniversary of the Halloween Documents, though I recall the "This is the Year of Linux" crowing to have been around longer.

          3. Michael Habel
            FAIL

            Re: Office 365's licensing model

            "At a guess, everybody who has heard this claim repeatedly for the last decade or so, without any evidence of this so called "stampede" ever happening. But hey, you carry on telling us all that "Next year is the year of Linux on the desktop" and we'll all just quietly pretend not to be giggling at hearing the same thing repeated year on year."

            Yeah great point there...

            Save that these "claims" were made ~way way back~ in the days of W2k, XP and to some extent Vista & W7. All of which were just a facelift with some tinkering (Likely updated bug patches in so far as Vista was XP SP4 and W7 is Vista SP2.), under the hood.

            Nobody with any "sense" of style cares for WP7 & 8 and, by proxy Windows 8 (e.g. TIFKAM) WHICH IS JUST PLAN UGLY by anyone's standards! And the fact of Microsofts overwhelming success with its great experiment is enough proof of this. Add unintuitive, and obstructive "Touch Gestures" into a Keyboard & Mouse dominated Desktop ecosystem. All the while proclaiming that no ones giving 'em a fair shake. While striping the last of there user-rights out from under 'em.

            You were right about the "Year of the Linux".... Up to a, and only to this point! This is not the same as card blanch for Microsoft. If Microsoft can not, or will not react to these problems immediately. Then things like Linux or BSD, and by that proxy OSX will suddenly have a greater profile.

      2. Chairo

        Re: Office 365's licensing model

        @RonWheeler

        Don't know why you have been downvoted. You have a valid point. It is obviously far more difficult for businesses to make a transition to another software package. And there is the issue, that the open alternatives have not the same functionality than what Microsoft offers. On the other hand, they cover pretty much 100% of any home users need and I would say about 95% of the usual business applications.

        And the last 5% should probably better not be done in an office suite anyway.

        In any case the more restrictive and greedy Microsoft becomes, the more customers they will lose. Call me blue eyed, but I DO believe that evil behaviour is going to be punished sooner or later.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Office 365's licensing model

          LibreOffice might work for 95% of business applications, but try managing it in a Business environment. Even small point updates require a 10 minute uninstall-reinstall.

          I've deployed OO and LO in small offices (5-40 users) over the last 5 years. I've never met a user who would choose OO or LO if they could have MS Office instead - even Office 2007. Maybe when it comes to paying for it themselves, they'd select the "free" option, but I haven't seen much evidence of it on the home PCs or laptops that I've been asked to take a loot at when they have problems.

          I only have LibreOffice installed on my work PC and my home PC, and have deliberately avoided installing MS Office at work, even though it's available, just to demonstrate that it's all I need. But I don't spend my day working with a spreadsheet or editing documents. The people who do are voting with their feet, when given the chance, and they're not voting for LO or OO.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Office 365's licensing model

      "Office 365 is set to bring in a billion dollars a year in 2013, Klein said, and a quarter of Microsoft's business customers are now using it, although presumably only partially in most cases. "

      Anyone else sceptical of the above statements by MS? Emphasis on 'a Quarter of"... The caveat at the end strikes me as being the most relevant i.e. the words "presumably only partially"... I bet MS relaxed their sales targets to include surveys! For instance 'Dear Enterprise customer are you foreseeing migrating to Office 365 anytime ever in the future....? Yes? Ok, we can book that as income now then!

      Who knows maybe that's why the CFO really quit this week. What if he was being strong-armed into these all-too-common accounting tricks? After all, why should the CFO be axed when Win-8's disappointing numbers are due to Win-8's UI quirks. Surely someone from the tech side should fall on their sword?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Did MS add a secret 'Toggle Win8 OFF' switch...?

    "We build Windows 8 with touch and mobility at the centre of the experience.......which positions us well in this new era..."

    That's the problem right there MS! Its statements like that above that got you into this mess. Who were you trying to copy 'in this new era'? You lot all talk like Zuckerberg now.. Mobility and 'The Experience'.... If you knew anything about the 'Experience' you would have quietly added a simple TOGGLE SWITCH into Win8, so people could turn off Metro and Touch etc and revert to a simple UI in the event they hated it.

    How much would that have cost? Where were the focus groups MS execs? Why didn't you add a simple toggle-switch before the launch? Any regrets now Peter? Wouldn't it have been a painless easy option to build-in? But no you didn't listen, and now Peter the CFO has been handed his hat! MS are a shower of self-righteous dictators having a Fall-of-Rome moment IMHO! Next time out, how about some plain old back-to-school basics... Like a solid OS that does what it says on the tin i.e.

    NT4 SP6,

    Win98R2

    Win 2000 SP3,

    XP SP3,

    Win7 SP1.

  8. Asok Asus
    Holmes

    New Coke in smaller cans

    "Microsoft betting on smaller Windows 8 devices"

    Hey, I know what to do to fix the problem! New Coke in regular sized cans was a disaster so let's try smaller cans! Smaller cans should make people love New Coke, right?

    1. RyokuMas
      Joke

      Re: New Coke in smaller cans

      "New Coke in smaller cans"

      ... seems to have worked for Wagon Wheels...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: New Coke in smaller cans

        "... seems to have worked for Wagon Wheels..."

        Not. Funny. :|

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lidl TV Laptop vs. Small devices...

    MS was quoted this week: "There is no doubt that the device market is evolving,” Peter Klein, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, said on a conference call. “Consumers and businesses are increasingly shifting their focus to touch and mobility.”

    There is a famous cartoon of the 'tree swing' a.k.a. what the customer wanted. I may be alone here but IMHO there's a real disconnect between a tech-giant's view of reality and the users'. Personally, I don't want mobile. Instead I want tech-giants to invest in technology for large home-screen-cinema TV's. I'm fed up with the 'Zucks' trying to convince me that mobile is where its at with the 'user experience', when all they're seeing is the hype of advertising dollars! Fuck advertising, lets have some functionality lads! I'll pay for that! 'Home' Screen? No, no thanks!

    For example, a pissy mobile phone albeit smartphone, is still a pissy smartphone with a small screen. Yes its handy to have while you wait on a train, but its not the mega-100-inch-TV + onboard-laptop that I crave for while waiting for that train. Now that's a user experience! Equally, I'm fed up with TV vendors trying to pass-off Smart TV's as laptop substitutes, when the onboard software is more awful than MS' ME/Vista offerings.

    In short, I want to game on my large-screen TV, watch one of terabytes of movies and TV series that I have in my collection, or watch holiday videos using VLC and not some POS TV player that lacks the codecs. Moreover, I want to surf the net with the latest browser with AdBlock / NoScript, and not some stripped down browser. In short, what I don't want is some fixed onboard Pseudo-Smart-TV costing several grand! I'm not interested in touching my TV screen either, I have a 24" monitor at home that does exactly that, and it only leaves horrible marks. Furthermore, I don't want to be sold a Smart TV that needs its own expensive custom Mic and Webcam!

    As I said I might be alone here, but I'd like to offer a vision of what I'd like to see in the marketplace. Some time ago, Lidl were flogging a stripped down netbook with no screen, that clipped onto the back of a TV and had a wireless remote keyboard. It was from Targa I think, but I didn't buy one. Why? Because the hardware was weak! But if MS, Intel and Samsung had come together to offer a quality device, I certainly would have jumped onboard! For me, a laptop is not a TV and vice versa. Personally I think its also better to have separate devices, albeit with close interaction. That way, if one breaks or needs to be upgraded etc, its easer to live with. So while a combined cooker / dishwasher may suit some compact kitchens, I don't want to lose both if one breaks down or needs replacement.

    To sum up, I would like to point out to the Tech-Giants that not everybody with money to spend is following the Zucker-herd. I want utility, functionality and reliability- not fucking ads, and I am willing to pay for that! Right now I have plenty of gadgets, and could spend more. However all the current offerings are so lacklustre that I'll be sitting on the sidelines indefinitely! Why? Because the Tech-Giants are all parroting the same bullshit, whether its MS, Facebook, Google etc. The situation is this- your platforms and marketing are all filled with noise! Maybe I'm just too counter-culture, but the grand move to Mobile doesn't sum up my deepest desires. While I accept that in India or China there are billions of users coming online and mobile makes sense there, back home its not what I want!

    But with all the noise towards mobile, I doubt the tech giants will see any problems with this strategy! For them, hype and advertising has firmly replaced utility and functionality... But for me their Execs are reading too many glossy in-flight magazines. This week, Facebook's 'Home' was unveiled by the media as a Second-Coming. Whereas to me, it was just the latest pathetic offering from a tireless self-promoter. Obsession with small devices = Tech-Giants Small Minds or cult-thinking IMHO!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Did the Win8-chicken give rise to the Mobile-egg or vice versa?

    There's an article on a business website today titled: 'Microsoft Corp / IBM, two architects of the U.S. computer industry, are feeling the pain as consumers and businesses flock to mobile devices. '

    Its not very often I curse on here, but for fuck sake. What is it with articles like this? Have MS forgotten who they are, lost all sense of identity and self-worth, and are now just the bitch of Facebook etc? After all, up until very recently it was Facebook that usually had articles with titles like this one!

    Yes, yes, yes, we get it. Mobile is growing. But MS still have a vice like grip on the PC, netbook, Ultrabook market that many of my business users still need for things like Office. I have yet to see a mobile version of Office that runs VBA macros or conditional-formatting or quality-charting for example. But the problem is MS forgot all this and got too caught up in what the 'the younger guys' are doing, i.e. Facebook and Google etc...

    Microsoft's Win-9 lame duck offering is only hastening their fall from grace. If they had just stuck to kicking out the same old tired but nonetheless 'reliable' OS, they would have SOLD MORE this year!

    1. Havin_it
      Terminator

      Re: Did the Win8-chicken give rise to the Mobile-egg or vice versa?

      I have yet to see a mobile version of Office that runs VBA macros

      Be careful what you wish for. Really, please: don't forget you're talking of the guys who invented the Browser "Helper" Object. We do NOT need a return to those days.

  11. Tezfair
    WTF?

    "a quarter of Microsoft's business customers are now using it,"

    Which cloud is he referring to... the one called cuckoo land??

  12. Splendifous

    Hmmm, Ubuntu Tablet Sounds More Appealing Every Day

    At first I detested Unity, but it's kinda grown on me. Then Google started messing with my apps, and my Playbook is looking like a bit of a turkey after 16 months. Finally, I saw the Jono Bacon's bit about Ubuntu phone and Tablet, on the Nexus 7!

    I am now seriously pondering a Nexus 10 with ubuntu.

    Seriously.

    I just can't wrap my head around a subscription model.

  13. JLV
    Facepalm

    Wishful thinking

    >Plans for double-digit decline in traditional PCs

    And getting double digit market share increases in tablets and phones.

    Oh wait...

    Seriously, when are the shareholders gonna ditch Ballmer and his ribbon/rented office/metro sycophants who never listen to what the customers and users want? How many Zunes, Vistas and WinRTs will it take? Is MS a private company?

    1. Christian Berger

      Re: Wishful thinking

      This seems to be something common among private companies. And to be fair, most shareholders understand even less about the market. I mean if they did, they'd start their own company.

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