Microsoft presented the results for its second quarter of the 2010 fiscal year yesterday, which ended on December 29 2009. As it turns out, thanks to sales of Windows 7, Microsoft experienced a record quarter, which is especially welcome after the previous two lacklustre ones. It sold 60 million Windows 7 licenses during this record quarter.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-11-12
You talk about Windows as if their are equal competitors in the desktop market on the same footing.
Windows competes against itself, since hardly anyone can get a foot into the desktop market with OEMs. Windows 7 is the first OS since 2001 that Windows users can properly upgrade to. This is good for Windows users, but no doubt people will treat it as, the second coming of Jesus.
Edited 2010-01-29 17:15 UTC
Member since:2006-01-02
OEMs aren't the problem. This meme needs to die. The problem is simply that Linux, on a technical level, simply can't compete with Windows and OS X. I don't care how good it is in the server room, or how many developer tools it has, for everything else, it lags Windows and OS X by miles.
Member since:2006-06-28
Agreed.
Windows is by definition a monopoly. Saying it is a success would beg the question compared to what?
I mean, if you have no competitors in a market segment, claiming a profit success is really, well hardly surprising.
You never need genius to be outstanding in a monopoly market. IN the USA, you just need to make enough money to keep the government on the Dole (pay off the right people) and keep a casual eye on the market. (The next step after a monopoly is fascism...which has come to America now in so many ways.)
Just on a off topic, we are seeing the final pieces being assembled by the open source community to make Linux a viable desktop.
The final missing piece for Linux is open graphics hardware, to break onto the desktop. Those pieces will be assembled in the next 2 years.
If ATI continues its path toward opening up the hardware so that source code can be worked on it for 3D functions, it will succeed.
The open source community also has a backup, which is the open graphics project. They are working on open sourcing the hardware. For 2D and 3D acceleration coming later.
From that point on, games will come to Linux, and since games is what the largest application segment for Windows is, Linux should be able to attract the same market.
Windows 7 looks like a decent OS (used the beta for about 2 hours.), but the only reason why I use Windows is to waste time. (i.e. fixing some elses problems, or playing games.)
I certainly can't imagine it being used in any serious way to be useful, without investing huge amounts of money into it.
-Hack
Member since:2006-07-25
I refer to Windows XP being lacklustre not due to it's market share, but more to it's predecessor, Windows 2000. Windows XP didn't offer much over Windows 2000 apart from a light dusting over the UI.
Windows XP only grabbed 90% market share as it was the only windows offering available.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-07-13
Also, I wouldn't call XP a "lackluster release." It had problems, yes, but maintaining 90%+ market share for as long as it did is far from "lackluster," in my opinion.
I don't disagree with your statement but that "90%+" market share is on the desktop only. In the other markets (server, netbook, mobile, embedded) the penetration is not nearly as much. It is worth qualifying your statements to make them more accurate - otherwise you look like a fanboi that thinks all of computing is the desktop only.
Edited 2010-01-29 21:10 UTC
Member since:2009-08-26
Member since:2006-07-14
Member since:2005-08-27
Very true for wage slaves (as most employees are). Not true for those who can choose to do what they love and love what they choose. Open source development comes to mind.
Member since:2005-09-13
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow."During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.
Member since:
2008-10-30
The mentality in which you are referring to is not exclusive to Microsoft. It is human nature to "slack off" when one is not under pressure. That is why monopolies are generally a bad thing in free market economies.
Also, I wouldn't call XP a "lackluster release." It had problems, yes, but maintaining 90%+ market share for as long as it did is far from "lackluster," in my opinion.