How Microsoft Missed The Next Big Thing
Linked by Howard Fosdick on Mon 13th Dec 2010 23:11 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless It's hard to predict the future because we humans prefer to think in terms of familiar paradigms. Even the most brilliant of our species are subject to this flaw. Now, Microsoft faces its turn. The owner of the operating system that likely runs your personal computer, the company that achieved monopoly with Windows and ducked the Department of Justice's scythe to keep it, faces a midlife crisis as the world goes gaga over portable consumer devices. This is the story of what's happening to Microsoft in the handheld operating system markets -- and how it parallels the earlier, similar journeys of IBM Corporation and Digital Equipment Corporation. Can Microsoft achieve dominance on mobile devices?
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SteveB
Member since:
2005-07-10

Steve,

Some good insights. As you can see, I'm very new here, so I haven't figured out the code to list individual quotes.


You make good points, although here in the US, Ohio specifically, it's not uncommon for our clients to have Internet Issues 2 times a month or so.
Well... 2 times a month is a lot and it is as well nothing. It all depends what those issues are and how long they are. Here in Switzerland you usually don't have issues. Even private users with ADSL or with cable don't have issues. Off course I can not speak for the whole market in Switzerland but I would say that having issues with your high-speed internet connection is considered as something uncommon.

I am yet to be asked about Linux by a single client. Furthermore, I've brought it up to a couple for simple F&P
I don't know what F&P is or for what it stands. Can you tell me what this acronym is standing for?

or what have you, and most of them said something along the lines of "We're a professional organization, we use professional software." I am paraphrasing for a couple clients, however I'm sure you get the gist.
This is a funny statement. What do they consider as "professional"? I don't want to attack you or your client but there is no universal "professional" in that regard. One might find something LaTeX/TeX for writing documents. Someone other might tell you that only the big commercial DTP software is professional for writing anything. And yet other will tell you that Microsoft Office is professional because MS is a commercial company and their product must be therefore professional because so many people us the software. And yet some one else will tell you that only Adobe InDesign is the best tool for writing documents. And the same kind of arguments can be made for spreadsheet and any other product. My end point is that there is no one universal valid "professional" in relation to using professional tools.

Oh... and something other: In German we have an expression saying that ... "good/professional tools don't make automatically an sculptor".

Actually the majority of our clientele is *very* regimented and specific about their documents, especially those which are sent to their clients. Might be a locale thing as you noted, but where we work and consult, those Word templates are as important as the text they contain. Your comments suggest a mindset that differs from not only how we practice business, but how our clients do so. We primarily work in the financial services
Our primary sector is financial services too. But in that sector NONE of them uses Linux. Okay, okay... some of them have plans to go with Linux in the future but Linux will be only used on thin clients and then the end user works on Citrix or with Windows Terminal Services. So IMHO that Linux there does not count as an Linux desktop.

vertical and executives in that arena WILL drop a vendor/etc based on aesthetics. Perhaps someone more retail based might not. I also can confirm that we have won contracts/agreements based solely on our presentation materials "Looking the best." If you have 4 excellent consultant firms in the room, who all sold the same products at the same price, however only ones word doc looks "Right" on your computer, who's going to get the bid?
Word doc? You hand Word documents? We do consulting too and all our bid documents and stuff that we have give are PDFs. Word documents (actually other formats too) have the tendency to look different from computer to computer (depending on the used printer) and if you use professional fonts (not that stuff included in Windows) then you are pretty much lost when exchanging Word documents. PDFs are way better for that. And on top of that if we really want to impress the customer then we use (professional) layout software to make a super duper sexy document and then we export that to PDF.

btw: I personally would be surprised if you would be capable to distinguish what software was used to create a specific document by only looking at the document (either printed or in something like PDF). You will be amazed what is all possible with the various office tools. Regardless which suite you use. Off course if you are an long time MS Office user and switch to an other suite you will struggle and find that other suite to be unusable. But trust me. Everything is usable.

And lastly, your point about the /. mindset was spot on; thank God.

Reply Parent Score: 1

oiaohm Member since:
2009-05-30


"Actually the majority of our clientele is *very* regimented and specific about their documents, especially those which are sent to their clients. Might be a locale thing as you noted, but where we work and consult, those Word templates are as important as the text they contain. Your comments suggest a mindset that differs from not only how we practice business, but how our clients do so. We primarily work in the financial services
Our primary sector is financial services too. But in that sector NONE of them uses Linux. Okay, okay... some of them have plans to go with Linux in the future but Linux will be only used on thin clients and then the end user works on Citrix or with Windows Terminal Services. So IMHO that Linux there does not count as an Linux desktop.
"
A few of mine are looking at Chrome OS style for the thinclients. Ie Chrome OS altered not to tell Google anything but all the other secuirty of Chrome OS used to prevent tampering. So the machines are not complete paper weights if server dies and that they cannot afford to have a virus from webbrower infecting data store.

It comes down to the define of what is a Desktop machine. Some people would say Chrome OS is some people would say is not. I am on the side that Chrome OS is a advanced thin client.

Financial services it depends on the country. The country tax department normally dominates the OS used here. Currently here you cannot submit to the tax office without windows or OS X. Yes I deal with Financial Services companies as well.

But other members of the group I am with work in other countries where you can submit to there tax departments from Linux and they do have Linux desktops in the Financial Services they support. Horrid form of desktop in my eyes Ubuntu. But each there own.

Reply Parent Score: 1

SteveB Member since:
2005-07-10

Financial services it depends on the country. The country tax department normally dominates the OS used here. Currently here you cannot submit to the tax office without windows or OS X. Yes I deal with Financial Services companies as well.
Here in Switzerland you can pretty much use Windows, Mac or Linux if you want to fill in your tax in a digital format. Take for example the Canton Zurich: http://www.steueramt.zh.ch/html/steuererklaerung/software.htm

But other members of the group I am with work in other countries where you can submit to there tax departments from Linux and they do have Linux desktops in the Financial Services they support. Horrid form of desktop in my eyes Ubuntu. But each there own.
Data is data. If the format is uniform then the system producing that data is not important. Or are you telling me that your tax office has a different data structure depending what OS is used? Really? Why?

Reply Parent Score: 1