A year ago I publishes a post titled: Will Microsoft Survive Until 2021?. According to the post, the probability in 2011, that Microsoft will survive until 2021, was lower than the probability assigned in previous post written in 2008, for its survival for ten years, i.e. until 2018. Some problems mentioned in the 2011 post were its position in the Smart Phone market and it Windows Operating System.
Recently, Microsoft reported Loss after a Write-Down.
The Loss was attributed to its ill-fated acquisition of an Online Advertising company. However, Microsoft's Windows business revenues fell 13% in the fourth fiscal quarter ended June 30th.
The Bottom Line: Although the propability that Microsoft will survive for 10 years is still high, this probability in 2012 is lower than it was in 2011.
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Public Cloud Core Banking: Hype or Reality? - Revisited
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The folowing comment was posted in Linkedin group.
Group: The Israel Chamber of Information Systems Analysts לשכת מנתחי מערכות מידע בישראל
Discussion: Will Microsoft Survive until 2021? - Revisited
As we all know , the best forecasts we can do are about the past :).
As for Microsoft and 202x. Their main luck is that Apple remains an elitistic company that targets the high end customer. You can see now windows in many dedicated machines ( cash registers, various dedicated PC's operating heavy hardware and machines , some of them still working on windows 95 ). I do not see an iPhone or iPad replacing them.
The main competitors of Microsoft is Google( trying to) and Unix in the area of Operating Systems.
I still do not see the iPads winning the general office work regarding customer service , call center , etc.
If any CRM application or customization of SAP requires approval of Apple (including each urgent bug correction) with the respective cost , it is hard for me to see a supermatket chain or a comapny sending hundreds of technicians with iphones ot ipads to customers homes.
Add to it the Microsoft Office which is the most popular tool in the field with the good option of sharing documents and you can find many reason why Microsoft will have a nice share of the market 10 years of now.
The problem of IT industry is the lack of real vision and initiative . We are still playing with bits and bytes and are not connected with reality.
I just heard somebody saying that 30 years ago we promised a flying machine and we brought a 140 bytes string :)
Posted by Adrian Horodniceanu
Linkedin Group: The Israel Chamber of Information Systems Analysts לשכת מנתחי מערכות מידע בישראל
Discussion: Will Microsoft Survive until 2021? - Revisited
Digital with VMS made the same mistake as IBM in the 80th . They tried to market compatability. People want compatibility , but want also new toys . they do not work toghether. IBM understood it and survived. Digital was not big enough and the move to unix was not a fast enough. Apple reinvented itself with iphone and ipad . With the Mac they are still a niche for a small dedicated market . Soon they will move back to their natural place . Google makes signs of a good competition to MS on the smartphones OS with Android , while W8 will take a small part .
The market of smartphone producers ( hardware will be crowded with many including the existing ones and a few new ones ). It seems that Google and MS do not know how to manufacture and market HW and do not want to enter this industry.
The question what will be in 2021 ? We will still see 3-4 segments : smartphones , tablets , "heavy tablets"/laptops for business man or sales people, large personal computers for architect/engineers/designers ( big screens, huge memory).
The enterprize IT will mainly be based on UNIX servers and a lot of terabytes , ( large quantities on the cloud) . The Linux and open code will be a story of the past unfortunately .
There will also be a lot of computing in the machines surrounding us internally connected, such us our car telling the AC in our house to start working 15 minutes before getting home without our intervention, and many more.
Posted by Adrian Horodniceanu
Avi Rosenthal • Adrian, Thanks for your comments. Few comments on your second comment:
1. Your 2021 Smart Phones and Desktops/Laptops market distribution is reasonable. However, it does not really identify which vendors will survive and which vendors will control these market segments. I am not sure Apple will lead the Smart phone market. See, for example my post: Vendors Survival: Will Apple Survive until 2021? http://avirosenthal.blogspot.co.il/2011/07/vendors-survival-will-apple-survive.html
1. Digital failed because it did nor succeed to adapt to the Software revolution of the 1980s.
No longer high Hardware revenues, and Software products for free or for lower prices as long as you buy Hardware. IBM and Digital of the 1990s had to change their cultures: They had to fire employees.
3. Will future systems will be UNIX based? most analysts view is different from yours. They predict that the Servers will be Windows and Linux based and not NUIX.
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Group: The Israel Chamber of Information Systems Analysts לשכת מנתחי מערכות מידע בישראל
Discussion: Will Microsoft Survive until 2021? - Revisited
Maybe I was not clear, but I agree that Apple will not lead the samrtphone market and will get back ti its niche position as it is with the Mac. The smartphones market will based on many HW producers mased on android and windows8 and maybe one more , no specific leader.
I do not agrre about the Linux market . I think that the large enterprize is still looking for a parent for their investments and will opt for Unix (sometimes I do not agree with experts :)).
I forgot to mention the market of super computers ( NASA, Universities, CERN, Research Centers, and even those trying to make sense from "BigData" with GigaHertz of CPU and GygaBytes of real memory where IBM remained the only player. I do not see any body even trying to get there.
Posted by Adrian Horodniceanu
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