According to current figures from Netbookdigest.com, Microsoft has lost $435,000,000 over the last year in netbook sales.
While Microsoft has maintained about 90% of the desktop and notebook market, netbooks come in at only 70%. Part of the reason is Linux, but part is Microsoft itself.
Even as Microsoft has slipped into the mainstream of open source by embedding it in its products and adopting open-source strategies for services such as customer relationship management, it continues its subversive fight against Linux.
Linux is different, you see. Open source, as Microsoft is starting to recognize, is just another part of its ecosystem, one that it must support, if it wants Windows to continue to be a first-class computing citizen.
The open-source operating system, however, is competition–Microsoft’s top competition, if CEO Steve Ballmer’s words are to be taken at face value.
In this context, Microsoft’s recent patent deal with Brother makes sense. Otherwise, as ZDNet UK opines, it’s a deal that causes much head-scratching:
As it continues to develop and polish Windows 7, Microsoft has made three fatal mistakes that will kill the operating system’s chances for success on Netbooks. Skeptical? Take a look at this reasoning from The VAR Guy.
First, a little applause for Microsoft. The company has done a reasonably good job developing Windows 7, according to early beta testers. There is some concern about security, but what else is new when it comes to a Microsoft operating system?
Microsoft and Brother Industries have entered into a broad patent cross-licensing agreement that enables access to each company’s respective patent portfolio, including Brother’s embedded Linux printing products. Aimed at boosting R&D efforts, the agreement includes compensation paid to Microsoft by Brother, say the companies.
In the agreement, Brother Industries gains access to Microsoft’s patents for Brother’s current and future products. These products include multifunction products (MFPs), printers, and “certain Linux-based embedded devices,” say the companies. Meanwhile, Microsoft will gain access to Brother’s patents for Microsoft’s current and future products, including Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and other IT products.
Yes, yes, we know Microsoft rules; no other company will ever knock it off the top of the software mountain, etc., etc. History tells us that no business is immune to the decline of age and Microsoft is proving to be no exception.
You’ll find the latest proof of this at Net Applications’ January 2009 Web site usage numbers by operating system. There, you’ll see that Windows is continuing its slow fall from total desktop operating system domination.
Not much love for Vista
The Register comments on a recent report by Forrester (the report itself is not a free download). Apparently, adoption of Vista in the enterprise market has not moved much since last July. It’s still just under 10% of corporate PCs that run Vista. The Register article then concludes that Windows 7 will come to the market sooner, rather than later.
In essence, the quick release of Windows 7 is seen as both a necessity for Microsoft as well as an admission of the ultimate failure of Vista. Considering the $6 billion development price tag, and who-knows how much additional money for marketing and sales efforts, could Vista be the biggest failure coming out of Redmond so far?
Surely, most of the Vista developments were re-used for Windows 7. But the marketing dollars are lost, and the investment in Vista did not pay off as quickly as hoped for (greatly delayed ROI). Any substantial pay-off may only materialize after the re-packaged and re-branded Vista finally begins to sell under the Windows 7 name.
Windows Vista has never exactly been a favourite subject among company IT people. Migrating from Windows XP to Windows Vista isn’t exactly a worry-free process, and machines that run Windows XP comfortably may have trouble powering Windows vista. As such, adoption of Vista has been slow. Two years after Vista’s release, the OS is still struggling in the enterprise sector, according to a Forrester report.
Forrester’s report is titled “Enterprises Warming To Windows Vista”, but that’s only because they are trying to put a positive spin on the abysmal adoption figures of Windows Vista in the enterprise market. Last July, a report from that same Forrester stated that Vista adoption in enterprises was stuck at 8.8%, compared to Windows XP’s 87.1%, and they even called Vista the “new Coke”. The new report puts Windows Vista adoption at “just fewer than 10 per cent of all PCs within enterprises.”