Where Microsoft's Profits Come From 295
derrida writes "Microsoft is the largest, most profitable software company in the world. In case you had any doubts about where Microsoft's profit comes from, there's nothing better than a graph to make all those numbers clear. As you may have guessed, the desktop division is quite profitable, while the online division is a money pit."
Interesting graph! (Score:4, Insightful)
What I find most interesting is the way all changes are perfectly synchronized with the exception of entertainment related stuff. This is clear indication of the power of vendor lock-in and tying unrelated products together.
What I would find interesting is to know what events occurred during the valleys and rapid climb moments indicated in the graph. Specifically, what happened in Dec '06 and Sep '09?
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What I would find interesting is to know what events occurred during the valleys and rapid climb moments indicated in the graph. Specifically, what happened in Dec '06 and Sep '09?
Vista.
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Unlikely - Office 2003 works on Windows 7 and Office 2010 will work on Windows XP.
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But when you buy a new computer - like for Christmas - you will pay the Microsoft tax and get a thin version of office. And that with minimal administration cost for Microsoft.
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No. MS Office is not included with retail systems, except as a free trial or build-to-order option. A lot of christmas computer shoppers don't buy or use Office at home.
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All of the products are closely tied together. Most recently Office has been tied into SharePoint. SharePoint obviously has a lot of good ideas built into it. If it didn't Google wouldn't be trying to offer up similar functionality. From my brief experience with SharePoint I've seen it leveraged as a groupware and project management tool. At one architectural firm they are using it to tie all of the reams of documentation together (blue prints, materials samples, project documentation (based on Word te
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Microsoft released its quarterly financial reports?
Re:Interesting graph! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure that isn't just how the graph looks because it is stacking the data series on each other?
What surprises me is the massive boost in OS profits in Dec 09. Could that really be Windows 7, and if so, how? It costs about the same as XP/Vista, and it's not as if people are buying Windows 7 off store shelves to upgrade older computers (are they?)
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If the different colours are perfectly parallel, then there is zero movement in the upper layers and they only look parallel due to how the data is presented (stacked). In order for them to be "synchronized" you'd have to see the layers diverging from one another, not parallel to one another. You can a little bit of this, but not much. For instance, between December 2006 and March 2007, Office sales diverge a wee bit from the layers underneath. The Servers and Tools seems to stay completely flat, maybe even
Re:Interesting graph! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Interesting graph! (Score:5, Informative)
What I would find interesting is to know what events occurred during the valleys and rapid climb moments indicated in the graph. Specifically, what happened in Dec '06 and Sep '09?
December 2006 was the release of Vista. (Well, November 30th, but close enough) September 2009 was the release of Windows 7.
Re:Interesting graph! (Score:5, Insightful)
What I find most interesting is the way all changes are perfectly synchronized with the exception of entertainment related stuff. This is clear indication of the power of vendor lock-in and tying unrelated products together.
No. It's a clear indication that TFA used a Stacked Line Chart [microsoft.com]. If you were to move Office and Server to the bottom of the stack, you would see that they both account for relatively small sales bumps (~1 billion), with the real movement coming from the release of Windows Vista (Mar '07 bump) and Windows 7 (Dec '09 bump).
Normally you avoid data distortions like this by putting the least-variable data at the bottom of a stacked chart. I think "Chart of the Day" needs a better-trained Excel monkey.
Re:Interesting graph! (Score:4, Informative)
Normally you avoid data distortions like this by using a better kind of chart.
The problem is that they're trying to visualize two different things in one chart (relative and total values), and the compromise you make doing that in a stacked chart pretty much sacrifices everything except the sum of the values.
Also, area-shaded line graphs make absolutely no sense if you've only got a few data points.
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Point taken.
If you hadn't linked me to a Microsoft page that made my Firefox go crazy after I enabled javascript, I would have responded sooner. (I'm not saying that Microsoft's page is hostile to my installation of Firefox exactly, but I have not rebooted my computer in a few weeks despite having installed updates that could easily be trampling all over one another at the moment... however, all other web page browsing seems normal until I enable javascript on that page. Seems odd. I love the "no script"
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You + stacked graph reading = fail. Stacked graphs are always in sync. You have to read each layer independently to see what's going on. Just because layer 1 increased, layer 2 will go up. That doesn't mean layer 2 increased.
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Dear mod, (Score:2)
-1 overrated is not a substitute for "I disagree". I know the main groupthink here is "Microsoft is always wrong/evil/bad/etc." However true that may be, let's not begin the argument with bullshitting ourselves.
OP posted a conclusion that I thought was recklessly summed up. It's easy to come up with other notions on how this graph could look the way it does - I posted one.
If you disagree, fine. Post something that refutes my argument. A good starting point would be to look up Apple's revenue and se
Ok, let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
We look at the graph: MS is losing like 500Million per year on the Online Division
Then we look at the other graph and sees that Windows and Office has a 2Billion a year profit, EACH
And then we have to read crap like this: "We wonder when Microsoft will finally decide to do what it should have done years ago: Save its money and flush its entire online division down the drain."
No hon, SteveB is stupid, but not as stupid as you. It's called 'strategy', look it up. If it's working or not it's a whole different matter.
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No, its loosing 500 Million per quoter, so it's 2 Billion per year.
But the thing I don't understand is: Why does Microsoft think that search is such an important thing, and how do they plan to even gain return on their investment.
I mean even if Microsoft manage to make a success full search engine and get 25% of the market, where does this help with the rest of their products to create a strategy?
Windows, Offices and their other tools does in a way give value to each other, because they allow Microsoft to o
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Why does Microsoft think that search is such an important thing
This goes into philosophy of how a business profits from the Internet. There are basically two ways: creating content for people to buy, or telling people how to get to content and selling the re-direction as a service be it to advertisers or any other buyer. Theoretically, someone could charge directly for Search itself.
Google built the most successful business model of telling people how to find stuff. And that is why Microsoft thinks that Search is so important. Microsoft makes money on selling people th
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I think it's a question of how long they expect to spend money on a strategy that hasn't succeeded in a long time. Office is an old product, Windows is an old product. They haven't done a lot since then that makes money in the same way.
Right now, it looks like Microsoft's strategy is to throw whole pots of spaghetti to the wall in the hopes that a couple strands stick, with a questionable profitability when they do stick, because the rest of the world may well have moved on to something else by the time t
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I agree mostly, but I proffer that Sharepoint might be the next juggernaut, like Windows or Office. Only time will tell.
Re:Ok, let's see (Score:5, Insightful)
They are not "expanding their business." They are keeping potential competitors at bay.
Do you recall what MSIE did to Netscape who, at one time, threatened to make their own OS?
There is a reason they are willing to lose lots of money in online activities. Their willingness to lose money will mean that any emerging competitor will also have to be willing to lose money. Is Google a competitor? Is Sony with its PS3 or Nintendo with its Wii a competitor? You betcha! Even though they are not "desktop" competitors now, they are changing the market in favor of appliances -- network enabled appliances -- the kind of computing that has been foretold by many for the past decade. The OS may become irrelevant so long as file format and protocol standards are non-proprietary.
You are right in that Microsoft has a larger vision -- it sees its own demise and is actively working to keep anything new from rising up to render them irrelevant.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are you kidding? Office 2007 was such a radical change in UI that it took me about 3X longer to put together a simple document over the prior version. And just to keep everyone who's ever used the product on an even level with the intern who's been there 6 months, there's no "classic mode" button!
I understand product managers get tired of just fixing bugs, but there's a reason we don't change keyboards and paper sizes every 20 years. Imagine buying a pen or pencil that now required you to hold it parallel t
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When Alaren said it hadn't "changed meaningfully", I don't think he meant that it hadn't changed at all. It's been standard operating procedure with Microsoft to reskin Windows and Office with each release, shuffle around all of the buttons and controls, etc. It's always the case that some people like the changes and some people don't. Some people really like the Office 2007 UI.
I think the idea was that they haven't significantly added much to Office's functionality or drastically changed the way we wor
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Here's your classic mode:
http://www.kingsoftresearch.com/KSOScreenIms.aspx [kingsoftresearch.com] :)
Open Office has a long way to go before it's really a big threat.
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I'll go on the record as preferring the ribbon to the menu.
Changes between versions of Office (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Preparing for the Future or Buying Their Own Hy (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet, a decade without innovation seems to have cost Microsoft nothing in terms of their core markets, and their experimental markets seem to be flat. Almost as if they are trying to push the market in a direction the market knows better than to follow.
What a surprise. If you want to sell an Office or Operation System the first thing your customers will ask you, how good does it support Microsoft Office file format or how good will my Windows only applications running.
It's good to have an almost monopoly, you just need to polish your old applications, make the binary formats slightly incompatible, so if some important person buys the new one, everyone else must upgrade, too.
I mean, what choice do customers have? It's either Windows 7 Starter or Windows 7 Home Basic or an Mac in the Apple Store.
Every school in the western world is teaching only Windows and Office. Microsoft is not a company, it's an institution. Every Computer vendor in this world have to support Windows and all the big ones are promoting Windows with everything they have. Just try to get a new Computer, everyone will have a "Xxx recommends Windows 7" and if Microsoft will have a new Windows 8, every big vendor will put a "Xxx recommends Windows 8", regardless of any quality.
For MS and the vendors it's a win/win situation. Microsoft have ads and it sells Windows, as well as other products that are build on top of Windows. The vendors get the Windows copy for free (or almost for free).
Just try and implement and sell a new system or office suite. The entry line to this market is like enter in the tourist space market or to colonize a new planet. But a system or an office suite are very simple applications. You need some know-how, but it's not rocket science.
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the first thing your customers will ask you, how good does it support Microsoft Office file format or how good will my Windows only applications running
"How good?" Where the heck are your customers, in West Virginia?
Re:Preparing for the Future or Buying Their Own Hy (Score:2)
Over the total lifetime of the division, what is the net profit of the "Entertainment and Devices" department? How much has Online cost, total? And what has it positioned them to do in the long run?
Well sometimes there is a sort of "halo effect". The XBox may be helping keep both developers and gamers on Windows, which would justify even substantial losses. Online service might not be making money in itself, but it might be worth it to them just to keep people away from Google.
On the other hand, I've also had a lot of times where I wonder what the hell Microsoft is doing. They often seem content to dump money into R&D while refusing to turn any of it into decent products. Meanwhile they seem
Business is War. (Score:2)
As always, you forget Business is War.
Just think how much would the alternative cost Microsoft in the long run.
You don't just do stuff to gain profit, you do everything to keep the competition from catching up. If you can keep (incompetent) domination of a sector at a 5% loss, you're better off if you allow a competent competitor to gain this domination (and earn lots), and then let them use their profits to dominate you in domains where you profit.
Google (Score:2, Insightful)
And Google's cash cow is search advertising and loses money hand over fist on YouTube ($753m last year).
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Look at the big picture and realize that it isn't so much a direct revenue goal they have for things like browsers or search engines, as it is to ensure their cash cow stays a monopoly.
Netscape, as it was pointed out a few posts ago, planned to make its own OS. Google now actually did just that. Browsers and even more search engines are key to influencing people's opinions. You can easily, if you control a search engine, boost your opinions and cripple your competitors. Is is, in fact, for many people their
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If they make it similar enough to Windows that people don't notice the difference, they won't complain.
People will notice the difference: any OS other than Windows won't run "that one must-have app" for which Wine has not yet been modified.
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If they make it similar enough to Windows that people don't notice the difference, they won't complain.
People will notice the difference: any OS other than Windows won't run "that one must-have app" for which Wine has not yet been modified.
...and those people will go to the supplier and tell them to make a version they can use. The supplier will do that as soon as the cost of being windows only outweighs the costs of building software for a different OS.
Windows has already lost on just about all server applications. There are many alternatives most are better.
This is how monopolies die (Score:2)
One year they have vast amounts of money, think they own the world. 10 years later, their cash is being spent on a dozen failures which they can't own up to and then, suddenly someone makes their core monopoly irrelevant.
It takes years, possibly decades for them to stop moving but it happens.
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Every dollar they make today, from any product, is because they won the browser war. The predictions from 1996 turned out correct: the browser *is* the operating system; the browser *is* the platform on which software is developed. We can see that somewhat today, and in an increasing manner.
As for search, I'm less convinced. Search might be the web's killer app, but it's not a platform, so it won't be as important.
Re:Monkeyboy needs to go (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really. There are some interesting approaches to peer-to-peer search that don't really become feasible until consumer Internet connections are a bit faster than they currently are. I wouldn't be surprised if this is how the majority are searching in 10-20 years time. Meanwhile, Google will have branched out and will be less dependent on their search revenue. Microsoft might end up spending billions to buy their way into a market that doesn't exist anymore, just like they did with browsers.
Their strategy in the browser war was to make sure that no one could make money selling a browser. The unfortunate side effect was that this meant that Microsoft couldn't make money selling a browser either, but still needed to ship one to remain competitive. If they'd sold IE, rather than giving it away, and managed to keep 40% or so of the browser market, I wonder what their financials would look like now. Did IE really lock that many people into Windows? ActiveX was only really used in the wild for Intranet deployments, and in that case IE is used more as a distributed application client than a web browser, so the same lock-in could have been achieved by bundling an unlimited client license to IE with the BackOffice or NT Server.
Re:Monkeyboy needs to go (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a pretty big leap. How many people are really locked in to IE? I can't remember the last time I came across a site that didn't work in Safari. Back when I was on Windows, I was using Mozilla and then Opera from around 2000, and I don't remember seeing any sites that I couldn't open in one or other of them even a decade ago.
Corporations are locked into IE as a client for their Intranet platform, but MS didn't need to win the browser war for that to happen. They just needed to make people write IE-only Intranet apps, something that was pretty easy given that most of the apps of that era were ActiveX ports of Windows-only apps.
I doubt the Windows market share figures would be very different if IE had stayed at under 50% market share.
Time to fire some exectives (Score:3, Interesting)
Class action lawsuit ? (Score:3, Funny)
IANAL and IANAAC (american citizen), so i'm asking this to whoever is any...
can't shareholder sue microsoft's chief officers/board of directors for lost profits ?
I mean, 2 bil a year is money they could be paying as dividends, right ?
can someone clarify this to me ? thanks;
They make more money than everyone else (Score:2)
What would you accuse them of?
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Microsoft doesn't pay dividends.
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Dividends? How quaint! The profits are there to line the CEOs pockets and to allow 'journalists' to fluff up the share price. The only way you (or any outsider) to make money is to buy low and sell high. Investing is so last century. Gotta Gamble Baby!
Re:Class action lawsuit ? (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL either, but I don't believe a stockholder can simply sue a company for not being profitable enough. I know you hear all about how a CEO's only responsibility is to make short-term profit for shareholders, but I'm under the impression that it's quite a bit overblown. I believe it's more like, if you can show some kind of unethical behavior where they're purposefully sacrificing profits for personal gain, then you have some kind of case.
The way you hear it around here, you'd think a CEO can be thrown in prison for failing to screw an old lady out of her last dime because he has an enormous legal responsibility to maximize this quarter's profits. I have a hard time believing that.
Re:Class action lawsuit ? (Score:5, Interesting)
The short answer is no, you can't do that - they aren't losing the profits, they just may be investing them in other projects that have created business lines that aren't so profitable. That isn't illegal, it's a strategy, and it may eventually pay out or it may not.
Now, there are tools like filing proxies, or getting your own board members put in place, that are possible for groups of shareholders working together which can put significant pressure on companies to change their capital structure, dividend policies, share buyback plans and so on. And those have worked to some extent with Microsoft, which was pressured into paying out a huge one-time cash dividend 4 or 5 years ago.
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Yes, but the legal threshold is very high. This instance wouldn't even come close to that threshold.
Eggs all in one basket, and an old basket at that (Score:5, Insightful)
They make their profit on their monopoly products and lose money on almost everything else. That is why the methods they use to maintain these monopolies continue to be the subject of antitrust investigations.
This also demonstrates that they are very good at maintaining their monopoly, but not so good at successful new product development. With a stagnant pipeline, they are especially at risk as FOSS alternatives like Linux, Firefox and OpenOffice become less "alternative" and more "maintstream".
Google is similar... (Score:2)
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The difference is that Google is only a little over a decade old and is trying hard to diversify. Microsoft has been making most of its money from operating systems and office suites since the '80s. The first version of Word was released in 1983 (for a UNIX system, in a strange twist of fate), and it has been a major part of their revenue since the Mac port in 1985. Their first OS was Xenix in 1980, and since then they've spent a lot of money on DOS, OS/2 and Windows NT, but operating systems still accou
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That's pretty consistent (Score:3, Interesting)
Office and Windows have been their big profit centers for a long time. The big surprise there is that Office looks like it accounts for slightly more of their overall profit. And it was a surprise to see the margin on the server group. Back in the day I worked in a MSFT shop, it seemed like every day we were shelling out money for some license, another CAL or connector because the one we got didn't cover internet connections during a full moon, the support subscriptions that would regularly see large price increases, a piece of support software that was expiring. It was an every day thing that someone would come in and need money for something. Getting on without Windows servers is a blissful breeze in comparison.
You can argue the merits, but I find OpenOffice and GoogleDocs work for me. At home and the office. When we replaced Office with OpenOffice at the shop there weren't any complaints about the change. We did field a lot of calls about how to do stuff (mail merge), but there wasn't anyone crying for Microsoft leeks and onions. Although we didn't have anyone doing a lot of footnotes, either. If memory serves that's one feature of Word that pays for itself in a research setting.
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I'm impressed (Score:2)
This graph impressed me.
It shows that Microsoft hasn't been significantly successful in diversifying the sources of its profits. MS Windows/Server tools aren't going anywhere soon. However, there are a number of alternative office suites out there, some low cost, that are user friendly. If a company with marketing intelligence and financial resources got behind one of them Microsoft could be in serious trouble.
really? (Score:2)
How is OO.O not taking a bite out of their profits?
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You can't see Microsoft's profits here and Microsoft's profits in a parallel universe without Linux/Firefox/Google/OO.O side by side. For all we know, in that other universe they could be making twice as much as they are here.
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It would be interesting to see the breakdown between corporate site licenses and individual licenses. Is MS Office better than OpenOffice? Probably[1]. Is it $200 better? Probably not. But if you've got a site license for MS Office, is it easier to switch everyone to the latest version or to migrate them all to OO.o? Probably easier to stay with MS Office.
Most of the Windows money, I'd imagine, comes from OEM sales, with corporate site licenses second and boxed editions a very distant third.
[1] La
interest income? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Interesting. I remember when that was $100 billion in cash.
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Interesting. I remember when that was $100 billion in cash.
Cocaine's a helluva drug...
Re:interest income? (Score:4, Informative)
WTF does Buzz have to do with Sharepoint? (Score:2)
Google Buzz, an add-on to Gmail that some have compared most closely to Sharepoint, one of Microsoft's enterprise tools.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?
Sharepoint is like a corporate wiki. It's got more in common with Google Wave... in fact Wave is like a cross between Sharepoint and OneNote.
same story in Macintosh days (Score:2, Insightful)
Recently I came across Guy Kawasaki's lectures. In one of them he mentioned, back in the 80s when he was a Mac-Evangelist, Macintosh department employees were given world class treatment like professional massage treatments during working days, First Class air tickets if the flight is 2+ hours etc.
But in reality, Macintosh wasn't earning a dime and continuing the spending spree of all what Apple II department was earning. In return, not a single Apple II employee was permitted to enter the Macintosh buildin
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In my humble opinion, I predict the demise of Office and Windows OS in next 10 years (maybe there will be cloud versions). I believe Microsoft will move into more enterprise/back-end technology space rather than remaining in desktop/consumer space (just like IBM). But nothing can be predicted to a higher accuracy, as the internet backbone is yet to achieve higher bandwidths and reliability, which is somewhat mandatory before a full migration in to a cloud based software eco-system.
It sounds possible. Old companies that are used to Microsoft server stuff may stick to what they know but companies would be crazy to choose the Microsoft high cost and low reliability option for anything new.
I predict that Microsoft will be unable to adapt and will die a long death until they get brought out in much the same way sun did.
Microsoft and the Big Cloud... (Score:2)
If their online "profits" are any indicator, we'll see where the rest of their profits go as we all slip further and further into cloud computing. The rise in popularity of Mac OS and other alternate platforms make the "switch" pretty easy these days.
Costs? (Score:2)
Mice (Score:2)
I like their mice.
That's about it however.
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Their best-ever product was Bob.
Re:The chart is mis-labeled (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The chart is mis-labeled (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000?
Buy a new PC with it preinstalled.
What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them?
The same productivity that comes from the rest of the new computer with which the Windows operating system is bundled: a faster CPU, more RAM, a larger hard disk, etc.
Re:The chart is mis-labeled (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know, what can you do with Win7 and Office 2010 that you couldn't do with WinXP and Office 2000? What new improvements in productivity do you gain from them? How did they lower your other costs (e.g. hardware)?
Well, new versions of Office simply exist to force you into their new file formats. Office 97, simply put, does everything anyone could want, and does it well. The only real selling point for the latest iteration is the collaboration technology in it, and even then, that's only good for you if you're using it in a business or groups. There's really no practical justification for a home user to upgrade Office.
Windows 7 though, that's a bit different. It appears that MS has really given us a reason to move on from XP, with better graphics support and better security, without the bugs of nags of Vista. Windows 7 is really what Vista should have been. And it would be more compelling if all versions of 7 were 64 bit native, as CPU's have been 64 bit for quite some time now. The 64 bit part would be the real selling point here, as it would allow all versions to move past that 4 GB memory limit, hardware permitting. For a lot of people, the only reason they really had to move to XP from 98SE was the file system limits on FAT32. While 98 was more stable than 95, the reason I upgraded was the 2 GB FAT limit that was smashed with FAT32. Microsoft too often forgets that we need practical reasons to upgrade, not just shiny eye-candy. And real practical reasons, not artificially forced situations like their new Office file formats. The only reason they did that was to force businesses away from 97 and 2K.
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Office 97, simply put, does everything anyone could want, and does it well
That's just not true. Try publishing a book with Office 97. Suppose you want to change the style of your section headings. LaTeX can do it with a simple change in your header. Just edit a couple of lines and you're done. Or, suppose you want to change the style of references in your bibliography. Again, just a few quick edits in LaTeX. I have no idea how you'd do that in Office 97.
While I can't say that Office 2010 offers anythi
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Easily maintaining consistent formatting throughout a long document is not a niche issue.
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Windows 7 though, that's a bit different. It appears that MS has really given us a reason to move on from XP, with better graphics support and better security, without the bugs of nags of Vista.
Meh. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with Windows 7, but I don't think it's that compelling. Security? We've all had Windows security more or less figured out for years. Put it behind a firewall, install some anti-malware software, and don't allow normal users admin rights. Throw in some user education, and you're there.
Graphics support? Windows XP does a fine job displaying email and and spreadsheets. That's all most business users need.
I like Windows 7 well enough. It's prettier than
O RLY? (Score:2)
Apparently, you are not a Excel user.
Try copy/pasting your post above into an Office '97 Excel cell and see what happens. [microsoft.com]
Option to do something like that correctly wasn't added until the 2007 edition. [mvps.org]
Why?
Was it because Microsoft is an evil heartless corporation that intentionally chokes and cripples their own applications just so they can keep selling you another version WITH those options a few years down the road?
Or could it have something to do with available processing power and memory on an average PC
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Do you even use these applications you're commenting on?
Microsoft Excel is bar none the best spreadsheet program in existence, and the 2007 version beats the crap out of the 2000 version. Right-click on a cell and check out the formatting context menu. That alone saves miles of mouse travel.
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Windows 7 has some nice advantages as well - it's faster, has better 64-bit support, some nice improvements to the UI (such as pinning items to the taskbar), is more secure...
Are either of them "must upgrades for everybody"? No. Some people will do just fine staying on Windows XP and Office 2000. But a lot
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Can you still get winXP and office 2k? Maybe he had to buy a new computer and didn't want a legacy OS on it. Computers don't last forever you know.
You can still get brand new Windows 95 discs on Ebay. XP and 2K are no problem to acquire. And I'm of the school that says unless there's a real reason why you should upgrade, you shouldn't be forced to. Lots of people use older operating systems because it suits their needs. I'd say for 90 percent of businesses, Windows 2000 would quite ably suit their needs. The only reason many businesses upgrade is because "Microsoft tells us it's time to upgrade".
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The main reason that people are forced to buy new versions at all is because they are under an OEM license and can not (or at least should not) use their old copy.
For the record I think the OEM license is the way to go for most people, even if they build their systems themselves. You save about 50% of the cost with the OEM license and normally the system lasts long
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"If you are buying a brand new copy of the OS... then why would you buy an old version that is out of support, or about to be out of support?"
And if you buy an OEM copy, you don't get any support. Not that you get any meaningful support with a retail copy. Sure you get patches but then the newer OS often needs them....
There are many reasons for a person to buy a new OS. Support really isn't a good reason.
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Will modern web browsers run on Win2k? I doubt they will, and I doubt that 90% of businesses could function "ably" using a browser from a decade ago.
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"Microsoft tells us it's time to upgrade".
That might be true except for the giant period you ignored where almost everyone didn't upgrade to VIsta, funny XP gets all this praise after years of being torn apart as the most insecure OS during the Vista release and even after the excuse that Vista was bloat which Win7 came along to fix people still complain.
Win7 replaced an old copy of WinXP on an old Dell 1150 laptop and it actually runs better even though I only invested $30 for 2GB of ram at FRY's, even tho
Re:The chart is mis-labeled (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The chart is mis-labeled (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't 2007 the one with the ribbon that no one can use?
That was my idea.
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It's from SEC filings, (Score:2)
The "article" does not contain a single info on where the data actually comes from.
It's public information, from Microsoft's 10Q filings with the SEC. [sec.gov] See Note 17, "Segment revenue and operating income".
I'd known that the whole XBox operation was struggling to break even, but I hadn't looked at the numbers for the online sector in a few years. They're losing big in that area.
Note that the Windows Division includes "Windows Live", which includes Hotmail and Messenger. "Online services" is the ad-