I'm sorry, but their market cap is like 10x in the past decade. Their revenue streams are different now, yes, but they recognized they'd lost the platform with the SaaSification of most things and they wisely moved into other areas. Yes, they could have tried something else that kept them as the winners of the OS game, but vertical integration wasn't really in their bloodstream. Platforming and services were.
Oh, I'm wrong then. I was under the mistaken impression that he was CEO much more recently than that. Thanks for the correction, it appears that you're completely correct about his leadership.
one could argue that Windows is the most popular consumer OS even today (keep in mind the HN is not representative for what people normally run).
Also, a decade later, Microsoft is experiencing a software renaissance, in part, due to the the work Ballmer setup. One example: Azure. In the cloud space there are 2 gorillas: AWS and Azure (everything else is vaporware and at this point I don't think it would be wise to bet the farm on GCP or ... Oracle). How did Azure get here? Do you think they decided to do cloud and it happened magically?
Another example: the XBOX. I personally will never but a PS, and I believe XBOX is awesome in this space.
The most popular consumer OS is Android. Arguing anything else goes against all known stats.
Microsoft's renaissance is mainly due to Nadella focusing on software and services instead of selling Windows. You mentioned Xbox as a way to support Ballmer. The Xbox story mentioned in the article does not support Ballmer.
Agreed re Azure but I don't know if Ballmer was still focusing on Windows for Azure, which seems likely. Keep in mind Azure is mostly Linux instances today.
The market did not moved to mobile. Mobile is alongside desktop. People like diversity and mobile offered another one. And people who have only mobile in their homes are poor that can't afford desktop but I see mobile as a gateway drug to desktop. Once people will have enough money, will also buy desktop exactly because mobile hooked them in the first place.
You can't really use percentages to say that something has declined if the whole pie is growing, and web use is maybe the one thing that looks least favorable for desktops.
1) Yes mobile moved the market by capturing hundreds of millions of people who would never have owned a computer otherwise, and Microsoft failed to react to this.
2) Do you have any data to back up the claim that mobile usage leads to desktop purchases? I have never heard such a claim before
Given that I see more Windows laptops and 2-1 devices than Android tablets around here, Microsoft has reacted quite well to this.
Additionally given the amount of people that run Office on their phones, in spite of total lack of usability to do such kind of work on those devices, again very good reaction.
Sure, if "computer" to you means "laptop or desktop PC".
My smartphone is a computer, which I use at home and work, and it sure as hell doesn't run Windows. Smartphones are a far more significant type of computer in the modern world than laptop or desktop PCs.
AWS instances run Windows too. And MS makes money off those instances. Also, Azure runs Linux too. Microsoft is in the post-Windows phase and it's working on things that will keep it relevant long term