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No, not a breakup. Silly. Throwing
out the baby with the bathwater. Passing
up a great opportunity. Review: Windows 7 desktops remain important
for people running high end applications from
AutoCad, Adobe, Mathematica, Office, etc. Also
developers for code to run on Windows Server
or in house Windows 7 desktop applications. There are many client devices with many more
to come. The client devices need the Internet and
servers, and as concerns about security
increase clients should just cache data,
easy to erase quickly in case the
device falls into other hands,
and not store the data; servers need to be
very secure; and many organizations
and individuals will
want their data on their servers in their
physical space protected by the Fourth
Amendment. Shrink wrapped software? Okay, have a nice
application and want to write it for
sales, installation, support, and usage
on all the different client devices, Windows
XP, Vista, 7, 8, smart phones, tablets? Heck
no. And, for Windows 7, etc. a user is
very reluctant just to install a shrink
wrapped application due to issues of
system security and stability. So, the
shrink wrapped business is in deep trouble
except for the big applications from
AutoCad, Adobe, Mathematica, etc. So, what to do about the work of
shrink wrapped applications? Sure:
Make them Web apps; that is, use
a Web browser for the user interface;
let the browser run on whatever client;
and put the rest of the code on a server.
If the client can't run a good Web browser,
then do the same thing by writing
a client app that uses a Web server for
the data, algorithms, and computation. So, we've got it: For Microsoft, push
Windows Server for the servers. Push
client devices. Have really good Web
browsers. And in cases where own
both ends of the wire, take advantage
of that for more in functionality. Fundamental point: People using
devices, including mobile, want some
utility, functionality, etc.
Since a single mobile device is quite limited
in what it can do, the device is mostly
for user interface (UI) for
services, applications, algorithms, data,
etc. on servers. So, the servers remain
just crucial. Microsoft has shown that it knows how to
run huge server farms, well managed,
with minimal staff. That's a huge
business advantage. Computing is
charging on; e.g., there is a new solid
state mass memory that can put a terabyte
on the area of a postage stamp. It's been
a while since Intel knew how to put
1000 cores on a single processor. New
operating system concepts will be coming
forward. All this progress will need
lots of software development, e.g., for
servers. Microsoft's got the people,
funds, market, etc. to do that work and
lead in it. Mistake: Dunkin Donuts sells more donuts
than Windows sells copies of Windows 8.
Similarly for hamburgers at McDonald's.
Similarly for smart phones from Apple.
And, for all three cases, so what for
Microsoft? There may be a lot of new
client devices, but that does not mean
that Microsoft has to dominate in all of them. All the smart phones in the world won't
mean that a high end, 64 bit Windows 7
desktop system will be of no interest;
a smartphone and a high end Windows
7 desktop just are not the same thing
and are not really in direct competition;
even more the case for Windows Server. Breakup? Windows Server can't exist
alone and, instead, must serve the
many client devices. So, Microsoft
should stay in the business of
soft/hardware for some client devices.
So, don't breakup. |