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The Future for Microsoft

HappyHarry said: "What do you think the future holds for Microsoft? They've been delaying the launch of LongHorn for years. They sell a lot more game players than some of their more profitable products, and they have huge competition in every field they compete in. What do the prospects look like for Microsoft's business in the next few years?"

AlfredSokol said: "The big question I have is, how vulnerable are they to losing market share in the O/S space? What if Linux makes real in-roads? If they lose their O/S dominance, they are plainly just another company."

bobjitsu said: "What is Longhorn? :confused:"

misterjover said: "[QUOTE=bobjitsu]What is Longhorn? :confused:[/QUOTE] Longhorn is the next big OS. Supposedly it will have a few more bells and whistles than XP. It's still in development, and it probably won't be out until next year or so."

Yoshimi said: "OK, today at school, i asked a bunch of people their computer preference, and why they chose mac over PC, or vice versa. Almost everyoen said they liked macs better, adn the few that chose PC's over macs said that the only reason they liked them better was because the gaming factor. Microsoft has so many more games than mac, but mac's are getting mroe and more games, so they will slowly take over the buisiness, and also look at the stock price, which greatly reflects on people's preference. Microsoft stock is idle, adn not moving very much, and AAPL is booming, and going no where but up. The are slowly taking over the buisiness. I talked to people at BestBuy, and CompUSA, both which are computer stores which dont sell Apple stuff, adn they said oh yea we dont sell mac stuff, that is on a totally elevated level of computer software. They admit that is is way better. Also mac's have a function called VirtualPC, which is a program that lets u get on WindowsXP on a mac, and it runs very quickly. You would think that it would run slow because you aerr running one O/S on another, but it goes fast, and runs without problems. Most people dont know that about macs, which also lets people play games designed for Windows, on Macs. Macs never crash, have an extreme firewall, and are alot easier to run. They are cheaper and better. AAPL will continue to go up and maybe even eventually conquer Microsoft. But that would be in the distant future, or so it would seem."

AlfredSokol said: "The big hope for Old Softy is if they can make a go of it in Search. They're pretty far behind Google but they still have the DeskTop so they need to have a good local search feature in LongHorn. Then they could get people used to using their search. It's an uphill struggle for all of them."

chahinemm said: "that is because of an economic factor if gaming industry started to focus on producing mac games than the mac industry would grow and automaticallly the balance would shift... don't forget that microsoft has the extra advantage and has a strong hold on it... but the way mac is going market itself and challenge pretty much the microsoft strong hold will show their long term success and maybe destabilizing microsoft which IMO is not going to happen soon but could happen. (just a strategic opinion) chahine [QUOTE=Yoshimi]OK, today at school, i asked a bunch of people their computer preference, and why they chose mac over PC, or vice versa. Almost everyoen said they liked macs better, adn the few that chose PC's over macs said that the only reason they liked them better was because the gaming factor. Microsoft has so many more games than mac, but mac's are getting mroe and more games, so they will slowly take over the buisiness, and also look at the stock price, which greatly reflects on people's preference. Microsoft stock is idle, adn not moving very much, and AAPL is booming, and going no where but up. The are slowly taking over the buisiness. I talked to people at BestBuy, and CompUSA, both which are computer stores which dont sell Apple stuff, adn they said oh yea we dont sell mac stuff, that is on a totally elevated level of computer software. They admit that is is way better. Also mac's have a function called VirtualPC, which is a program that lets u get on WindowsXP on a mac, and it runs very quickly. You would think that it would run slow because you aerr running one O/S on another, but it goes fast, and runs without problems. Most people dont know that about macs, which also lets people play games designed for Windows, on Macs. Macs never crash, have an extreme firewall, and are alot easier to run. They are cheaper and better. AAPL will continue to go up and maybe even eventually conquer Microsoft. But that would be in the distant future, or so it would seem.[/QUOTE]"

ToastMonger said: "I haven't really understood the big thing about the newer O/Ss. The last time that there was a substantial change in the Microsoft O/S was when they switched from 3.1 to 95. Everything after that has just been tweaking displays and adding things that 99% of us don't really need."

AlfredSokol said: "The big thing now is to make the switch from 32 bit to 64 bit processors. The problem, as always with Microsoft is the legacy code. They have to make sure the 32 bit stuff still works. With Longhorn, they plan on [url=http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116008,00.asp]releasing two versions[/url] so this represents a bit of a change for them. 64 bit machines are getting cheaper all the time so utilizing the processing power could be enough to drive market growth."

misterjover said: "Microsoft shouldn't be underestimated. One of their executives owns one of the largest intellectual property management firms in the world. They have plenty of aces up their sleeves, and they have tons of sleeves. Don't get me wrong. I believe that Steve Jobs has the biggest balls in the tech world, but Microsoft is in bed with the devil, and I think the future will soon unveil it. ;)"