MS is back in action

[anony_mouse]

Android has not a "real" UI.

Please explain. I have an Android phone in front if me now (Moto G, in fact) and it has a user interface. It's rather good.

 

[Kashan Osama]

Don't put too much emphasis on what you read on consumer technology websites about enterprise IT topics. Many of those analysts have zero experience in the enterprise IT field. They are tech bloggers and half of what they write is fiction. Their "analysis" is based on uninformed assumptions about an industry they really don't understand.

Windows 8 sales in enterprise environments is going to be almost non-existent for the first few years. This happens with every new OS, but uninformed people (and many so called "analysts") will claim this is because Windows 8 can't be used by businesses. That is not the case. I work in enterprise IT for a large company. We are nearly finished with a multi-year project to transition all PCs from XP to 7. That project started before Windows 8 even existed. It takes an enormous amount of effort to complete the testing of all our applications (internal and third party), security policies, and centralized management systems and just as much effort to roll out updated PCs to all of the thousands of workstations we have to support.

Enterprise IT departments need a consistent user environment in order to make the support of thousands of workstations (some of which are abused daily by technology challenged users) feasible so a mix of Windows 7 and 8 is a no go. We have lots of other projects to focus on and it will be years before we can allocate resources for another company wide workstation upgrade to another version of Windows. I'm using Windows 8.1 at work (and love it) along with many of my IT co-workers, but we are early adopters that support our own systems.

It wouldn't be that hard to stay cutting edge if this was the only project going on, but there are dozens of other projects going on at any given time in any enterprise IT department. Most of it is back end server or infrastructure stuff that end users and analysts never know is happening or even that it exists. Many large businesses also have to support a lot of third party industry specific software. The vendors of the third party software are often very slow to certify (i.e. support their product) on new platforms. We have to wait until most of those vendors feel warm and fuzzy before we can even start our own testing and migration. I see new projects every day where the vendor requires a 10 year old OS to host their server software/database. We recently implemented a "new" system and the vendor required Red Hat Linux 4.6 (circa 2007) on one set of servers, MS SQL Server 2005 32bit on another server, and IE 8 on the clients. The industry I work in (healthcare) has a lot of very specialized and expensive third party software so this issue is more extreme compared to other industries.

Informed IT professional are busy doing real work and solving real problems. "Analysts" have plenty of time to blog about how "Windows 8 is for tablets only" and how "MS just lost all their enterprise customers due to Windows 8", but believe me, the small challenges that come with Windows 8 (and any other new OS) are a drop in the bucket compared to the real challenges that enterprise IT deals with daily.

well...that was really really awesome reply thank you so much thank you..really stunned by that...

 

[05Paris]

It is about multiply choices in the same environment with a small footprint. If you don't like a particular feature cut it off or switch to the desktop. Then again, if you don't want choices go with the iOS or Android.

 

[smoledman]

Well for MS to really be "back in action" Windows tablets & phones would have to be the #1 sales in a quarter right?

 

[Cleavitt76]

Well for MS to really be "back in action" Windows tablets & phones would have to be the #1 sales in a quarter right?

Nope. A company can be successful without being #1 is every area of business that they compete in. To use a lame car analogy, some car companies are #1 in trucks and others are #1 in high-end sedans for example. It's funny to me how people seem to only focus on mobile computing (where MS is 3rd and apparently 3rd place = failed) and ignore all the other areas where MS is often the leader. I know that mobile is new and interesting right now, but it's not the only technology that exists and it's not going to replace the need for other existing technology.

Let's look at the big picture...

Category	Leader	Microsoft Position	Comments
Mobile	Google/Android	3rd	"Android" includes all distros many of which are non-Google.
Search/Advertising	Google	2nd	Bing is a distant second in web search, but Bing also powers Yahoo (3rd) and iOS default search if i'm not mistaken.
Desktop	Microsoft	1st	Windows = over 90% market share. Apple is a distant second with ~7% market share.
Internet Server OS	Linux (various distros)	2nd	Linux = 39%, Windows = 32%, other/unknown = remainder as of 2/2014.
Enterprise Server OS	Microsoft	1st	Windows Server = ~50%. RedHat Linux, IBM AIX Unix, and HPUX Unix are very popular too.
Enterprise Server Software	Microsoft	1st	Oracle is next biggest competitor. Apple and Google are nowhere to be seen in enterprise.
Productivity/office software	Microsoft	1st	Office is the defacto standard by a long shot.
Game Consoles	Sony or MS?	1st or 2nd?	This depends on which models/time period we are talking about, but I'll give this one to Sony. It's a very close race though and both console series have been very successful.
Automotive	BlackBerry (QNX) or MS?	1st or 2nd?	BlackBerry and MS are the two big players, but I can't find a current market share estimates.
Cloud Services	Amazon	2nd	MS Azure is in second place with around 25% and is the fastest growing cloud service. Amazon is first with around 65%.
Virtualization	VMware	2nd	MS Hyper-V is currently in second place with ~30% and growing while VMware is in first place at ~50%.

I'm probably missing a category or two, but in each of these major areas of computer technology Microsoft is in the top 3. What is more impressive is that they are competing, leading, and sometimes dominating in all of those different areas while their competitors are focused on a few at the most.

In each of those examples Microsoft is either 1st or 2nd with the exception of mobile where they are 3rd. I guess Ricky Bobby was right when he said, "If you ain't first [in mobile], you're last [in everything]. Shake 'n bake."

 

[dkediger]

And regarding Win 8 uptake....it took about 2 years and 2 service packs for the dearly departed XP to gain momentum in the enterprise.

 

[RavenSword]

So this us a question I know have: given that WP is really only less than 4 years old, how has growth and advancement rate been? On par or better than the competition? And do we think app developers are going to come on board even though they haven't for about 4 years? Reason km asking is that I want to use WP as my daily, but I feel like I'll be putting alot if faith jn devs coming on board when they haven't thus far.

 

[Cleavitt76]

I can't remember the most recent Windows Phone Store app count, but I think it's around 200,000. It took iOS about 2 years to reach that point and it took Android about 3 years to reach that point. It has taken Windows Phone 4 years so the growth rate is not as high. Personally, I don't put a lot of emphasis on app counts, but at the same time there isn't any easy way to compare either.

One thing you have to consider is that iOS got a faster start because it had no competition in the consumer oriented smart phone market. Most smart phones at that time were targeted at business professionals that wanted to be connected to work all the time. Android was really slow for the first couple of years and then they shot up. Android was able to compete in other markets because iOS was exclusive to AT&T during that time. So effectively, Android had no competition on the non-AT&T carriers. Windows Phone entered that market after there was competition. The only point I'm trying to make is that it will be hard to compare or predict growth rates to iOS and Android since the situation is very different now. Windows Phone has been trending upwards consistently though so I expect the app situation to get better not worse.

I think the question for you is "do you have the apps you need now on Windows Phone and are they good enough to fill your needs?" If the answer is yes, then you should be fine with Windows Phone as it's only going to get better from here. If the answer is no, then I would go back to whatever works for you and re-visit Windows Phone when it's time for your next upgrade.

 

[Jas00555]

I can't remember the most recent Windows Phone Store app count, but I think it's around 200,000. It took iOS about 2 years to reach that point and it took Android about 3 years to reach that point. It has taken Windows Phone 4 years so the growth rate is not as high. Personally, I don't put a lot of emphasis on app counts, but at the same time there isn't any easy way to compare either.

One thing you have to consider is that iOS got a faster start because it had no competition in the consumer oriented smart phone market. Most smart phones at that time were targeted at business professionals that wanted to be connected to work all the time. Android was really slow for the first couple of years and then they shot up. Android was able to compete in other markets because iOS was exclusive to AT&T during that time. So effectively, Android had no competition on the non-AT&T carriers. Windows Phone entered that market after there was competition. The only point I'm trying to make is that it will be hard to compare or predict growth rates to iOS and Android since the situation is very different now. Windows Phone has been trending upwards consistently though so I expect the app situation to get better not worse.

I think the question for you is "do you have the apps you need now on Windows Phone and are they good enough to fill your needs?" If the answer is yes, then you should be fine with Windows Phone as it's only going to get better from here. If the answer is no, then I would go back to whatever works for you and re-visit Windows Phone when it's time for your next upgrade.

275,000 on the phone
125,000 on computers

Also, app numbers mean jack. Blackberry has almost as much as we do, yet 50,000 of them are literally garbage from the same developer.

 

[sinime]

275,000 on the phone
125,000 on computers

Also, app numbers mean jack. Blackberry has almost as much as we do, yet 50,000 of them are literally garbage from the same developer.

Not to mention that, and I don't remember if I saw it on android or iOS, there were 4 - 6 versions of the Tapatalk app from the same dev... Only difference being that each one was a different theme color and maybe one was a free trial. I'm not saying that is true for every app out there, but app count numbers get skewed when dev's do that crap, vs. 1 app with a free trial and in-app purchased themes. Sure, it happens on WP too, I just don't notice it as much.

 

[Cleavitt76]

275,000 on the phone
125,000 on computers

Also, app numbers mean jack. Blackberry has almost as much as we do, yet 50,000 of them are literally garbage from the same developer.

That is better than I thought. The trend still doesn't change too much though...

iOS = ~2.5 years.
Android = ~3.3 years (Google Play Store)
Windows Phone = ~4 years.

I agree though. The app counts are really pretty meaningless. iOS and Android have just had more time to collect garbage and abandoned/test apps. I guess the app counts do imply a level of developer activity, but it's not a good measure of app quality or number of useful apps.