Actually Google is eating MS lunch in cloud connected services. I manage a multimillion dollar division in a top 10 enterprise software company. We do a lot of work with all of these companies supporting mobile access.
They make over 90 percent of their profit from search ads. I'm sure they have quite a few side projects, but they've been unable to turn any of them into major earners yet. This is all very evident in their quarterly reports.
I can tell you that Google is investing a lot more than one engineer on next gen. Apple keeps a lot quite but they are not resting on current iOS.
Well, I don't believe you. They'd be probably too late to the party anyway. Fushia was leaked. It looks like a dogs breakfast. Apple could have put a hybrid on their ipads - by the time either comes to the market, they'll still have all the, from scratch work, of attracting developers, scaling the OS, testing on hardware and so on.
If one of them releases a relatively polished product in the year or two, I might consider they have a chance at catching up. But there are major reasons why they will find it as hard, as MSFT has found it. iOS only runs on ARM, OSX only on intel - android runs on both, but the apps don't even scale to tablets, let alone desktops. Plus, windows and osx completely dominate the desktop space - it is much like, for google, like Microsoft getting a foothold in the phone space - they would need a compelling POD, that another competitor couldn't replicate (for example, free is not one - MSFT could and probably will make windows s free)
On the other hand you keep trying to convince the forum the MS is going all out on a future phone strategy.
No.
I don't think MSFT is planning for a "future phone strategy" as a business play whatsoever. MSFT has a good mixture of enterprise and consumer profit streams, unlike the other two, a very balanced profit portfolio that would endure if any one stream should die off.
THAT is smart business - no eggs in one basket, but instead a lot of balls in the air. They have something like around 6 similarly profitable income streams, in different areas.
Their technical development strategy is to create a similarly futureproof setup for their OS, software and cloud connected services. Next gen OS, next gen cloud, hardware and input independent cross platform software, market leading hardware etc.
Why, the future is big prize is owning the backend cloud integrated services.
Yeah, cloud services are certainly profitable. But I don't think they are the only prize in the future myself.
I think there a lot of fast growing, emerging new markets to be had over the next few decades. There are certainly many things, that depend on high processor useage, parallel processing, and low latency, such as full neural net AI, immersive VR and so on that will absolutely need to run locally too.
I'm clear on what Microsoft is saying it is doing, visibly investing in IMO.
Microsoft has zero interest in getting back into the low margin phone business.
This, seems, both true, and not. Adoption phase in phones has peaked, but the big players still make major profit, with high margins. Apples profit is 90 percent iPhone, and they are the biggest tech company in the world. It's not exactly accurate to call it low margin, although it is slowing.
I think they would absolutely be interested in a niche (for the same reason google is interest in mobile, despite no direct profit, for sale of services), and absolutely would be interested in any new paradigm with a new adoption phase (because its profits are potentially high AF, look an how apple has cleaned up).
The main thing with MSFT is they are forward facing - they are no interested in imitating, or following. They want to be like apple with the iphone - first in, or to be like the surface - a stand apart niche.
But there are also some very good reasons to keep phones, simple slabs afloat.
It offers a testing bed and development platform for small screens. And while small screens on phones may one day become relatively secondary, they won't be going away completely, ever. Whether they exist on smart devices and wearables or whatever - small screens will always be a thing.
MSFT has made their no screen, to mixed reality, scalability ambitions crystal clear- that's what a truly next gen OS does.
And to do that, to get software developed on those platforms, they actually need a broad range of form factors in the market. If they don't there will be no software that scales to that form. Which means the next gen OS, will in a sense, fail. They need a mature UI, software stack, and third party development for every scale and style of device, to be what they want to be, in operating systems.
They will only get in if they can build a game changing device.
I think that's a little exagerrated.
They don't need a game changing device, they simply need a foothold in the market, a stable niche that can be grown from. The hybrid tablet isn't "a game changing device", that has suddenly captured the entire market. People don't sit their with their minds blown that someone put a slate and a keyboard together.
It sits around 5% of tablet marketshare. But its rapidly growing. Its a place to expand from. A foothold.
That's all they really need, is a place to develop via, and expand from. Which, probably does need to be a bit different, have a POD, but it doesn't need to be a westworld tablet, or a chip in your brain.
Probably we will not agree.
I don't think _selling phones_ is in any way important to msft, but retaining consumer presence, and a development platform, is relevant to MSFTs open ambitions of a next gen OS, as is enterprise (where westworld tablets, complex IoT cloud AI and high end AR devices will most likely be sold first, while the prices of manu are brought down, and the product quality brought up), wearables, AR/VR, AI.
The cloud isn't the only profit stream MSFT has. For example they make around 3 billion per quarter making games for console and PC. And as such, their OS, isn't just a place to sell cloud services from. Its a platform to sell a range of products - cloud services, software, and profits from third party developers - as well as cloud based AI, and mixed reality products.
Its doubtful one company will actually be able to be a master of all things, in this complex future. Cloud computing is certainly something MSFT has an edge in (pun not intended XD). But it would be strange to assume MSFT wants to put all its eggs in one basket, especially when the whole one OS thing, has been a complete mantra over the last few years, and you can visibly see those efforts.
Its very clear MSFT wants windows to be an OS that is capable of "0D to 4D", a future proof OS, from which to sell their products and services, and make store money from - and that actually requires multiple hardware products, for the development of the OS, and the development of 3rd party software. A small part of that is small screens.
You can see in the surface pro's, cshell, and windows on arm, the attempt to gradually scale down, and their efforts to move things to UWP. If all people used windows for, was a desktop - everything they are doing would be a waste of time.
Even when it comes to the cloud, its clear MSFT understands its technical limits. Hence the intelligent edge. I think it likely the intelligent edge is actually more important than cloud based services - bringing that software into an on demand, low latency, local service doesn't entirely circumvent the issues with cloud based things (such as storage space, or processing power limits), but it DOES address latency.
Either way, when it comes to apple and googles next gen OS efforts - I'll believe it when I see it.
Such an OS is a mammoth effort, requires a lot of cultivation and millions of man hours of coding. It's significantly easier just to corner some market like IoT, or AI cloud services (which seems to be googles current focus). Even if they do release such an OS, the teething issues, getting development going, having a range of in market devices, will prove as much a challenge for apple and google as it has for MSFT. And with profits happily rolling in, I'm just not sure they are motivated for all that.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram