I'll tell you something about Windows

Microsoft must move beyond Windows, as obviously seen in fiscal 2011 fourth quarterly and yearly results, announced late yesterday. The operating system remains a pillar of the company's revenue stream and will long be the identifying brand. However its relevance is diminishing, in developed markets for now. Emerging markets will come much later.

The third quarter in a row

For the third quarter in a row, sluggish PC shipments diminished Windows & Windows Live earnings -- and there is little sign anything will change anytime shortly. Earnings fell by 1 percent and operating income by 4 percent while fiscal fourth quarter. Global PC shipments grew by 2.3 percent, according to Gartner, and 2.6 percent, according to IDC. US PC shipments were disastrous, falling 5.6 percent year over year, according to Gartner, and declining 4.2 percent by IDC's reckoning. Microsoft estimates global PC shipments grew by 1 percent to 3 percent. Windows to tell the truth underperformed, by comparison, with OEM earnings declining by 1 percent for the quarter and growing by a tepid 2 percent for fiscal 2011. OEM sales accounted for three-quarters of Windows revenue while fiscal Q4.

Microsoft already got its big Windows 7 sales bang -- 400 million licenses sold since the operating system shipped near two years ago. The global install base of PCs is around 1 billion. The majority of licenses are going to emerging markets. Microsoft estimates that they totaled 40 million PC shipments for the quarter or -- get this -- half of global volume. It's simply a stunning number that represents faster recovering economies in many emerging markets and new sales. The majority of Windows sold in developed markets are resales -- to existing clients.

Microsoft is all in all getting some bang from businesses. While yesterday's revenues conference call, Bill Koefoed, general manager of Microsoft Investor Relations, said that "business PC refresh cycle continued and drove estimated business PC growth of 8 percent".

Those business deployments won't last forever, nevertheless. The reality is this: Otherwise for Windows Vista's market failure, successor 7's sales situation might be a whole lot worse today. Windows 7 released with about 80 percent of the install base on XP. Upgrades were inevitable in developed markets. Whenever Windows 8 ships, much of the established install base will be on 7 or moving that way. Enterprises don't deploy overnight. For now, Koefoed says that "90 percent of enterprises have committed to a deployment plan" and one-quarter of their desktops have Windows 7.

Windows 7's lifeblood is two-fold, at the time: Pent-up demand from businesses however using Windows XP and sales to emerging markets. It's not a sustainable growth business, even though legacy sales should keep the Windows & Windows Live division profitable for some time.

The big revenue

Microsoft's Business Division long ago passed Windows as the big revenue and profit generator, $5.78 billion and $3.6, respectively, in fiscal Q4. Windows & Windows Live generated $4.7 billion in revenue and $2.9 billion in profit. To tell the truth, Server and Tools division near generated as much revenue as Windows & Windows Live -- $4.6 billion. It's a sign of Windows changing times.

Microsoft may not be talking concretely about a future beyond Windows, however the company is anyway you look at it preparing for one -- or for the time being a different one. Hence, the emphasis on ARM processors, which will make Windows available on more devices than PCs. As well talk about a future unified platform around Xbox.

Then there is most importantly business productivity and business processes leveraged off Office and the Windows Server stack and hosted applications like Office 365 that make information available anytime, anywhere and on anything.

The future of Windows is a utility supporting applications and services that obscure the operating system. The OS will matter less than the stuff wrapped around it. Like Xbox today. When do you hear Microsoft talk about Xbox OS? That's in the long run the future of Windows as the platform transforms and applications, server software and hosted services matter more.

Great leap forward from Snow Leopard

OS X Lion isn't a great leap forward from Snow Leopard. OS X Snow Leopard, aside from this being having a girly GUI, truly does nothing any better that Windows 7. And Joe the 40 million Windows 7 sold in the last quarter is 3 million higher per month than Apples monthly sales of the Iphone, Ipad and OSX combined. The reports that Windows 7 is losing sales to Apple are wrong.

Oh my dear god. Here we go again. DOOM for Windows and Microsoft. DOOM DOOM DOOM. The line is tired Joe. Nevertheless wait, that's not all. At once month it will be only praise for the company. At that time back to DOOM. Wash, rinse and repeat.

I was a person that accepted as normal the MS' chains, nevertheless I was reading something about the devil' history(MS) at the time I wake up and understood that MS is new type of mafia Why?;-they have deep political involvement.-legions of lawyers.-they get off scot free of any offence they might have committed-exterminating rivals illegally.-misusing press and advertising with the objective to distort/hide the truth, through of: 1- Normal press; 2-MS' blogger, evangelists, shillsand more much more.I felt a strong concern about it...until VistaVista was the mother of all insults and the people said STOPThen MS regressed and fearfully made to bearable O.S, Seven...however it was late...a lot of people was awake.Result?; Just compare it previously Vista and now, things have changed incredibly.(yet MS will not falling fast, there is a long long way to its decline)And the best, MS have not clue what is happening, yes it's reorganizing, taking steps, buying advertising business, attacking savagely, etc... However is it working? Big NOT and... why NOT?...Clue; so shills are you thinking that assaulting abusively someone who writes opining against MS or hide comments o bulling to columnist, or shamelessly applauding every dirty MS' maneuver, are you doing to favor to MS?Yes?, my congratulationsAnd Joe at times I don't like how you and people like you help to MS with your analysis, i.e; they and you advice to MS about don't buy Yahoo! and that cry, somehow awoke to MS...Yet could you imagine how MS would be with yahoo without the money, now?

Windows will try to get market share on phones and tablets, however it is impossible. Existing windows apps don't adapt to tablets, so they would need developers to tweak them for a Windows 8 interface or Windows Phone. Yet android and ipad have too much of a head start, and there is a chicken and egg problem - developers won't bother with windows for tablets if there isn't market share, and users won't buy it if there are no apps.Microsoft has done a great job of giving the Xbox 360 new life with the Kinect, and raising the price by getting rid of less expensive versions of Office means that as businesses are forced to upgrade for security profits will increase. Windows 7 as mentioned is good enough for businesses to be willing to upgrade, and by 2014 when XP security is terminated consumers will as well upgrade. A set top box like Apple TV from Microsoft or even a DVR addon for Xbox 360 could be a potential growth area, and video over wireless is becoming a huge trend where they could launch a device for some growth.Nevertheless Microsoft has no chance in the phone and tablet markets ever - too many apps already exist, they can never catch up.

The tablet or smartphone area?

No chance ever in the tablet or smartphone area?The iPad controls 61% if the tablet market, down from 94% a year previously. Android went from 0% to 30%. Windows tablets in fact control 4.4% of the market, higher than Blackbery or HP.How fast did Andriod over take iOS on smartphones?Never say never.

Mr. Wilcox may not be specifically right, however he's not altogether wrong. The problem is to put it more exactly that Ballmer has shown an extraordinary penchant not only for being late to market yet for managing to bungle the execution of some of MS's more ingenious products. Kinect is brilliant and doing pretty so then, nevertheless you have to wonder how much better it'd be doing in a more mobile organization. Surface is brilliant yet languishing. Windows 8's apparent mania for touch will be a debacle on all however a couple of form factors. Windows phones are good, yet so late to market that even the Nokia deal won't catapult them past Android or Apple. In general, MS thinks and acts like IBM thought and acted previously Gerstner taught them to be something other than a company mired in anachronism. Jobs, as a matter of fact one of the most annoying people on the planet, continues to produce flawed products that, on the whole, show us "where the puck is going to be", as he likes to put it. MS lacks a similar freedom of thought.

So many things wrong with this. First and foremost Joes just does not have the technical depth to fully understand all of it.Corporations that have a hard time moving from Windows XP to Windows 7, have a hard time for 1 reason only.....OLD SOFTWARE.In the cases I have experienced it is not a lot of old software, it is just a few pieces, however they might be used by a whole department. Lots of corporations just sat on XP because of this headache.Now in 2011 those applications are either gone, or because of XP not being supported shortly, they are making the move to Windows 7. I have lots of friends in IT, at many places, and ALL of them have moved to Windows 7 are in the middle of it.Because of the problem with not being able to migrate because of apps from XP to 7, the moves that many are taking now will ensure this wont be an issue the then time around. Since Windows 8 will be built on the Vista/7/UAC security model, any app that works with Windows Vista/7 should work fine with Windows 8. This means that if you are on Windows 7 moving to Windows 8 will proabably be very easy. Add to that in large corporations that use mass deployment tools, like SCCM, they will have the migration process to this Vista/7/8 generation, then oiled and a upgrade from 7 to 8 will second nature.At that time again, if you pay for support like E-CAL's at that time the day 8 comes out, you own it, and Microsoft has gained profit from it.At the enterprise level Microsoft is just getting better. The latest versions of AD, Exchange, Sharepoint, Lync, Office, Windows 2008R2/7, SQL etc are just in effect good. Together I dont see any challange to this at all. Linux is going no place fast. Apple at the Enterprise....total joke, and we have a now extinct Xserver or 2....cant wait to buy a Mac Mini to replace them....hahahahah.The fact that Windows sales are slow are probably an idicator that the market is saturated and Clearly most of the sales are to current clients....DUH!!!Now is Windows sales start droping like say iPod's, another saturated market, so then they will have a problem. There has to be something that will fill that void, like smartphones that are killing iPod sales. What will that be for Windows computers.....Chrome books.....hahahahah.When do Chrome book sales figures get released so we can all have a good laugh.

I just want to point that a big reason for the downturn in the sales of PC this year has t do with the Japanese Eartquake and Tsunami in March. This section of the Japanese industry has not recovered but andmay take some time earlier it does, unless they start factories outside Japan. Add to this China which, with the chinese government approval, produces millions of counterfeit copies of the Operating System and the fact that the world economy is after all in a crisis stage. When that's taken care of, Windows will everything considered have its place.

No they won't, they are starting to fall, thats why they are pushing all of there new products because they fell threatened. Actually the only reason they are for all that running is the business solutions they offer, larger amount of users to manage, etc. Nevertheless even at that cloud services coming out now take the need of a server away. We are very much in the cloud and post pc era and windows was to late into the game. Google and Apple will be the ones known in the nearly future.

Different planet

Again Wilcox is living on a different planet. Windows is doing just fine. Selling like hot cakes even in the last quarter released yesterday. Copies of windows are selling at a very brisk pace. So much so that sales only dropped 1% from last year. Meaning windows 7 in spite of everything is making a ton of cash 2 years later. The reviews of windows 7 are fantastic, as is word of mouth. Along these lines the continued success. Microsoft like all the others is moving more and more to the cloud. They are doing what they need to do to stay on top of this trend.On the whole Wilcox would have redmond embrace the cloud like google OS. On the other hand most people think that Chrome OS is a fail. Wilcox people think if not. However many of all think not everything should be in the cloud. The cloud is currently just a work in progress that needs to be figured out. Personally i believe a OS shouldnt be cloud only, like chrome. It becomes useless should you lose your internet connection. Not to mention if you're not home and the connection speed is low.

"The future of Windows is a utility supporting applications and services that obscure the operating system..." So Joe, you're saying future Windows will be Win-Chromebooks?

Joe, are you saying they need to move beyond windows OS overall or move beyond traditional windows that only runs on non-mobile devices?

Shockingly good reputation system

A shockingly good reputation system, both for addresses and files, puts Microsoft in a position where they block pretty much all malware through IE9. Nevertheless when the same feature shows up in Windows 8 will it be the end of malware through all sources?

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn thinks Motorola Mobility might be sitting on a goldmine with its wireless patent portfolio, and thinks the mobile communications company should like as not begin shopping them around.