Everything I have found. It is not users being illiterate that is killing Windows 8.x & W8 Phone. It is the devices with Microsoft's OS running on them, that is driving away customers to the other OS's.
Problem is that the alternatives are not really any brighter. You can always be enthusiastic about the products of the fruit company or Linux (like me), but that requires a big investment of money or academic power.
Incorrect. The alternatives are brighter, because they are allowing the user to get back into being in control of the OS.
With iOS & Mac OS, it allows for what you do on Mac OS, to be capable of cross platformed over to the iOS devices. Same with Linux. What you can do on it, you can also do on Mac OS, iOS and Android. Once Apple brings the iTunes App store to the Android platform, it is all over.
The new lead for Apple, is finally realizing that there are users using alternative OS's, that want to be able to have access to the same items that iOS & Mac OS users have.
Look at Steam. They finally saw the light of a niche market with the Linux users. Steam runs faster and better in Linux, then it does in Windows.
As for a big investment in Apple products. They are no more expensive then top of the line PC units which is what keeps those companies selling economy based lines afloat.
Lets use the airlines & cruise lines as an example. It is not the flyers wanting a $200-350 one way ticket, or people wanting to go on a cruise with the $400-600 per person tickets & packages that keeps them going. It is those going for the highest priced tickets and paying large sums of money on the cruises, that pay the bills for the companies.
Right now I can pick up a Mac Book for under $1,000.00, that will do everything that a $1500 Laptop will do and then some.
Microsoft did not see the markets that Apple saw. When Microsoft tried, they have fallen flat on their face. With the Xbox market, it was to keep up with Sony, due to there was no other competition other then the PC & Mac market out there for gaming.
Right now Sony is outselling Microsoft in more units then Microsoft ever realized.
As a Finance major in Business Management, I pay attention to this stuff. Otherwise if I told a customer or client that came to me, and decided to go elsewhere, due to I did not know what is going on. My business would not still be here.
To wrap up, here are a couple of links backing up why Sony is killing MS right now in the gaming market.
SAPVoice: Why PS4 Is Selling Faster Than Xbox One - Forbes
This article was just released today at 4:24 EDT. MS has decided to slash the Xbox One by $50, thinking that it will generate failing sales.
Microsoft Cuts Xbox One Price by $50 to Increase Sales : Tech/Biz : Auto World News No what MS problem is. Is that they messed up rushing the platform to release it when Sony did. But also released units that failed out of the gates. They either were meant to be only for test purposes in house, or had bad hard drives and/or disc drives.
February Sales numbers for PS4 vs. Xbox One.
PS4 spanks Xbox One in early 2014 sales | Product Reviews Net From the 22nd this month, regarding Surface sales.
Are Microsoft Corporation's Surface Sales About to Fall Off a Cliff? (AAPL, MSFT, SSNLF)
You still have speculators that keep stating that Microsoft is going to overtake Apple in 3 years. They state that every year. Guess what. Apple is still killing Microsoft in all markets, same as Sony is killing Microsoft in the Gaming market. Microsoft had their chance, but Gates & Ballmer thought otherwise that they would try for the consumer market that was looking for what they thought in their eyes as cheap and easy to use software & hardware.
The biggest problems are that MS has had to go out and buy up companies that wrote software, due to their engineers could not figure out how to do it, or it infringed on the copyrights of the competition. So why not just buy them out. They never got the hardware division figured out. Look at all of the problems with the Xbox 360. Still having them with the Xbox One. They had to slice the cost of OS & the Surface last year, due to they could not even give the stuff away.
Even when they gave hardware away and OS along with other software away, user adoption failed to show the numbers that MS Sales & Marketing department wanted.