Microsoft wins, even if the PC loses

I am simply stunned by the ridiculous number of "Microsoft will be dead in four years" stories, following Gartner's grim PC forecast three days ago. I offered brief analysis then and promised something later, and this is it. Yesterday, colleague Alan Buckingham posted first: "Microsoft is nowhere near death's door" -- and he absolutely is right.

Throw a rock, and you can't miss a doom-and-gloom armchair analysis. Among the many are "Gartner: Microsoft is dead, Windows has expired, Office has ceased to be" (Computerworld); "How long can Microsoft go on like this?" (InfoWorld); "Apple's ultimate victory over Microsoft" (Motley Fool); and "Gartner may be too scared to say it, but the PC is dead" (ReadWrite). For the most part, all these armchair pundits are mistaken. Hugely.

Source

A Guy

 

[pparks1]

So, moving from DOS and keyboards to GUI and the mouse WASN'T forcing users to work in different ways?

There are clearly certain evolutionary changes that are important and improvements come as technology develops. Like with cars, much of what we accept today is a result of technology improvements, including engineering, manufacturing processes and material development. But because we now have fuel injected engines, airbags, ABS etc that improve safety, handling and the like, the basic interface of a car is still very familiar.

BMW introduced an MPI equivalent in one of their models, which was lambasted extensively by just about everyone. BMW had to run courses for new owners as they were completely baffled by the new control system. I believe that BMW took some notice of the criticisms and made appropriate changes.

That said, the GUI and mouse did not force people to change from what they were used to, as the earlier methods still worked quite well and continued to do so well into the future. What is also important to note is that this was around the time that computers started to become affordable to people and the GUI and mouse made the adoption process easier.

Microsoft has done the opposite.

Really right now? The fact you can't today use DOS/text commands as a main input anymore basically means the GUI forced everyone to use the mouse. You can use command prompt, but that is utterly pointless. No, the GUI forced people from DOS, to use the mouse whether they liked it or not. If that weren't the case, a larger group of people I'd bet still to this day would be using DOS. But hey, choice is choice I guess, and people choose the GUI over DOS.

Command line is utterly pointless, perhaps you can explain why so many of the new Microsoft tools are based in PowerShell then?

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
@Coke Robot

PLEASE PLEASE before posting stuff that could be better left in the realms of "Bovine Scatology" engage brain before opening mouth and try and LEARN something about computers before making the word "Pontificate" appear totally superfluous.

It's quite obvious to me that you've never been NEAR any sort of server (or if you have woe betide the poor users) or had to use any sort of even remotely basic house keeping jobs like scheduled backups, assign user permissions etc etc to say nothing of having to use any sort of serious diagnostic tools all of which are CLI based. Even the simple operation of making a bootable USB install device requires knowledge of the DISKPART command.

The fact that the average user doesn't really generally NEED the command line does NOT mean that it doesn't exist -- and how do you think services are launched BEFORE the GUI even gets initialized.

I really think you should take a short break and go back to school for a bit and enrol on a Windows basic 101 course.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[4wd]

"Microsoft wins, even if the PC loses"
...well > Microsoft, H-P, Intel hit tech stocks - Tech Stocks - MarketWatch

Problem is, they fail in reviving the pc market and in addition fail to compensate for that by having any tangible success in the mobile\pad dept. Can get serious over time.

 

[Hopachi]

The Command Line stays. (Mouse as well). That's all.
Seriously guys, we don't we have to debate about this stuff.

 

[Coke Robot]

[
Really right now? The fact you can't today use DOS/text commands as a main input anymore basically means the GUI forced everyone to use the mouse. You can use command prompt, but that is utterly pointless. No, the GUI forced people from DOS, to use the mouse whether they liked it or not. If that weren't the case, a larger group of people I'd bet still to this day would be using DOS. But hey, choice is choice I guess, and people choose the GUI over DOS.

Yes, you can use the Command Prompt any time that you wish with any version of Windows and it's often quite a functional tool. Also, the GUI didn't force everyone to use a mouse, keyboard controls still function quite well. The mouse was gladly adopted by the newcomers, as it provided a very functional way to navigate the new found pleasures of computers.

Sure, you can use the keyboard to navigate a GUI, but with difficulty and time. I surely wouldn't want to do that to move around the Desktop icons and then start menu and then to Photoshop or even AutoCAD....

And there is literally nothing being forced by Microsoft, pretty much all the same functions that have been there in Windows for 15 plus years are still there. Sure, some things are changed, but the rest is basically the same. There was no DOS option for Windows 95 to use Windows that way, it forced you to use a mouse, and use it a lot. Was that a bad thing? Obviously not.

 

[Wenda]

Actually, there IS a DOS option in Windows 95. Two, actually.

DOS 7 is accessible from within Windows 95, and also, if installed, most other
versions (DOS 6.22 on my setup) is available from outside Windows.

And you CAN, if you are a masochist, operate Windows 95 without a mouse.

Wenda.

 

[fourthofjuly]

The Command Line stays. (Mouse as well). That's all.
Seriously guys, we don't we have to debate about this stuff.

Agree. There is nothing to debate about.
The GUI is for the end users (not so tech savvy/general consumers) and the command lines are for the programmers/developers/troubleshooters (the geeks).