For those of you that think Windows is dead...

[phaZed]

This is NOT an Apple vs. PC thread (.) <-- Period.

HP/Agilent/Keysight has released their MSO-S 804 series oscilloscope which is arguably THE BEST oscilloscope on the market, ever. It doesn't run Linux or OSX.. it runs Windows 7 on a quad core i5. Pricing starts at $25K and goes up to about $100K depending on options. A team producing a product like this does not come to this decision lightly.

Point being, real world work is still done primarily on the Windows ecosystem, even in the high-end embedded market where Linux is comfortable. This is obviously because of licensing and open software. I still maintain that if Apple wants to survive, they had better get their head out of their a**. Business and industry are leaving without them.

As of December 2014-January 2015, Desktop/Laptop Mac OS (All Versions) worldwide market share = 5.18% to 5.8% to 7.0% depending on your data sources:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/1300...global-pc-sales-falter-in-fourth-quarter.html
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
http://www.techrepublic.com/article...t-us-pc-unit-sales-growth-in-holiday-quarter/

Even though Apple had it's best year in 4Q2014 (but a -3.1% decline YoY in 1Q2014), for them to have any real impact on market share at their last-year (2 quarter) current rate of 1-2% YoY growth.. if that were to continue unimpeded (Which is unlikely) it would take the next 20-30 years for Apple to start being a real contender in the desktop market.

If your wondering why Apple is constantly having problems with supply and demand with new releases... it's not because of the demand... it's because Apple is having difficulty with maintaining suppliers because of their cut-throat margin requirements as well as leaving suppliers holding the bag - and those suppliers no longer willing to provide Apple with parts. In essence, Apple is biting the hand that feeds them and burning bridges in the process. This will not continue forever as there is a finite amount of high-tech part suppliers. We have already seen Samsung give the finger to Apple, which supplies much of what Apple uses.
http://www.businessweek.com/article...rs-get-cut-off-must-scramble-for-new-business
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324682204578513882349940500

Also, here is a fairly damning and realistic article titled "Are Macs Taking Over the Enterprise?"
http://www.informationweek.com/soft...acs-taking-over-the-enterprise/d/d-id/1297098

With Windows 10 getting ready, Businesses are poised (and polled) to hop on-board with 10, unlike W8. If so, us techs still have another 10-15 years of virtually guaranteed work in the Windows world.

 

[nlinecomputers]

"This is NOT an Apple vs. PC thread (.) <-- Period."

Really? Four paragraphs on how Apple isn't doing enough to capture the PC market, the Business market, the embedded device market. Not that you don't have a point. I even agree with it But it is obviously a slam against Apple. How can it NOT be Apple vs PC?

 

[phaZed]

"This is NOT an Apple vs. PC thread (.) <-- Period."

Really? Four paragraphs on how Apple isn't doing enough to capture the PC market, the Business market, the embedded device market. Not that you don't have a point. I even agree with it But it is obviously a slam against Apple. How can it NOT be Apple vs PC?

How to make a thread of this sort without resorting to "bashing"?

Which is why I included that disclaimer.. Apple is inevitably going to come up when trying to make a point about which ecosystem is to be around, is it not? Apple is pretty much the only competitor, correct? It does not mean, however, that the thread needs to devolve into a tit-for-tat "I like this better than that!" thread. The point is not to "slam" Apple, but is to point out why Windows is likely to win because of actions taken by both parties and how that affects their market share. While I would agree that Windows is vastly inferior to OSX and Linux in many ways, that means little if nobody can adopt your equipment due to your own restrictions.. as such Apple has willfully or blindly backed themselves into a corner unless they decide to let down their guard.

Techs on here are always stating "Forget about home users, go for business", yet Apple is doing just that - competing at the high end of a dying/changing/cheapening consumer market while offering zero in an expanding business/industrial market. Heck, even Photoshop is now developed natively on PC and ported to Mac. Gaming is the same way, developed primarily on PC - sometimes ported to Mac. If everything is moving to an embedded market (as it seems it is, single chip solutions, etc) Apple is nowhere to be seen unless you buying a consumer Apple branded, Apple-Only device. I feel that is going to be the death of Apple, again. I mean, they already went bankrupt twice due to proprietary hardware being the main cause.

 

[frase]

ecosystem - we do not have that technology; as yet to allow plants to be in an engineering context to allow one to source power from them. So no to ecosystem term as it is today.

As for the "high end" market - yes Apple has always designed their products for that exact user.

Graphic Design - personally I like Corel for Lineart Design [ I do laser sketch on perspex designs with LED lit]
Video Editing - Apple has their Final Cut Pro [ nice software] crap platform
I prefer Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas Pro on PC

each has their nuances and so-on.

 

[phaZed]

Drink a pint for me frase!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Who is saying Windows is dead?
Being an SMB IT guy for the past nearly 20 years......I have full faith I'll go at least another 10 or until I'm ready to hang my hat and move down to some tropical island. I don't foresee Windows fading away at all in the SMB market.
Residential? Perhaps...but I have less than zero interest in residential IT.

 

[Markverhyden]

The problem with this is people tend to loose sight of the forest because all they look at is the trees. The "stuff" we work with serves one purpose - dealing with information. In my opinion one has to look at the timeline to get a better idea of what is going on evolutionary wise.

Back when all this got kicked off everything was batch processed, load the code and data then submit. Eventually people figured out how to setup time sharing so multiple submissions could be made and processed in parallel. That evolved into using terminals with greater and more powerful functionalities. Companies like DEC and Data General decided there was a market for making the machines smaller which lead to the desktop/deskside machines. Up until this point, in the late 70's early 80's, M$ was nothing and the computer industry had been around some 30 years. As we all know the desktop market is what allowed M$ to grow to where it is now.

Just keep moving forward with the better, faster, cheaper, smaller computers. You then need to toss in the whole networking infrastructure advancements thing. Both of those are due to Moore's Law (I know it's not really a Law) not Microsoft. Currently we are in an environment where many users/businesses can take care of many tasks with their smart devices. In many parts of the developing world the whole computer, desktop/laptop, paradigm has been skipped over because the smart device wireless infrastructure came into being before the traditional computers.

To get an idea you have to look at ALL of the information processing devices. And remember that the people paying the bills decide what they will go with not M$, Apple, IBM, etc, etc. From this article - http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24314413

Again M$ has failed, at this point in time, to penetrate a new technology that has a meaningful monetary value.

 

[phaZed]

While I agree with you on most things, I have to heavily disagree here on many points.

Companies like DEC and Data General decided there was a market for making the machines smaller which lead to the desktop/deskside machines. Up until this point, in the late 70's early 80's, M$ was nothing and the computer industry had been around some 30 years. As we all know the desktop market is what allowed M$ to grow to where it is now.

The first Microprocessor, arguably the Intel 4004 was released March 1971
Microsoft was founded April 4, 1975.
First working Microsoft provided Altair BASIC for MITS - 1975
First Apple Computer, Apple I - 1976
Apple Computer was founded April 1, 1976 and incorporated January 3, 1977

Perspective indeed, Mark. Microsoft was more than Apple was and MS was less than 4 years out from the first micro. It's disingenuous to infer that any outside development by the likes of Apple or Microsoft or similar could even take place during those 30 years as if there was a bunch of outside competition or access by others. It was reserved to the people who built and developed the computers.

The Desktop market didn't allow MS to grow... Microsoft was a product of the desktop and enthusiast markets. Also, if that's true, why didn't Apple make it? Microsoft focused on software to run on many systems whereas Apple focused on producing hardware and software that were inclusive. It's the inclusive, closed/source of Apple that did them in and allowed Microsoft to propel itself. Let us not forget that Microsoft made theZ-80 softcard that interfaced with the Apple II to run CP/M - the industry standard OS. This netted Microsoft it's number one revenue stream in 1980. If Apple had not chosen to close-source everything this would not have happened.

The ENIAC computer was turned on in 1947. The computer "industry" wasn't really an industry, it was a science project and usually government funded for the exclusive use by government(s) and universities to research and develop for the government. It wasn't until the mid to late 60's and early 70's that computers were moving out of government back rooms or military/governmental agencies and into business so that there could be an industry.
I fail to see where DEC or Data General decided that they were going to make smaller machines before anyone else started doing so. You quote Moore's law but then fail to see that physical size, in essence, "shrunk" due to technological advancements and requirements (or simple human interest) for faster and better computers. DEC and Data General didn't wake up one day and say "Desktop!" They played their small roles among many manufactures and technologies, and their roles were small. In fact DEC was so entrenched in LARGE computer systems that (Wikipedia):

The introduction of the first general purpose microprocessors inevitably led to the first microcomputers around 1975. At the time these systems were of limited utility, and Ken Olsen famously derided them in 1977, stating "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home."[44] Unsurprisingly, DEC did not put much effort into the microcomputer area in the early days of the market. Interestingly in 1977, the Heathkit H11 was announced; a PDP-11 in kit form. At the beginning of the 1980s, DEC built the VT180(codenamed "Robin"), which was a VT100 terminal with an added Z80-based microcomputer running CP/M, but this product was initially available only to DEC employees.[45]
It was only after IBM had successfully launched the IBM PC in 1981 that DEC responded with their own systems.

Just keep moving forward with the better, faster, cheaper, smaller computers. You then need to toss in the whole networking infrastructure advancements thing. Both of those are due to Moore's Law (I know it's not really a Law) not Microsoft. Currently we are in an environment where many users/businesses can take care of many tasks with their smart devices. In many parts of the developing world the whole computer, desktop/laptop, paradigm has been skipped over because the smart device wireless infrastructure came into being before the traditional computers.

No one has claimed that Microsoft is responsible for better, faster, cheaper, smaller computers. We're talking about interfaces (OS's) to these devices which has little to do with Moore's Law. Please point me to a business that has ditched computers entirely for Smart devices. That just isn't happening. Smart devices currently allow for limited mobile computing that is largely in conjunction with a traditional computer. They are not in large part replacing computers at this point in time. Also, smart devices are still slower than that of traditional computers - so how do you play Moore's law into that? Mobile devices are a step backwards in processing power.
Moore's law is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. Seeing as cell phone processors are made in exactly the same way as desktop processors using 32nm, 22nm, or 20nm processes.. an i7 could fit in a cell phone. THE REASON you don't see this is because there is a power consumption/processing ratio that exists. Until battery technology gets better or power required by the processor is reduced (or a combination of the two) even further, to a point where they are fast enough to replace a traditional computer, it's not going to happen. We're 5-10 years from the next battery technologies that offer any real improvement in energy storage which is why the focus is on making processors more energy efficient (Which is now being reached/limited by the fundamentals of how transistors work).

To get an idea you have to look at ALL of the information processing devices. And remember that the people paying the bills decide what they will go with not M$, Apple, IBM, etc, etc. From this article - http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24314413

Yes, and you should look at the current trends and not a projection written in 2013.
IDC - Worldwide Tablet Shipments Miss Targets as First Quarter Experiences Single-Digit Growth, According to IDC
IDC: iPad Sees First-Ever Decline As Wider Tablet Shipment Growth Drops 7.2% In 2014
Tablet craze cools down as iPad shipments decline
Gartner Says Tablet Sales Continue to Be Slow in 2015
iPad Slump Signals 'Massive Deceleration' in Tablet Shipments

My my, how less than a year's time can change projections, eh?

You can quote and link to how many smart devices are being shipped, but here is Global PC Shipments:
After Two Years of Decline, Worldwide PC Shipments Experienced Flat Growth in Second Quarter of 2014, According to Gartner
Gartner Says Worldwide PC Shipments in the Third Quarter of 2014 Declined 0.5 Percent
Global PC Shipments Exceed Forecast with Mild Improvement in Consumer Demand, according to IDC -Oct 8, 2014
Gartner Says Worldwide PC Shipments Grew 1 Percent in Fourth Quarter of 2014

PC Shipments in the US - statista

Global PC shipments from 1st quarter 2009 to 4th quarter 2014 - statista

I fail to see an ongoing declining trend in PC sales in those graphs, in fact, there has been a reversal in the trend. If tablets were taking over and people are ditching their PC's why is there no correlation of that? We're still at 2009 levels or higher. Just because there is not infinite growth and we can't match or better the largest sales figures EVER in 2010-2012 doesn't mean people are jumping ship.

 

[JohnKennex]

wow those are some catchy headlines. if we're talking about just desktop / laptop - I have a user base of about 2500 give or take. I think 5 of them are macs.

iPhone / iPads I would agree - I found the iPad made it's way into the enterprise because the owners wife / husband / kids would have an iPhone. They would have a blackberry. They notice all the stuff they can't do with a blackberry (p.s. i just want blackberry to give up and die). then they get an iPhone - then they make it corporate standard.