This is part two of a two-part series. Part One looked at the fall of Steve Ballmer and the decline of Microsoft in mobile. Part Two tries to discover why it all happened. Introduction Steve Ballmer was just fired after 13 uninspiring years at Microsoft. A hotly debated question is whether Ballmer failed because he … Continue reading David The Disruptor v. Microsoft The Goliath
The dozens of commentaries on Steve Ballmer’s impending departure nearly all condemn him for Microsoft’s failure in mobile computing during his tenure. It’s certainly true that Microsoft was run over by an iPhone-iPad-Android train in the last few years, but the basic problem was not that the company failed to understand the importance of mobile. … Continue reading The Irony of Microsoft’s Lost Mobile Opportunity
I very seldom recommend a conference to my friends and colleagues but a note about a special mobile conference came to my attention recently that I highly recommend to our industry readers. One of the smartest guys I know covering the world of mobile is Chetan Sharma. I had a chance to speak at an … Continue reading The World Has Gone Mobile
QUESTION: Why is it when birds fly in a “V” shape one side is longer? The answer will be provided, below. Part 1 of 2 Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is going to retire within the next 12 months. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get to it. One of the most striking differences … Continue reading Ballmer: The Good, The Indifferent, The Bad and The Analysis
Many of us have caught the news that Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer’s tenure is up. Over the next 12 month’s Ballmer will work to transition a replacement. This replacement will be faced with extremely hard decisions about Microsoft’s future. Whoever he or she is, I hope they are ready. In my opinion the crux of … Continue reading Microsoft is at a Fork in the Road
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, is officially out — sometime in the next 12 months. Another victim of Steve Jobs and the iPhone. Blame that crazy, rebellious vision of Jobs which somehow changed the world, rendering Microsoft and the once impervious Windows as nothing more than fat, dumb, slow-moving dinosaurs. Note the radical shift in value … Continue reading If Only Steve Jobs Were Alive To Witness The Final Destruction Of Microsoft
When I first went to visit Microsoft, the company had only 28 people. In the early days of the PC industry there were no official PC analysts. I happened to be one of the first by default since I was covering mini-computers for Creative Strategies and was asked to cover the IBM PC introduction as … Continue reading Ballmer is Retiring. A Look Back and A Look Ahead for Microsoft
The Apology Please allow me to begin by apologizing for the saucy language you are about to encounter. There is simply no way for me to tell the following joke without cursing. I really don’t like cursing (although, I do so love using it for effect), so I’m going to employ a substitute for the … Continue reading The Microsoft Surface is (French) Toast
For the last few years, casual home speakers have seen a resurgence, proceeded by the popularity of high-end headphones used on smartphones and tablets. Sonos has run away with the wireless, multi-room consumer speaker system market, but the volume driver has been Bluetooth-based wireless speakers from brands like Bose and Jambox. Like we’ve seen in … Continue reading Korus: A Superior Multi-Room, Wireless Audio Solution
It’s easy to forget today but Microsoft got its start as a highly disruptive company. The IBM PC running Microsoft software revolutionized business computing in the 1980s, bringing down the priesthood of the mainframe. As cheap clones and better applications flooded the market, Microsoft was everywhere. In the mid-1990s, the friendlier Windows 95 and the … Continue reading A Microsoft Without Client Software: It Could Be the Future
Benchmarks are used in every market as one way to show why one company’s widget is better than another company’s widget. Whether it’s MPG on a car, energy ratings on appliances, or a Wine Spectator rating, it’s a benchmark. The high-tech industry loves benchmarks, too, and there is an industry full of companies and organizations that do … Continue reading Time To Reboot Smartphone Benchmarks
This is part two of a two-part series focusing on what’s gone wrong with Microsoft Windows. If you want to read part 1, click here. If you want to know what’s gone wrong with Microsoft Windows and what its probable future will be…well, read on…. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in … Continue reading Beating The Dead Horse That Is Microsoft Windows (Part 2)
There is an interesting shift happening in the hardware release cycle of the computing industry. When the PC was the only game in town bi-annual release schedules were the norm. Now with the increased growth in smartphone and tablets, it looks as though the industry may be shifting to a much more seasonal release schedule. … Continue reading Tablets, Seasonality, and Adoption Cycles
For a while now Wall Street backers of Apple have wanted them to create a low priced iPhone and use it to gain more marketshare. They seem to think that market share will drive up profits and expand their reach. A Tech.pinions colleague has done a great jobs dealing with the issue of marketshare vs … Continue reading Why Apple Should Not Create a Low-End iPhone
Few people enjoy beating a dead horse more than I do, but man, beating up on Microsoft Windows is simply no fun anymore…because everybody’s doing it. The defining company of the PC era — which for the purposes of this discussion we’ll consider the 25 years from 1981 to 2006 — has not articulated a … Continue reading Beating The Dead Horse That Is Microsoft Windows (Part 1)
This is an excerpt from an analysis on the strategic errors of Windows 8 and the philosophy behind the product that was written for our Tech.pinions Insiders Members. To learn more about Tech.pinions Insiders click here or to see all Insider topics and articles click here. Adopting a New Posture While I was at Microsoft’s … Continue reading To Touch or Not to Touch, That is the Question
Almost 20 years ago, when Microsoft was king, I became a full time tech writer after many years of writing about economics and politics and working as an editor. As I watch Microsft struggling to get its mojo back, especially in consumer markets, I realize that I really miss the swashbuckling Microsoft of the mid–1990s. … Continue reading When Microsoft Ruled Tech: An Elegy
On June 10, 2013, during the Apple World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote, Apple unveiled two new videos: “Intention” and “Our Signature” Two videos, but only one message. Author’s note: All of the quotes from Apple’s videos are: “in bold text”. “This is it.” In those videos, Apple revealed its mission, its purpose, its essence, … Continue reading This Is It. This Is Apple. This Is Their Design.
Each month, Ross Rubin writes for Tech.pinions on the development and evolution of technology industry standards. It is an act of short-term pessimism and long-term optimism to kill a fledgling technology and replace it with something that has a higher barrier to adoption. But that’s what happened with digital terrestrial broadcast in the U.S. With … Continue reading Terrestrial Broadcast Courts the Cable Guy
There have been a lot of industry and financial discussions lately about Dell’s privatization efforts. So far, I have stayed out of the fray, but I think it is now time for me to weigh in on what I consider a total debacle…. a total lack of understanding of strategy, the technology industry, and Dell. … Continue reading The Dell-Icahn Debacle Exemplifies what’s Wrong with Wall Street
I have had the privilege of following Dell from its inception. I became a PC industry analyst in 1981 and have tracked the PC industry from its beginning. In the process I have had the privilege of interacting with every one of the PC and CE companies at the highest levels for 32 years. Those … Continue reading Why ICAHN is a Bad Fit for Dell
I am sick to death of pundits proclaiming that Apple can no longer innovate. Apparently, the less one knows about a subject, the more strident one’s opinion on that subject becomes. Nevertheless, this nonsensical posturing has simply got to stop, for it is easier to believe a lie that you have heard a thousand times, … Continue reading Apple Can’t Innovate Anymore, My A$$
When I first saw the direction Microsoft and their partners were looking to take Windows 8, I was optimistic. Metro sounded good in concept, as did some of the features and functions built into Windows 8. But then as the time got closer, it became very clear that this version, more so than any other, … Continue reading Microsoft’s Windows 8 Blunder
We are hearing from a lot of vendors that the idea of dual booting Windows and Android is a hot topic of discussion these days. Asus and Samsung both have laptops on the market that include Windows 8 and Android and the thinking behind this is that Windows Metro apps have less than 100K in … Continue reading Android Apps on Windows PC’s via Dual Boot- Are they DOA?
Last week, I tuned into Microsoft’s Channel 9 to listen to keynotes and developer lectures for MS BUILD, Microsoft’s developer conference. BUILD attracts Microsoft devotees from its developer community for PCs, phones, servers and even XBOX. The biggest item on everyone’s mind was Windows 8.1 and how Microsoft planned to breathe developer life into the … Continue reading Windows 8.1 Does Little to Boost Holiday 2013 Sales
