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Captain_Tom on 30 July 2013
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Soleron said:
Jereel Hunter said:
...

Microsoft is in the background the way the government is in the background. They aren't losing power or viability, and you rely on them more than you may realize.

How would MS become irrelevant? Odds are you're on a MS OS. Your company probably runs primarily off of MS software. The most popular console in the US is a MS one. and MS has the most advanced/impressive cloud solutions positioning them well for the future. If you think MS is becoming irrelevant, you're probably not in touch with the world.

The desktop PC itself is becoming less of a necessity at home, except for power users/gamers which are actually quite small of a market. Most people could get on fine with just a dockable tablet running Android or iOS. Perhaps one laptop per household, but everyone having their own non-MS tablet and phone. I certainly see that happening soon.

My computer has no MS software on it except for Windows (and I do have Linux installed), because there are good alternatives to all consumer things they do now.

I see "the cloud" as something MS is a decent competitor in, but is not dominating anything close to it's used to.

And the Xbox is only strong in the US. They're not even bothering to launch Xbone in Japan till late next year. And in Europe it's an even choice between the two most probably.

They are losing the power to say, "this is how things are going to be, take it or leave it" like they could 1995-2005ish. With web standards, with software choices, with hardware choices, and so on.

This basically sums it up.  They aren't the only option now, and the other options just keep getting better.  Thus MS better tread carefully...