who really cares about what Microsoft says or does any more, it seems that Microsoft has slipped into irrelevance and that Google and Apple are now on everyones minds now

really who actually cares about Microsoft anymore?

Hey Microsoft. It is very clear to me that d*** Brass is right and M$ is dead now. M$ is just surviving by inertia. It is a copycat company who never invented, created any thing that could inspire other companies or shine in the market. WIndows and Office are the only stuff that is keeping the company from vanishing forever.

The executives name is d*** Brass. It is a fairly common short form of Richard.

Sure, Microsoft Office wasn't modified to work properly on our Tablet OS, but we make a first class memo application for it! See, we can think outside the box when we need to. I'll bet nobody else would have thought of doing that!

At one time the computer industry was dominated by IBM. Major competitors had names like NCR, Burroughs, Honeywell, and Univac.

Then mini-computers arrived on the scene. The leaders were DEC (Digital Equipment Corp), Data General, Prime, Wang, HP, and Sun Microsystems.

The Desktop PC took over with Microsoft leading the way. Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Acer, Toshiba, Sony, Apple, and a host of others were there. Most are still active.

The Internet, WiFi, and 3G mobility are changing everything once again. Apple has emerged from the personal computer pack to lead the charge. Google has been an overnight sensation.

Microsoft isn't dead and they're not irrelevant. They remind me of IBM -- still there and still important but no one should consider them an industry leader today.

A force quickly turning to molasses for them in this very snowy winter.

- A

I agree with Flip2428. Who would have thought the Microsoft would become the irrelevant "me too" guy behind Apple and Google?

I read both posts and it seems that Shaw makes little sense and no points at all. Xbox has always been a loss leader for M$ and the entire entertainment division is mostly a failure. M$ spend time and money promoting HD DVD format that failed and the superior HD player is a PS3. The entire world is going HD and M$ is NOT the leader for any of this.

If Shaw wants to claim One Note is so great, he might want to take a look at Evernote and what they did to want started as an "open version" of One Note!

The fact remains is the profits M$ makes today is still from the 2 same products Windows and Office and both are quite challenged to be irrelevant in the future. Neither of these products show innovation today (if they ever did). M$ has been a "me too" copy machine company for many years. Few of their "own" technologies have been that profitable. In the past they were able to PUSH their products on users, but that is going away and so will they, if they don't change radically. Start with getting rid of Ballmer!

but it is already in its death spiral. The same kind of death spiral that GM entered some 30 years ago.

It starts with market domination.

Leading to absence of meaningful competition.

Which results in self-delusion that your products are world beaters.

Causing rejection of any proposals to significantly change, improve and update your product.

Which drives away the most talented and imaginative engineers.

Who then build products that are better than yours.

Which you cannot compete against because you've lost all dynamism and competitive skills.

Which makes your company unattractive to talented, imaginative people you hope to hire.

And so finally you die when your product gets so far behind the competition and people dump it.

Ya sure the UAW had no part in GM's demise?? ;-)