PC Outlook Darkens as Sales Slump Deepens in 1Q

I had heard that win9 is going to be called windows blue, and it is moving to a subscription model like office 2013, so MS is going to need less sales to generate the same revenue. So rather than try to develop an OS that people want, they are trying to figure out how to make more money from their customers. This may also explain why dell is flirting with linux again.

Windows Blue is a fitting name. Could that be the color of the Windows faithful when they finally notice they're being scr**ed again?

@theboomboomcars.......I was under the impression that Microsoft "tried" to make Office 2013 a frozen subscription model capable of running on one and only one computer - so that if that computer died, you had to buy another copy of Office. There was so much outrage that Redmond backed off and as far as I was aware, had returned to the standard sales model with transferrable rights. I think you would also get howls of outrage if "Win9" or whatever tried the subscription model on again.

But I tend to agree with you....Microsoft is complicating its offerings so much in its threshing around to try to "scr$w" the customers for as much cash as possible out of diminishing PC sales, that a company like Dell would probably look on the simplicity of the Linux distribution model with a great deal of interest.....But it's also a matter of getting the customers to jump into the Linux pool and so far, that has been difficult to attain for the conventional desktop/laptop, even though Linux has taken the mobile/pad area by storm.

@Ridcully,

I think the point was when Microsoft did not deliver the Windows OS on time for the Intel Itanium. Linux was considered the low cost option for print and web servers by the IT industry. Only the scientific community had embraced Linux for mission critical applications.

The entire VAR and OEM channel was waiting for low cost Windows to take over the server market running on Itanium.

Linux was ready before the first Itanium shipped, but was not taken seriously by the industry. Several higher price Unix variants were ready as well. Windows was late to the party.

This drove a wedge between Intel and Microsoft which has continued to widen. Intel un-hitched its wagon from the MS horse and has charted its own path.

Many other vendors started down the road of un-hitching as well.

When a bunch of scruffy volunteer programmers showed they could do better than microsoft, the industry started looking at Linux differently.

I drew the line with the Itanium release and failure.

@Ridcully It would make sense for them to abandon that model, it would be a PR disaster, and MS doesn't need another huge blunder like that, or they do ;). My work "upgraded"to Office 2013. It is a huge memory hog, One of the spread sheets I use is really big, with Office 2010 it used 800mb of ram, now it is using 1.5gb. My work computer has 8gb of ram, when running Office 2010, I never had any memory problems, now I am ruuning out of ram frequently, and I have even run out of swap, or whatever they call it in the windows world. Nothing like having a 2nd generation i7 with 8gb of ram grind to a halt hen only using office.

@ theboomboomcars

OMG! There's actually a reason for ordinary users to want 8 GB of RAM? (Or even more than that?)

Damn! Using Linux/FOSS has really spoiled me.

(And no wonder I can get such a great deal on a very well cared-for ThinkPad, only 2 or 3 years old).

@theboomboomcars.....Y'know what ? I keep a copy of Office 2003 on my computer, running in Crossover Office....And it is there PURELY as a test bed for any document I have to send out in .doc format. I have never felt the slightest need to upgrade (or from my perception, degrade) my Office experience since I simply have little use for it. I don't send .docx material and any received documents in that rather contemptible format (Hi there ISO), can be opened in LibreOffice. I'm running on just under 4Gig of RAM and have never, never felt the need for more.

Just as a quick digression though, I am looking at purchasing a solid state hard disk drive and I am told that the speed increase is dramatic. More expensive, but an enormous increase in overall system speeds.

Hey.....while I have you to myself, Ridcully of course, comes from the irrascible Arch Chancellor of Unseen University in the Disk World series by Terry Pratchett - I like to think I am equally "curmudgeonous" - unfortunately, my daughter keeps puncturing my balloon...LOL......May I ask just where on earth did you select your pen-name from.....No offence taken if you wish to keep it to yourself....but it conjures up such incredible ideas....mostly carnival and dodgems.

Bernardswiss - I have 16GB of RAM in mine. Do I *need* that much? Probably not, but it is great being able to edit large images and videos without much disk-swapping going on.

MS: Sinking Under Its Own W8

History lesson : Empires, Tyrants, Dictators, Monopolies: No matter how high they fly, they must come down, eventually.

Or, as I like to put it:

Take-off is optional. Landing is not.

You must be a pilot Gus. To the layman, it is more know as "what goes up, must come down."

After all the flying I did while living in Silicon Valley, I figured out how to account for what is voluntary and what is not.

I only believe you did because you still posting and I don't believe in ghosts. :-)

That's fine, the ghosts still believe in you.

@ caitlyn;

I'm not disputing the presence of the protection racket. I'm disputing the fact that it can be a profitable enterprise for a Fortune 500 company to shake down the competition and not have an alternative and viable offering of their own,... Despite the M$ "tax" Android devices keep flying off the shelves. I seriously doubt that M$'s protection racket even pays for the effort... If it does, the margin is a shrinking one.

After B&N fought them (essentially to a draw), few very public disputes have come up... That should be telling ...

Ridcully, On my home laptop I am running Chakra Linux on an ssd, with 8gb, with a 4gb temp in ram. The speed is nice, when you get the chance do take the plunge for an ssd. Hold on to that 2003 for as long as you can, Office is falling down a very steep hill, getting more and more terrible with each release. I am glad I can use libre office, open office, calligra, etc at home. Unfortunately one of our execs at work is an ex-microsoftie so we buy into the MS dogma hook, line, and sinker.

My online name came from I am a car guy, I like to name my cars. In my early 20s I got a Kia Sephia commuter car, and this did not have any soul at all to pull a name from. But being like a typical American 20 something male I put a way too powerful of a stereo in it, so we called it the boom boom car. I liked it, and since I collect cars I used theboomboomcars as my screen name. I hope this doesn't ruin the great imagery you have for my name. :)

@theboomboomcars.........Oh dear. A "boyhood picture" utterly destroyed. We have a couple of similar cars in our area, and even though I am partially deaf with hearing aids 'n all that, you can still hear the "doofa, doofa, doofa..." beat about two blocks away ......well, you can in a quiet country town. However.......it's a unique and delightful pen-name and I still insist it has elements of the carnival in it. Like it or not, you'll always conjure up dodgems in my mind.

Okay......next, thankyou very, very much for your comments on the SSD. I had been told that the speed increase was considerable and that it was worth doing, even if the costs at the moment are quite a bit more than the conventional spin HDD. Also, I am very unlikely to ever dump my Office 2003. It works quite well and my need for it is minimal. It is also a conventional screen interface and that is equally important to an old crustacean such as myself.

You are welcome for my insights. You are most welcome to envision what ever happy memory you wish from my pen-name. I am glad that it brings fond memories for you.

And since "theboomboomcars" and myself have been talking about Office 2003, here is a very odd situation that developed this morning.

I received an attached Office document from a trusted source, let's call it : sample.doc

I did as I usually do, just clicked on it expecting it to open in LibreOffice, which isn't bad with Office stuff. LO told me the file was corrupted......Oh......so I then saved the file and attempted to open it with Office2003 which told me it needed a converter to do so.....And that was when the bells began to ring. I then had a look at the file with Archive and sure enough there was zipped up stuff in it and I could access that material as unformatted plain text....and that gave me the next clue......The darn thing was a .docx file and somehow the "x" had been lost. SO ....I renamed the saved file as sample.docx, and yes, it opened straight away in LO.

Anyone met that before ? The person who sent it to me uses a Mac and she openly confesses she isn't as switched on as she would like and was wondering if it might be a foible of a later version of Office running in a Mac....It's hard to see how the software would let her save as a .doc file if it was actually storing it as a .docx file. It's quite odd.

Again, if anyone else has met this situation before, I'd appreciate it as I will be seeing the lady on Saturday and she'd like an update on what's going on.