Secret Failures of Microsoft

Wednesday, Oct. 11 2006 | Author: Griffith

Brilliant and hilarious image from roughlydrafted.com

Although Microsoft is considered by many the “top dog” of the technology industries, things haven’t been so carefree for them during the past few years. Daniel Eran from roughlydrafted put together a brilliant article that takes look back to the ghost of Microsoft’s (recent) past and brings back some of their most awful memories.

Among many shameful facts, there are are some which I considered more relevant than others, but are all definitely contributing for the company’s demise:

80% of Microsoft’s Revenues come from OEM taxes, and not from any choice from the part of the consumers
In the Phones & PDAs industry Windows Mobile only compete with PALM for last and second last place, while Symbian (75% share) and Linux (14% share) outnumber them greatly
Origami (Ultra Portable) Laptops aren’t selling (just as I expected)
Microsoft’s biggest success in sales comes from the XBox which has sold less than half the number of iPods sold in the last 5 years, however, with the exception of it’s final year the XBox sales weren’t giving Microsoft profit, in fact, they lost millions of dollars.
WMA and PlaysForSure both failed. And even with the entrance of the Zune, the current share of Apple media players sold in the united stats is a little over 75%, leaving the remaining 25% to be fought over by all the other companies in the DAP market.

Who should be worried about Microsoft then? Apple? Sony and Nintendo? Sandisk, Creative & Company? Almost all of Microsoft’s latest products have hitting losing streaks for the past 5 years.

Will you be using Microsoft products if they continue to follow the current trend for the next 5 years?