Microsoft is history

Innocence is a rare dish these days.

Revenge is the order of the era that sweets [or consumes] over each other.

All that energy, spent, who wins?

Gates was a geek. Ballmer is a suit. Once Gates was gone Ballmer again and again demonstrated poor strategic planning. Ballmer should never have been more than a 2ic; he's good tactically (Ask him to squeeze costs or run a division - he'll do it well) but to plan grand strategy is beyond him. He has no real understanding of computers or the geeks that love them (This is why he thought we'd still buy a gutted Vista if he made it look pretty with Aero.)

Until Ballmer goes microsoft will continue to founder until it eventually withers away.

But until something really new and improving comes around it'll be the last standing remnant in a row of once innovative software companies.

Undoubtedly M$ will go the way of IBM and, if anyone remembers nor cares, all the rest of the non-productive Northern America continental shelf. Only banks will remain. When GM can go, M$ can go too; unless ballmer shuffles his cards and becomes a bank CEO overnight.

M$ the hedgefund, somehow it clicks.

Good idea- Bill Gates retires.

Bad Idea- Replace him with a "Suit".

The only way to make the company and it's products work is to have a geek at the helm. That is how Microsoft was built. Having a suit run the company has been a bad idea from Day one. Heck, promoting a suit from within the company to that high a level was a bad idea. Replace Balmer with a geek.

I can't really see a time when ms aren't the dominant player to be honest, steve balmer on the other hand is and idiot and clearly unstable, he should deffo get fired.

Starting W/ Kit Tug Boat & 1940's Tube duo channel transmitter, add servos & Your On Popular Mechanics. Today Microsoft Came From Similar Build Up. Toy Processors for $3K. Often Thrown Out by Box Load, Then.Yet time came when People could get Programable Machine, Wow So Much Is Held Back Upon Demonstration, Their Not Army, their Ner 'd Wells in Science, Everywhere. O/S 2, Great, except press corecctly stated, Bring Your Own Technician. IBM/Unix Shows Bit of Strutt, it did work. Dial Up Could Kill Any Co, Even Microsoft.

By Now, microsoft Needs Less Glitter & More, Its same as it ever was, even testers lose intrest. Migrate Technology where Have NO Choice, Inside Telcom Equipment, tv, phones & ALL Electronic gadgets, TriPhone+1. STeWie drashek

so, the linux boys have some wishful thinking but they can't manage to make a usable OS. I've tried the latest UBUNTU and while it's very cute , it's almost useless. It won't recognize my hauppauge Tv tuner and if i try to watch TV with ubuntu, it MIGHT work after a couple of days of researching and working hard on the "problem". I've downloaded the "driver" but then what do i do with it... a 2 days course on how to compile? give me a break.

If it wasn't for open office and firefox , Ubuntu would be really useless.

M$ ? What's M$? It's MS, it's an 'S' in Microso... Oh I get it, you were trying to be clever using an overused and out of date cliche. Used it 3 times too. Wow.

MS have reached market saturation in most places now and need to break into the developing markets to keep growth going - also don't forget that we are in the middle of a recession. Of course things will drop a bit but once Windows 7 arrives things should pick up.

I also agree with Johnno above, enough with the idiotic use of 'M$', that doesn't make you cool, it just makes you a Gimp magnet.

Some are claiming a geek should run MS, and not a suit. But if you look at Apple, it too is being run by a suit. Steve Jobs is a suit, Steve Wozniak was the geek. According to Apple's model, a suit can run a business. Maybe it's just that Ballmer isn't a very good CEO?

Their here to stay, I'm sorry to tell it to some of you. But their going to continue to hold the largest market share for years to come. Macintosh will never overtake windows, linux if anything will. But it takes time, I'd give linux 15-20 years to overtake Microsoft. Linux is a great stable operating system, the problem is people adopting it for business use. Once, they adopt linux for business use then its officially over. (When I mean for business use, I am not talking about servers. I am referring to the end users)

Steven Vaughan-Nichols has about as much objectivity on the subject as Steve Ballmer. He's probably one of the lunatics who believes in the mythical "year of Linux."

The guy has a hyphenated name, and that immediately calls him into question.

But in reality, there might be some truth to what he says. Despite what I used to think, some of the linux releases are starting to grow up and are becoming usable. Ballmer is a lunatic, and the few times I've met him, I was more scared for my health and well being. He is not good for Microsoft, regardless of what you think of the company.

The guy has become a buffoon that no one cares about anymore. He does need to go

We're going to need fire extinguishers and flame retardant clothing if that post is any indication of the level of intelligent debate Microsoft-bashers are going to use.

Whilst it's true that Microsoft needs to keep adapting to the changing times, Linux will not realistically take any sizeable portion of that until they shed their elitist views on how an OS should work. The command line should not be required just to install a bloody program or driver! The command line is a last resort when you haven't got a GUI to do it faster or for obscure utilities, nothing else.

If anyone could potentially make ground here, it'll be Apple, but not until they reduce their prices and/or open up OSX to the market at large. No matter what reasons given for Apple not to do this, Apple would end up with a far larger market share and Microsoft would have a real competitor on its hands for the first time in a long while.

Personally I am -- and a lot of other users are -- greatly looking forward to Windows 7. Given what we've seen so far, this is going to build on Vista's good points whilst mitigating the negatives many users feel with it. I have no desire to stop using Windows or to move to Linux.

I'd say to that guy to stick to his day job, but he's clearly bad at that.

if microsoft was gone we would be technologically thrown back into 1950 with NO WORKING COMPUTERS

do you want that to happen? linux is incapable of even doing what windows 95 can do so without windows were in the stone age because linux is useless and does not work

MacroDrashek: ????

Why is it that every time I read comments on this page there are random posts that don't seem to make a bit of sense?

Microsoft was profitable when computer were expensive and operating system cheap compare to hardware. Now computer are dirt cheap and operating system very expensive when compared with the same hardware.
Microsoft needs a new strategy, a new boss and a cheap and good operating system.

As a consumer, there is no real reason to use the likes of Windows. You can game on the xbox ps3/Wii, you can surf the web, skype and write emails on your Iphone/Blackberry.

Business users the only ones who see real benefit, due to Windows Centric business apps.

"The guy has become a buffoon that no one cares about anymore. He does need to go"

Has become? He has always been a psychopathic buffoon. The sad part is that he will likely be replace by another psychopathic buffoon.

The people who say that Microsoft's problems really started when Gates left and Ballmer took over have rather short memories.

Gates was Chief Software Architect (a position he created for himself) from 2000 to mid-2008, when he left. This encompasses the entire development period for Vista, which is without doubt the biggest disaster in the company's history. As CSA, Gates "the geek", not Ballmer "the suit" has to take full responsibility.

Isn't Dell said similar thing about Apple and Steve J? Never under mind the one with billion dollar war chest. Cash is not king, but at least it is the queen that red haters can't catch them easily. No body knows the future. stop put your foot in to the mouth, the queen might show up...

Yep, got to watch out for those exploding minds; tend to get blood and gray matter all over the place.

Of course we don't know exactly where it is so you might get kidney fodder.

Oh well, next time one explodes we'll see huh?

Another Tuxvangelist who is beating the Drum Of Doom for Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Vista has been failing tremendously for nigh on three years now, and Linux hasn't made any significant headway into the market.
Microsoft will probably die at some point, I think that will indeed happen. And you know what ? Linux is not going to reap the rewards of the juggernauts' demise.
It'll most probably be Apple. Because Apple's OS is infinitely more useable than Linux and always will be. Because Apple has to sell, whereas Linux, under the guise of being free, is basically the ivory tower of those who deem the basic user to be "beneath" the OS.
That from a die-hard XP SP2 user. I never thought I would say that, but there it is.

Microsoft isn't just suffering from the recession, they really screwed up! IE7 was a failure, Vista was a failure, IE8 can't touch Firefox at all. Firefox 3 has become #1 browser in Europe last week! Microsoft is really struggling in too many places. They should concentrate on their client OS, release a free version and stop trying to be relevant in areas where they will never win, like web search, mobile, embedded and server markets. Linux has won those already. Game over Steve Ballmer!

I have migrated from Windows to Linux. It's exciting. All those Apps! Really cool! And it's legal!

ERm... for u Apple fans....
MAC OSX runs on FreeBSD...
so no pointing to Linux/Unix for being elitist...
And yes... M$ has made errors, and good things as with Linux/Unix and Apple.

So It's just what u like or being used to use.

M$ = Microsoft
MS = Mark Shuttleworth

Obviously you are not a gamer either, or you would know that playing games on PC is much more enjoyable than playing on a console. A keyboard and mouse, for starters, make FPS games much easier. What about all those joysticks a bazillion buttons and throttle controls? That's right - PC gaming. Gamepad controllers? Yep, you can get them for PC as well. Not to mention the ability to run two or more high end video cards in SLI and the ability to achieve smooth framerates at insanely high resolutions.

The only benefit consoles hold over PCs is the ease of playing with more than one person in the same room simultaneously, but hey, there's always LAN and Internet gaming...