Summary: Except a few core products, Microsoft loses a fortune in many fronts and chances of revival seem slim

Microsoft Jack (Jack Schofield [1, 2, 3, 4]) indicates that there may be no new Xbox after Microsoft lost many billions of dollars in this business. "No need for a new one if the old ones are stacked by the palette, unsold in the aisles of the stores suckered into ordering them," said one of our readers in an E-mail correspondence. Microsoft loves quoting US-only Xbox figures in order to pretend that it has achieved something.

Another reader of ours contradicted the many surveys in which only one country's search habits are probed (a country with less than 5% of the world's population and one where Microsoft is based). US-only surveys arrive from Microsoft partners such as Nielsen and comScore, which we wrote about in:

• comScore Crawls into Bed with Microsoft
• Microsoft Repeatedly Receives Good News from comScore after Signing Deal with comScore
• Microsoft Crowd Uses comScore Numbers to Lie Again
• Microsoft Buys More 'Analysts' to Become Marketers
• Microsoft Pays comScore More Money, Gets Bogus Endorsements
• Microsoft's Search Endeavours: Resorting to Bribery, Deception, and Intimidation
• Microsoft Search Dives 28%. Time to Call it Quits?

According to yet another set of data -- gathered not just in the United States -- Microsoft's Bong [sic] search has only about 3% of the market. Microsoft admitted or at least acknowledged this some days ago at CES.

Theres many more articles on the subject. When all this is looked at together it maybe explains why Bing is only on 3% of share, although if you consider the “extra hits” Bing would have received from the “unfortunate bug” and consider that people would probably have tried Bing out of curiosity, it makes the 3% figure it has now even more dire (IMO)

But wait, there's more.

At CES, Microsoft also verbally acknowledged the failure of Windows Mobile. Here it comes again, from IDG News Service:

Microsoft Admits to Mobile Mistakes, Remains Upbeat

This article mostly quotes Robbie Bach, a Microsoft president who is busy mocking Linux-powered phones at CES rather than focusing on his own product/s. It ought to be mentioned that Windows revenue is down 40%, so core products too are under siege while Microsoft is borrowing money. ⬆

"Client software felt the slump in PC sales, and was further harmed by the shift to netbooks; many of these run Linux, which helps Microsoft not at all."

--Ars Technica

"Microsoft, like much of the IT industry, was caught off-guard by the rapid rise of the netbook category, but moved quickly to offer a netbook-specific version of XP Home to stem the tide of Linux on netbooks. When one considers that getting some revenue is better than getting none, that was a wise move."

--CRN

"Search engines be da**ed, it's the OS that generates money - if the world switches to linux, it will switch to OpenOffice too."

--Motley Fool (heavily Microsoft influenced)

"Microsoft can't charge $80 or $100 when there's Linux for free on netbooks," Rosoff said. On regular PC sales, Microsoft's profit margins are typically about 70 percent to 80 percent, he explained."

--Microsoft Press