Bonum Certa Men Certa

Ray Ozzie's Departure Possibly Related to Decline of PCs and Microsoft's Inability to Adapt to Mobility

Busted screen



Summary: How Microsoft grows irrelevant and Apple grows more dangerous to software freedom as the world moves towards devices

THE news about Ray Ozzie's departure [1, 2] was not surprising (we predicted it months ago) but it was massive. He was seen by some people as Steve Ballmer's heir, to to speak, his likely successor at Microsoft. Little was said by Ozzie himself about his departure, but we now have his 'goodbye Microsoft' letter and a 'doomsday' memo which IDG says "warns Microsoft of post-PC days":



Departing Microsoft executive Ray Ozzie's just-published memo is a "doomsday-ish" missive that calls on the company to push further into the cloud or perish, an industry analyst said today.


Microsoft is facing intense competition from Linux (not a company) and from Apple, amongst other companies.

“In years to come it is possible that Apple will be a greater threat to Linux than Microsoft is.”As we showed earlier this month, Microsoft hardly appears in the media compared to some other companies, mostly ones whose infrastructure is GNU/Linux based. A decade ago Bill Gates said: "Our most potent Operating System competitor is Linux and the phenomena around Open Source and free software."

He was right. His words were sent to colleagues only (at least at the time), not the press.

In years to come it is possible that Apple will be a greater threat to Linux than Microsoft is. When it comes to handhelds and other devices, for example, Apple is already more scary than Microsoft, based on this news:

Nintendo More Scared of Apple Than of Microsoft



Which company is the greater threat to Nintendo’s gaming business–Apple or Microsoft? According to Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, it’s Apple–at least in the short term. “Do I think that in the near term [Apple] can hurt us more than Microsoft?” Fils-Aime said to Forbes. “Absolutely.”

And it appears Apple already is. According to some statistics trotted out at its annual September music event, Apple’s developed quite a hold on the portable gaming market. The company claims a 50 percent share of the portable gaming market and says the iPod touch is the No. 1 mobile gaming device worldwide, outselling the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP combined. And that hold will only strengthen with the recent launch of Apple’s Game Center–a new interactive gaming service included in iPhone OS 4–and the proliferation of cheap and increasingly more sophisticated games for the platform (seen Epic Citadel, yet?).


Apple -- like Microsoft -- is already suing Linux/Android and it is piling up software patents. It is also possible that Apple and Microsoft coordinate these actions, but that's mere speculation without evidence. Here is one of Apple's latest patents:

A reissued patent for Apple (AAPL), just made public today, covers a way of employing profiles of users’ interests to help rank the relevance of search results. The language of the claims is broad enough in scope as to potentially cover what such companies as Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), and even Facebook do. If unchallenged, it could provide Apple with a significant bargaining chip in business negotiations with many other companies.


Apple is a patent aggressor. There is no reason to just label the above "permanently defensive".

One might say that Apple earned a place at the table because its products are great, but we at Techrights believe a major part of it is just marketing and appeal to the niche of people with a lot of money to spare. Technically, Apple continues to be a disaster sometimes, with basic bugs like this new one:

iPhone 4 lock screen bypass discovered



A security flaw has been found in Apple's latest iPhone which allows strangers to bypass the handset's passcode-protected lock screen with a few button presses.

Most users set up a password to prevent others from accessing the phone's contents, but a Brazilian man posted a video of himself on the internet showing a quick way of getting around it. He taps the "emergency call" button, then enters three # signs, taps the green call button and immediately presses the button on the top of the phone that locks the screen.


Well, it's apparently so "easy to use" that anyone can use it, even an intruder. There is a good reason why many experts rank Linux higher than Apple for security. In any event, despite huge investments in marketing, Microsoft remains irrelevant in this space.

"I'd put the Linux phenomenon really as threat No. 1."

--Steve Ballmer, 2001



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
 
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025