Well Microsoft already lost the consumer market. Apple and Android dwarf Windows market share. Microsoft is an also-ran for consumers. Where they still have some presence is corporate productivity and gaming, both of which are eroding. The future is not bright for Microsoft.
>Well Microsoft already lost the consumer market. Apple and Android dwarf Windows market share.
For phones, sure, but we're talking about PCs here. MS hasn't tried anything in the smartphone market for ages now. Android isn't a PC OS at all, and Apple's laptop and desktop computers are a tiny fraction of MS's.
>Where they still have some presence is corporate productivity and gaming, both of which are eroding.
"Some presence" is a huge understatement. The corporate world is still mostly running on Windows, unfortunately. Macs are not a serious contender here at all except maybe for some design stuff. Their domination for gaming might be eroding, but they're still highly dominant here too.
>The future is not bright for Microsoft.
Their financials look excellent right now. Of course, they're actually pretty smart, pushing into cloud services and such instead of just clinging to OS sales, so that'll probably continue.
I'd love to see everyone suddenly switch to various Linux distros and for MS to dry up overnight, but I just don't see it happening in the real world.
People have changed habits: most people do not use a PC for their everyday computing. They use a smartphone, and at a stretch, a tablet. There are a sizable number of people, not weirdos who don’t use tech but the average person who does banking and gaming and books flights and checks instagram, who has never used a desktop or laptop outside of an office. It’s all mobile devices. It’s Apple and Android.
This is apparent if you frequent social media that isn't tech focused like HN.
Spend a bunch of time on reddit and it becomes incredibly clear: The extreme majority of people on the Internet (In the USA, at least) are doing it from a phone or tablet.
