From now on will be available a new Windows, which will be free for one year for those with 7 or 8.1 versions. But new windows come in a very different for the digital industry and Microsoft moment.
If ten years ago someone had predicted that a day would give Windows, they had called crazy. Absolute queen of digital cosmos since its launch in 1981, the PC had catapulted the company co-founded by Bill Gates at number one among the most popular areas of the planet. A few years earlier, in December 1999, less than five years of apoteótico launch of Windows 95, Microsoft had reached a market capitalization of 613,000 million dollars. His former rival, IBM, worth at that time three times less. Apple is now the world’s most valuable company, had managed to win back money since 1998, after having been on the verge of bankruptcy.
Microsoft survive even catastrophic explosion of the dotcom bubble, at the beginning of the century, partly for being late to the revolution called Internet. So, in 2005 there was nothing to suspect that their power was threatened. But around the PC it was conjuring a perfect storm.
The first of the factors that would completely alter the climate of the digital industry has to do with a principle established in 1965 by Gordon Moore, one of the founders of chipmaker Intel. Moore predicted that the component density on chips would double every couple of years. Microsoft could not, therefore, ignore the fact that sooner or later the electronic brains would be sufficiently small, cheap and powerful to allow carrying a computer in your pocket. Although he had been a pioneer in the development of a (Windows Mobile, who was born in 2000 as PocketPC) mobile operating system Microsoft did not see coming change would introduce smartphones. It was, in fact, an excellent opportunity to keep that market position. Which brings us to the next factor that would shake the power of Windows.
On June 29, 2007, after months of rumors, an unusual news was confirmed. Apple, the still modest company of Cupertino, California, well known by the symbol of the apple bite and elegant and easy to use devices, threw a cell phone, the iPhone.
Apple smartphone was so disruptive that wiped out the two most iconic companies in the business (Motorola and Nokia) and imposed an idea that the two kings of the PC, Microsoft and Intel, had overlooked: a smartphone is not just a phone, it is a computer pocket. With a touch, attractive and simple interface, the iPhone allowed to read e-mail from surfing the Web. Although initially downplayed industry, soon all phones would have to resemble the iPhone.
The renewal Apple smartphone wind was accompanied by a complete turnaround in the way of marketing software. Apps were born, to be distributed free or coins would cost. In comparison, PC programs had traditionally sold several hundreds or thousands of dollars. Windows included. Not that some and others were able to do the same, but most people found the mobile application enough, especially to consume content and participate in the emerging social networks. In 2010, Steve Jobs already very ill (he would pass away on October 5, 2011) presented another hit: the iPad
still something else would happen.. In 2005 Google, which started trading on the stock market last year, took a tiny company called Android. He paid for it only $ 50 million, and thanks to this move, Google managed to make time to the business of smartphones, which now dominates with Apple.
interesting destination Vuelta, the core of Android is Linux, bringing the free software operating system came to take revenge for his failure to conquer the desktop personal computers.
While Apple and Google pointed all its resources to conquer the mobile market, Microsoft it made a fatal error: Windows Vista
This system was released on January 30, 2007-that is, five months before the iPhone- to replace the immensely popular XP.. Visually overloaded with excessive hardware requirements, Vista became the most computers on slow machines exhausting the patience. That, just as the world is preparing to welcome them to computers with less than 150 grams figuring everywhere. It could not have a more inopportune release.
Vista disaster followed one of the best products of the company, Windows 7, which currently accounted for 61% of the market for personal computers. That’s good and bad at once, because his successor, Windows 8, released in October 2012, just over 16%. The explanation for this new setback is that Microsoft won the eighth version of its windows some radical changes in how to use them, such as removing the Start Menu. For a significant number of users it was preferable not to innovate and fell in seven.
The result of this storm was that the PC is no longer the center of all our digital activities. The smartphone and tablet shown to be much more reasonable to consume content, from music to movies. And definitely it was more comfortable answering an email on the subway from a cell that with the notebook. They boosted social networks and instant messaging, Microsoft saw another business that slip slowly. Buy Skype in 2011 to try to remedy this indentation.
As a result, PC sales are seriously resented, affecting Microsoft’s finances, a painting company to acquire Nokia worsened, with the aim of gain ground in the mobile market. For now, the acquisition has failed only increase losses, which in the last quarter reached 3.2 billion.
But it’s not all bad news. The contraction of the PC business is not terminal. Or smartphones or tablets used to produce complex content (apps, text, music, 3D animations, video and professional photography) to keep alive their interest. PC and servers remain the computational engines of the industrialized world.
This is because the context in which it will be released the new Windows, and is also explains why it is free for users today have a Windows 7 or 8.1 (but Microsoft does not give away all their windows, computer manufacturers continue to be paid as provided by the operating system). The company goal is to unify not only the user experience on PCs, tablets and smartphones, but also at least partly migrate its business model towards a unified app store. One of the most significant features of today’s launch is that the system will include tools to convert iPhone and Android apps to run on Windows 10. In addition, the Start Menu returns are incorporated, finally, something that Apple virtual desktops and Linux has for some years, a new notification center, a browser Internet Explorer to retire, assistant Cortana voice and facial recognition authentication, among other features. In all, Microsoft is taking the right steps to correct past mistakes: Windows 10 has been shown quite stale even agile machines and retrieves important tools for hundreds of millions of people who use the PC to produce content. Remains to be seen if these changes come in time. Anyway, Windows 10 is the most defining bet a company that learned to master the digital world with an iron fist and still influences (much) in the way we do our daily tasks.
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