October 23, 2009 at 11:26Desktop competition
The great day of the release of the next version of whose-name-and-so-all-know found us far from home, in a small European country with large GDP. Cursory observations of the behavior of local consumers, talking heads from the IT business and media propagandists, as well as comparisons with the recent past, suggest the following thoughts:
- The Western consumer of iron and software noticeably more than the Russian one has come off the PC and briskly runs towards the Macintosh. iPhone and Vista did their dirty work, each in its own way. In the current IT market, where corporate budgets have shrunk, and the end user, although impoverished, is still reaching for a new and brilliant one, the gadget and service providers, rather than software and heavy hardware, will rule the ball for some time. Yes, I am aware that Microsoft also has a lot of services, but the Western consumer got too much hangover from the last “brilliant” promise of Microsoft, Vista with its glamorous interface and a headache of performance and compatibility. Apple, which has always been a supplier of narrow-key products, has been close to the mass consumer at the right time - and now reports record profits with a pleased look.
Moreover, the announcement of updates to the MacBook, iMac and Mac Mini , which Apple did two days before the release of Windows 7, is a pretty cheeky act that can be considered an open declaration of war. Apple seems to have finally recovered from a series of unsuccessful CEOs and seriously decided to eat a large chunk of the mass segment of desktop and mobile systems. In Russia, this is not so noticeable only because of the sluggish work of domestic representatives of the company.
- Announcement of new Apple - only one episode from a very significant series. In Western markets, new Microsoft releases no longer fill the entire media space (and, therefore, consumer consciousness). This is very noticeable in the marketing preparation of releases. In previous years (hmm, it sounds like the speech of an ancient elder, but let it) a couple of weeks before the release of the next Microsoft new product, no other company in their right mind would make their announcements, since they would be lost with a mouse squeak under the megaphone speeches of Microsoft. The market froze in anticipation of the rise of the supernova, buyers lined up in a queue, journalists scribbled news streams.
This year, everything is different. It’s more like the saying “the dog barks, but the caravan goes on”, and open source developers are the caravan here. Mozilla calmly finishes Fire Fox release candidates. The Fedora Project announces the release of the Fedora 12 beta , receives first positive reviews, and EMEA Red Hat helmsman Werner Knoblich gives an interview in London in which he says, for example, Red Hat’s ISV base in Europe doubled in half a year. Finally, IBM and Canonical are announcing that they will be selling the IBM Client for Smart Work package with “cloud” services - first for the Americans, at the request of many local partners, and then to everyone who wishes.
Considering that the package is focused on low-end PCs and netbooks and will be sold at ridiculous prices (at least for the IBM level), this is a serious competitive bid. The release of the new version of Windows inevitably means the imminent need for an upgrade for most corporate customers, and in a recession they will have to think several times whether it is right to pay $ 115 per user only for Windows 7 Professional Upgrade, without taking into account office updates and only within Promotions. Or it makes sense, for example, to transfer part of the stations to Ubuntu 9.10, which is included in the new package, and get full office and mail functionality from IBM Symphony, Lotus Notes / iNotes, Sametime and Quickr for $ 75 from the nose. Moreover, IBM is trying to remove one of the main stumbling blocks in the implementation of open source in a corporate environment - the support problem. For an additional $ 25 with copecks, the customer can receive annual maintenance and support of the installed package.
It seems that the desktop monopoly era is really coming to an end. In any case, on fairly large tracts of land.
- The Western consumer of iron and software noticeably more than the Russian one has come off the PC and briskly runs towards the Macintosh. iPhone and Vista did their dirty work, each in its own way. In the current IT market, where corporate budgets have shrunk, and the end user, although impoverished, is still reaching for a new and brilliant one, the gadget and service providers, rather than software and heavy hardware, will rule the ball for some time. Yes, I am aware that Microsoft also has a lot of services, but the Western consumer got too much hangover from the last “brilliant” promise of Microsoft, Vista with its glamorous interface and a headache of performance and compatibility. Apple, which has always been a supplier of narrow-key products, has been close to the mass consumer at the right time - and now reports record profits with a pleased look.
Moreover, the announcement of updates to the MacBook, iMac and Mac Mini , which Apple did two days before the release of Windows 7, is a pretty cheeky act that can be considered an open declaration of war. Apple seems to have finally recovered from a series of unsuccessful CEOs and seriously decided to eat a large chunk of the mass segment of desktop and mobile systems. In Russia, this is not so noticeable only because of the sluggish work of domestic representatives of the company.
- Announcement of new Apple - only one episode from a very significant series. In Western markets, new Microsoft releases no longer fill the entire media space (and, therefore, consumer consciousness). This is very noticeable in the marketing preparation of releases. In previous years (hmm, it sounds like the speech of an ancient elder, but let it) a couple of weeks before the release of the next Microsoft new product, no other company in their right mind would make their announcements, since they would be lost with a mouse squeak under the megaphone speeches of Microsoft. The market froze in anticipation of the rise of the supernova, buyers lined up in a queue, journalists scribbled news streams.
This year, everything is different. It’s more like the saying “the dog barks, but the caravan goes on”, and open source developers are the caravan here. Mozilla calmly finishes Fire Fox release candidates. The Fedora Project announces the release of the Fedora 12 beta , receives first positive reviews, and EMEA Red Hat helmsman Werner Knoblich gives an interview in London in which he says, for example, Red Hat’s ISV base in Europe doubled in half a year. Finally, IBM and Canonical are announcing that they will be selling the IBM Client for Smart Work package with “cloud” services - first for the Americans, at the request of many local partners, and then to everyone who wishes.
Considering that the package is focused on low-end PCs and netbooks and will be sold at ridiculous prices (at least for the IBM level), this is a serious competitive bid. The release of the new version of Windows inevitably means the imminent need for an upgrade for most corporate customers, and in a recession they will have to think several times whether it is right to pay $ 115 per user only for Windows 7 Professional Upgrade, without taking into account office updates and only within Promotions. Or it makes sense, for example, to transfer part of the stations to Ubuntu 9.10, which is included in the new package, and get full office and mail functionality from IBM Symphony, Lotus Notes / iNotes, Sametime and Quickr for $ 75 from the nose. Moreover, IBM is trying to remove one of the main stumbling blocks in the implementation of open source in a corporate environment - the support problem. For an additional $ 25 with copecks, the customer can receive annual maintenance and support of the installed package.
It seems that the desktop monopoly era is really coming to an end. In any case, on fairly large tracts of land.