Desktop Competition
The great day of the next version of the one-name-and-so-everyone-know found us far from our homeland, in a small European country with a large GDP. A cursory observation of the behavior of local consumers, talking heads from IT businesses and media propagandists, as well as comparisons with the recent past, suggest the following thoughts:
- Western consumers of hardware and software noticeably more than the Russian has broken away from the PC and is running briskly toward the Macintoshs. iPhone and Vista did their own “black” business, 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 the new and brilliant, the gadgets and services providers will rule the ball for some time, not software and heavy hardware. Yes, I know that Microsoft also has a bunch of services, but Western consumers got too much hangover from Microsoft’s latest “brilliant” promise, Vista with its glamorous interface and headache of performance and compatibility. Apple, which has always been a supplier of low-end products, turned out to be close to the mass consumer at the right time - and now with a satisfied look at the record profits.
Moreover, the announcement of MacBook, iMac and Mac Mini updates , which Apple made two days before the release of Windows 7, is a rather sassy move that can be considered an open declaration of war. Apple seems to have finally recovered after 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 of a very significant series. In the Western markets, new releases of Microsoft 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, sounds like the speech of an ancient elder, but let it) for a couple of weeks before the release of the next Microsoft novelty, no other company in their right mind would have made their announcements, since they would have been lost by the mouse with the Microsoft megaphone slots. The market froze in anticipation of the rise of a supernova, buyers lined up in a queue, journalists scribbled news flows.
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This year is different. More like the saying “the dog barks and the caravan moves on”, and the caravan here is open source developers. Mozilla quietly honors the release of Fire Fox candidates. The Fedora Project announces the release of the Fedora 12 beta , gets its first positive reviews, and Red Hat's EMEA helper on Werner Knoblich gives an interview in London, which says, for example, that the Red Hat ISV base in Europe doubled in six months. Finally, IBM and Canonical announce that they will sell the IBM Client for Smart Work package with “cloud” services - for the Americans, for starters, at the numerous requests of local partners, and then for all who wish.
Given 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 Windows inevitably means an immediate 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 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 email functionality from IBM Symphony, Lotus Notes / iNotes, Sametime and Quickr for $ 75 off the nose. Moreover, IBM is trying to remove one of the main stumbling blocks in the introduction of open source in the corporate environment - the problem of support. For an additional $ 25 c kopecks, the customer can receive annual service and support for the installed package.
It seems that the era of the monopoly on desktops really comes to an end. In any case, on fairly large land areas.
- Western consumers of hardware and software noticeably more than the Russian has broken away from the PC and is running briskly toward the Macintoshs. iPhone and Vista did their own “black” business, 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 the new and brilliant, the gadgets and services providers will rule the ball for some time, not software and heavy hardware. Yes, I know that Microsoft also has a bunch of services, but Western consumers got too much hangover from Microsoft’s latest “brilliant” promise, Vista with its glamorous interface and headache of performance and compatibility. Apple, which has always been a supplier of low-end products, turned out to be close to the mass consumer at the right time - and now with a satisfied look at the record profits.
Moreover, the announcement of MacBook, iMac and Mac Mini updates , which Apple made two days before the release of Windows 7, is a rather sassy move that can be considered an open declaration of war. Apple seems to have finally recovered after 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 of a very significant series. In the Western markets, new releases of Microsoft 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, sounds like the speech of an ancient elder, but let it) for a couple of weeks before the release of the next Microsoft novelty, no other company in their right mind would have made their announcements, since they would have been lost by the mouse with the Microsoft megaphone slots. The market froze in anticipation of the rise of a supernova, buyers lined up in a queue, journalists scribbled news flows.
')
This year is different. More like the saying “the dog barks and the caravan moves on”, and the caravan here is open source developers. Mozilla quietly honors the release of Fire Fox candidates. The Fedora Project announces the release of the Fedora 12 beta , gets its first positive reviews, and Red Hat's EMEA helper on Werner Knoblich gives an interview in London, which says, for example, that the Red Hat ISV base in Europe doubled in six months. Finally, IBM and Canonical announce that they will sell the IBM Client for Smart Work package with “cloud” services - for the Americans, for starters, at the numerous requests of local partners, and then for all who wish.
Given 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 Windows inevitably means an immediate 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 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 email functionality from IBM Symphony, Lotus Notes / iNotes, Sametime and Quickr for $ 75 off the nose. Moreover, IBM is trying to remove one of the main stumbling blocks in the introduction of open source in the corporate environment - the problem of support. For an additional $ 25 c kopecks, the customer can receive annual service and support for the installed package.
It seems that the era of the monopoly on desktops really comes to an end. In any case, on fairly large land areas.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/73165/
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