they do OK but services side including AI make way more…
1/3 of its Windows customers, not of all of its customers. I bet they still make plenty of money with Azure and Office 365.
3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 3 weeks ago
FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They pay for that AI from Open AI though. It’s not pure profit for them.
henfredemars@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Precisely. Windows is a side project for Microsoft now.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Especially since the majority of computer users worldwide now no longer use a PC to do their computing. The average consumer now uses Windows only at work. Their personal device, whatever it is, runs Android or is some manner of iDevice, two platforms which have thoroughly eaten Microsoft’s lunch.
It’s too bad for Microsoft that their mobile platform – Windows Mobile, er, I mean Windows 8 RT, er, actually it was Pocket PC, um, no wait, it was Windows CE, et. cetera – all bombed so spectacularly, and the most recent one mere moments before Google took over the world.
I imagine Microsoft is no longer eyeing private users as a cash cow except purely as advertising targets.
It’s only a matter of time before some brilliant dipshit over there manages to envision Windows as a subscription service aimed solely at businesses, and the days of Windows as a standalone OS will be over.
henfredemars@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
I could imagine a future where Microsoft is just a proprietary DE over a Linux system. I don’t think it’s coming anytime soon because of the development cost it would impose, but I don’t see why they would go to such efforts maintaining a system they could get for free if the desktop user base keeps shrinking. They’re just too greedy not to do that. Even the backwards compatibility with Windows software is becoming a solved problem.
Aside from my above rant, the PC is definitely fast becoming an enthusiast/business platform.
ragepaw@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
MS did a shift like that already. The shift from MS-DOS to NT was transparent to the vast majority of people to the point that most people didn’t realize they were two different OSes.
I don’t see why they couldn’t do it again. NTVDM was similar in concept to what wine does. Imagine if MS actively contributed to wine, or a wine like project.
TimLovesTech@badatbeing.social 3 weeks ago
Well a bunch of them are using WSL to do their work, which isn’t the same, but shows how many people are just stuck with a Windows.
In StackOverflow 2024 survey ~17% of both professional and personal use users were using WSL.
Source: StackOverflow 2024 Survey
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Microsoft could become a cloud computing platform, and the machine itself would act as a Terminal.
curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I think at least one M365 plan includes a windows license now.
ray1992xd@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Yes, I don’t like Windows one bit anymore but back then, Windows Mobile was very solid! I loved my Lumia phones
grue@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Unless there’s a miracle, it would be:
4 consumer are relegated to DRM’d-to-Hell-and-back smartphones
3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com 3 weeks ago
Been saying exactly that for years but it hasn’t happened yet… It will when the last people (like my age) want to use Windows at home, but by then Macs will have gone as well because the pc as we know it will be finished. I can see pcs as such being gone in say 10 years and it will all be mobile devices as such, and I include laptops in that. Wifey has just lost the last installed program needed for her work from home. All web/connected apps to work from now, and when they go down the whole company stops work(ing). Lost 3 whole days this year so far as the whole company couldn’t function for various reasons
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
i was a MS employee once. Windows hasn’t been their focus since Windows XP. Once they discovered the profit margins of Office 98… Windows was just a way to keep you using Office
henfredemars@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
This makes sense. I have a friend from way back in HS who interned there while he was working on his degree who said that cloud services was the priority at the time, and Windows was more just a vehicle that they continued to maintain. That continues to be the approximate temperature of the product and is in line with my expectations.