Microsoft exec admits new reality: Market share no longer 90%, it's 14

This looks like scary news. Does Microsoft need to reinvent itself?

Microsoft to lay off 18,000 workers - National | Globalnews.ca

That's quite a large number, weren't early "guestimates" more around 5000~6000 or thereabouts? Sad day for the folks that will be getting axed. :\

Layback Bear said:

eatup when you hook up all this stuff to a tablet so it works like a PC desktop and does your video editing, CAD, games and other desktop things; how are you going to cool the tablet.
These types of work create a lot of heat that needs to be dissipated. Your going to need thermo heat resistant gloves to use the keyboard.
Hopefully the tablet will BSOD before it lets the smoke out.

Nobody reads the news anymore? Broadwell tablet CPU's will already be fanless. When Skylake tablet CPUs get released, they will be almost as good as today's Haswell desktop CPUs + also fanless. I shudder to think how much more powerful tablet hardware will become a decade from now.

Microsoft is trying to position itself now for when tablets will completely replace desktops/laptops...

King Arthur said:

eatup said:

That's why you dock the tablet to a large screen monitor and keyboard and do your CAD or video editing or watch your digital video download as you would on a desktop.

From a business perspective, there are tons of security nightmares from allowing employees to have the power to conveniently disconnect their workstations and take them anywhere (or the vice versa: doing work on personal devices). We already have enough security break-ins from USB sticks and network connectivity; any business that wants to keep their data secured simply will not buy into tablets no matter how powerful they are.

eatup said:

Look, nobody's gonna buy desktops in the future when tablets will be just as powerful when docked, plus undock your tablet and you have a mobile computer in a few seconds! The difference between a laptop and a docked tablet is, the tablet is like the Batmobile --- it can shed the unneeded parts to form a Batcycle!

And a tablet will also have terrible performance compared to desktops due to simply inferior cooling. You make it sound easy, that the problem is easily answered by simply throwing in a more powerful CPU, well it's not that simple.

The primary reason why professionals and enthusiasts like gamers want desktops, besides the large monitor and proper keyboard+mouse, is that desktops and their form factors allow for better cooling and consequently higher performance. You require lots of space for cooling mechanisms and more performance means more heat that needs to be dealt with, one way laptops and tablets have dealt with that heat is by lowering performance (anyone remember netbooks?), which is something that enthusists and professionals who demand a lot from their computers (gaming, CAD, video editting, etc.) simply cannot tolerate.

Let's also not forget that tablets are terrible to service, if not impossible. Desktops (and to a lesser extent some laptops) are easy to service if something inside them breaks down or needs to be upgraded. With tablets, if something inside it dies you're going to replace the entire thing.

Inferior cooling? Theyre already going to release CPUs that won't need a fan on top of it to keep it cool soon... Just wait a few more years, integrated graphics will become so much more powerful and run much cooler that you won't realize notice a benefit in discreet graphics. That'll be the day gamers run Unreal Engine VI on their large screen monitor powered by a tiny tablet!

eatup said:

bberkey1 said:

hirobo2 said:

I predict tablets (with docking stations) will replace PCs come Skylake CPUs. These little portable devices will be capable of decent gaming, CAD, 3D rendering to make Pixar movies, you name it. Microsoft sees this coming. If I was them, I'd do the same. Desktops/laptops will soon become extinct. Once again, you will have a small tablet with Skylake that can transform into a laptop or desktop if need be... Computers will just get smaller and smaller (the first computer was the size of a room). The size of the mini-tower desktops we have now will seem like dinosaurs to folks a few decades later!

Heck, I predict 50 years from now, tablets will die off too, to be replaced by computers the size of... You'll have a smart watch that can stream contents to a monitor. No need for clunky tablet-sized displays when the watch can also project a hologram with you interacting with the projected image via what we already currently have: 3D touch!

Include a blue tooth keyboard and you effectively have a desktop --- one that you can wear!

Makes sense as technology is always advancing (cds from cassettes and 45's) and I foresee tablets or even smarter smart phones taking over most general usage, but when I watch a movie or play a game, it certainly will not be on a screen the size of a comic book. Not too mention that even if they make the CPUs more powerful, I still would not want to to CAD work or video editing on a screen of that size. If they make tablets any larger than they are today, then to me that's just a thinner laptop so we're back to square one, not too mention most games I play require a mouse, as do CAD/design/editing, so if I have to plug in a mouse and a keyboard to a docking station, I'm pretty sure I have a laptop once again.

Until touch can be effectively configured for all uses, there will always be a need for PCs and laptops, but they will eventually fade away, just not as fast as people think.

That's why you dock the tablet to a large screen monitor and keyboard and do your CAD or video editing or watch your digital video download as you would on a desktop. Look, nobody's gonna buy desktops in the future when tablets will be just as powerful when docked, plus undock your tablet and you have a mobile computer in a few seconds! The difference between a laptop and a docked tablet is, the tablet is like the Batmobile --- it can shed the unneeded parts to form a Batcycle!

Microsoft is actually *smarter* than Apple. Apple, you either have a desktop or mobile, but not both.

The future is about a hybrid operating system. People are not going to have their tablet docked 100% of the time, nor use it on the go 100% of the time, which is where hybrid OSes will come in handy!

I can't really say that Windows 8 is a true hybrid OS --- a true hybrid OS will transform seemlessly from desktop mode to mobile mode. For a true hybrid OS, in desktop mode, you won't even get a hint that the mobile mode exists and vice versa! It's like when Clark Kent is Clark Kent, he can't have part of Superman on display. He's either Supes or Clark, but not both at the same time, which is what Windows 8 tries to be!

If my tablet has to relay on other equipment like a docking station with a mouse and larger screen, than that means my tablet cannot do the job I need it to do, without more equipment if what you are saying is accurate. So I would still have to buy all the other "desktop" components to make my tablet perform up to the performance of a desktop. If I'm at the house and need to do some CAD work and I couldn't do it unless I went somewhere that had a docking station, that means the tablet is just a tablet until you attached it to other equipment to transform it into a essentially a desktop, so again the tablet can do it's job up to a point, but needs to relay on more equipment to make it "powerful" enough to do a desktops or even a laptops job.

I think JIMBO hit it on the head about the 100% desktop users may not realize how much mobile computing there is, but on the flip side, people who have never really needed to use a desktop for actual desktop jobs (extreme gaming/CAD/video editing) love tablets (which I do for quick use as well) so the tablet can replicate everything they used their big clunky PC used to do. If you just browse the internet, play an occasional game an do work that only requires 2GB of RAM at most, you've never really had to use a desktop in the way people here describe, so they don't understand the argument of "getting away from the PC"

If a tablet can do everything my desktop does it would be something that I would be interested in. The thing I'm not interested in is small keyboards, mice and screens. If I could hook up my keyboard, mouse and 24" monitor when at home then what's the difference? I'd have a single device that can replace my laptop, desktop, GPS, phone and who knows what else. What really gives me pause is the cost and reliability. You aren't going to able to repair these tiny machines as easily as a desktop and the cost is pretty outrageous for what you get.

Adding the things to make it a desktop does not concern me. I had to add them to my tower to make it work as a desktop otherwise it would have been a door stop with lights.

At my age I'm thinking that there is one more desktop in my future. This computer would go to my wife to replace the 13 year old XP machine. I doubt seriously it will be a mini does it all tablet as they have just not come to a point that a desktop can be replaced by one, maybe there is one that can but I certainly can't afford it.