What Microsoft doesn't "get" -- PCs and post-PC devices are "different"

Microsoft - nothing like losing your core market (PCs) while foolishly chasing markets (tablets, smartphones) where you can neither be #1 nor #2 (remember what Jack Welch said while at GE--Earthgrains CEO Barry Beracha says companies should have a very good reason before abandoning the No. 1 or 2 strategy. "If you're 3 or lower, you have to have a product niche or be unique or innovative," and Microsoft isn't any of those)--

Here's why PCs and post-PC devices are different things (and why they need to stay that way) | ZDNet: " . . .The Windows 8 Project, with Windows RT, Windows 8, Metro-style/whatever-style, and Surface highlights this problem by showing what happens if you do try and combine those two worlds together. Even if that combining is done with skill and care, as I'm sure it was.) So we shouldn't combine them. PCs are great at what they do, and lousy at the other stuff. The reverse of that applies to post-PC devices too. This last point is why no one is ever suggesting that people replace PCs at work with smartphones and tablets. That makes no sense. PCs are really, insanely great at the work stuff. Post-PC devices in that context would just get in the way. How post-PC devices help with our work lives is a) complex and b) a story for another day. Keep 'em separate. And a smartphone is not a PC. And neither is your tablet. Your PC is, however, a PC."

Microsoft Corporation Is Doing Well Where It Counts, Poorly Everywhere Else: "To put it simply, what's good for the Business and Server divisions is good for Microsoft. Windows RT and Phone are unlikely to provide either division with much follow-on business - and that makes them distractions. Windows 8 and Surface are intended to ensure Microsoft's presence in the workplace, where its productivity software is legion - and that makes them important. There may be good reasons to fight over the consumer device market, but Microsoft's future is in the office, where it can offer a combination of mobility and functionality that post-PC devices can't match. So far, enterprise adoption of Windows 8 has been slow - very slow - compared to Windows 7, but we need to keep in mind that it's really competing with iOS and Android. "

GTV Hacker » Blog Archive » Chromecast: Exploiting the Newest Device By Google.: "Is it really ChromeOS?No, it’s not. We had a lot of internal discussion on this, and have concluded that it’s more Android than ChromeOS. To be specific, it’s actually a modified Google TV release, but with all of the Bionic / Dalvik stripped out and replaced with a single binary for Chromecast. Since the Marvell DE3005 SOC running this is a single core variant of the 88DE3100, most of the Google TV code was reused. So, although it’s not going to let you install an APK or anything, its origins: the bootloader, kernel, init scripts, binaries, are all from the Google TV . . . ." (read more at link above)

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