Microsoft - Whats happening!!!

I am a sincere Microsoft OS user for the past 10 years. But not because I am biased. Because it was the most readily available OS for me. Apple has definitely made an excellent effort in increasing their market share in this field, but yet like many other users, I have never tried using a Mac. Maybe, because I'm lazy or just so used to the Microsoft OS or maybe since it works pretty well for me, I have never tried to use any other operating systems. Customers who are not that tech-savvy, may be a little adverse to change, but nowadays there are a lot of new developments in the industry around. (Ex: Mobile computing, Online services)

Lets see from which products Microsoft makes most of its money...

Though the graph talks about 2008 revenues, it still gives us good picture of how Microsoft makes money. Most of its revenues come from the client operating systems and Microsoft office products. Microsoft did not make money (all these years during its growth period) just by selling those products, but by selling different versions of those products. Whenever, a new operating system version was introduced, everyone had to upgrade to the new OS to get support services from Microsoft. The same rule was followed for Microsoft Office. The result was, users had to buy new software regularly and Microsoft made huge profits by selling the same products with a few improvements. Also apart from end user customers, Microsoft continued its dominance by partnering with the hardware firms who were one of its major customers. (Few new operating systems were not compatible with the old hardware, and end-users had to buy new computers.)

In Oct 2009, Microsoft Windows had approximately 91% market share for the client operating systems. Can Microsoft continue its market share? Microsoft grew exponentially till now, but I believe it has reached a position where exponential growth is not easier anymore. With tough competition from Apple, the time has come when Microsoft can compete and keep its market share only by innovating. Otherwise, though Microsoft will enjoy a higher market share in the next few years, it may steadily lose customers to Apple.

Also, we can see from the graph that Microsoft is not very strong in its online services. Though, Microsoft recently introduced many products to compete with the online giant Google, its services are still not very popular.  Also, with mobile computing becoming more and more popular, the number of client OS customers can reduce leading to the decline of Microsoft revenue.

In conclusion, Microsoft is not in an immediate danger in the next few years but it has to innovate in order to maintain its dominance.