Microsoft Signals the Return of "Expensive Hardware, Cheap Software"
The announcement that Steve Ballmer will step down from Microsoft within the next 12 months and just weeks after kicking off a vast re-org focused on mobile devices can only mean that the future is coming much faster than Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer had ever expected and that without a radical adoption of hardware everywhere, it will leave the company without an existence (sans PC legacy) anywhere. The illness that effects Microsoft and Intel is a back to the future moment as the 30 year PC ecosystem dominance of Wintel will in the years to come likely be viewed as a radical departure from the traditional requirement that hardware and software co-existance is necessary in order to truly dominate. Thus the model of the IBM mainframe, the early Apple Mac and now the iphone/iOS platform shows that one ecosystem eventually dominates every generation, thus garnering more than 60% of the profits. We are way past the tipping point and Microsoft lacks ownership of hardware to drive its way forward. Be prepared for acquisitions such as Nokia as they prepare for a comeback.
To read the full article, click here
Related Semiconductor IP
- UCIe Chiplet PHY & Controller
- MIPI D-PHY1.2 CSI/DSI TX and RX
- Low-Power ISP
- eMMC/SD/SDIO Combo IP
- DP/eDP
Related Blogs
- Software is from Mars, hardware is from Pluto
- Business Models: EDA Is Software But It Used To Be Sold As Hardware
- IoT Changes Hardware Companies into Software Companies
- Software engineers can debug hardware too!
Latest Blogs
- Cadence Unveils the Industry’s First eUSB2V2 IP Solutions
- Half of the Compute Shipped to Top Hyperscalers in 2025 will be Arm-based
- Industry's First Verification IP for Display Port Automotive Extensions (DP AE)
- IMG DXT GPU: A Game-Changer for Gaming Smartphones
- Rivos and Canonical partner to deliver scalable RISC-V solutions in Data Centers and enable an enterprise-grade Ubuntu experience across Rivos platforms