Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: windows

  • Lenovo Yoga

    Lenovo Yoga

    Can a laptop be a tablet computer? The Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 tries to balance the needs of both in a package designed for home and small business users.

    The laptop computer market is in a difficult place at the moment as both consumers and businesses move to tablets and smartphones so it’s interesting to get hold of the Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 to see how one of the leading portable manufacturers is responding to the changing industry.

    One of the best ways of testing a portable device is to take it on a long trip, so a couple of 14 hour transpacific flights and trips around San Francisco, the Napa Valley and Silicon Valley proved a good workout for the Yoga Pro.

    As a laptop

    From a hardware perspective the Yoga is an impressive device with 8Gb of RAM, 256Gb solid state hard drive and a 1.8GHz i7 chip. The screen is a very nice 13.3″ 3200 x 1800 high-resolution display.

    Rounding out the hardware specs are two USB ports — one 3.0 and the other 2.0 — along with a Micro HDMI output, webcam, inbuilt mic, headphone jack and an SD Card reader. All the basics expected in a mid range ultrabook that weighs in at a respectable 1.4kg.

    lenovo-yoga-2-pro-in-laptop-mode-on-desktop

    In using the Yoga as a laptop, the device works well with the keys being crisp and responsive although the position of the glidepad and the backspace key being alongside the home key caused problems for this clumsy touch typist.

    One of the problems with the larger form of ultrabooks is their usability when travelling economy on a plane; if the passenger in front of you reclines then it becomes difficult to use the device. This isn’t a problem specific to the Lenovo Yoga, but it is a drawback that the industry seems not to have considered in its move to the larger screens.

    In the office

    If you’re not travelling on planes, the weight and form factor works well and makes the Yoga 2 Pro a nice device to use while on the move. In an office environment it’s a standard mid to upper range laptop with good fast specifications.

    For battery life, Lenovo claim “up to nine hours” for the Yoga Pro but in practice standard office use sees about five hours worth of juice with a full recharge taking under an hour. It’s lucky most transpacific flights now have power sockets.

    Flipping to a tablet

    While 1.4kg is good for a laptop it’s lousy for a tablet computer with the Yoga Pro 2 weighing in a kilo heavier than the iPad and 500g (one pound) heavier than the Microsoft Surface Pro. This makes it awkward to use over extended periods and the keyboard doesn’t feel right as the backing to a tablet.

    lenovo-yoga-2-pro-in-tablet-mode

    The Yoga’s weight problem illustrates the core conflict for a device that wants to be a laptop and a tablet as the different demands for each type of device make if difficult for designers to meet both markets.

    In the Yoga 2 Pro’s design, it’s clear the engineers had to make a choice between compromising either on the tablet or laptop functionality. As it turns out the designers decided to go with releasing a good Ultrabook laptop with compromised tablet functions — this was the correct choice for the Yoga.

    Windows 8 limitations

    Probably the greatest problem though for the Yoga Pro 2 in tablet mode lies in software with Windows 8 being far from adequate as a tablet operating system with a confused interface, an inconsistent user experience and unpredictable responses to touch screen commands.

    For companies like Lenovo who are persisting with Windows as their operating system, it’s becoming critical that they start demanding better design from Microsoft before they find their market being overwhelmed by Android and iOS devices offering a superior user interface.

    lenovo-yoga-2-pro-closed-mode-on-desktop

    While the Windows 8 irritations aren’t a deal breaker for the Yoga, it does limit the device as a tablet computer and its something anyone considering it instead of an iPad or Android tablet should keep in mind.

    A good general duty small business laptop

    Overall, the Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 is good Windows Ultrabook for home and small business use offering the benefits of an ultrabook with the flexibility of being able to flip into a tablet for specific uses.

    The device isn’t cheap, but the range of features and good hardware specs make it a decent purchase for small businesses, sole proprietors or workers operating from home who need a versatile Windows computer.

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  • Milestones of the personal computer industry

    Milestones of the personal computer industry

    “There have only been two milestone products in our industry to date,” Steve Jobs told the Boston Computing Club in 1984. “The first was Apple II in 1977 and the second was the IBM PC in 1981.”

    Jobs at the time was announcing the third breakthrough – the Apple Mac – which turned 30 last week.

    Looking back over the four decades of the PC industry, Jobs’ claim that the Apple Mac was the sector’s third milestone stands up to scrutiny, however the greatest milestone of all for the PC was the launch of Window 3.0 in 1990.

    The rise of Windows

    Windows 3.0 changed the business model of the industry, it established software vendors – particularly Microsoft – as being dominant over hardware manufacturers, that shift nearly killed Apple and eventually sent most PC builders to the wall.

    Microsoft’s advantage over Apple, IBM, Atari and dozens of other systems, was that users weren’t locked into one vendor’s products. It was possible

    The Windows 3.0 milestone was even more important in that it forced a shakeout in the software industry as well, many of the incumbent vendors – most notably WordPerfect – though the Windows Graphic User Interface (GUI) was a flash in the pan and that most office workers would prefer to use keyboard instructions rather than mouse clicks.

    WordPerfect was horribly, horribly wrong in judging the market and by the time they released the Windows versions of their product Microsoft had captured key market share for Word and the bundled Office suite that dominates the business world today.

    Going mobile

    So things were good for Microsoft until the next milestone, which again was marked by Steve Jobs, the launch of the iPhone genuinely did change the smartphone industry and was the first inkling of mobile would eventually destabilise the PC sector.

    It’s interesting comparing Jobs’ iconic 2007 iPhone which sets the standard for product launches with the somewhat rough at the edges 1984 Boston presentation although both show how Steve Jobs was a master salesperson and a passionate believer in his products.

    The PC’s final milestone

    Three years later Steve Jobs delivered the milestone product that marked the beginning of the end for the PC industry, the iPad finally delivered a mobile computing device that businesses and consumers wanted.

    Apple’s iPad also marked a fundamental shift in the computer industry – no longer did the software companies control the market, power had shifted back to the manufacturers.

    From that moment on the PC, and Microsoft’s Windows business, started a terminal decline.

    The rise and fall of the personal computer is a great illustration of a transition technology. That Steve Jobs bookmarked the beginning and the end of the PC industry is an interesting note about a technology that changed the home and workplace.

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  • Microsoft edges towards the post PC era and the end of Windows

    Microsoft edges towards the post PC era and the end of Windows

    Microsoft’s evolution to the post PC era has been a fascination of this blog for several years now as the company’s once flagship Windows becomes irrelevant in a world dominated by smartphones and tablet computers.

    The launch of Windows 8 and the Surface tablet were the great hope for the company, but it appears the business model that built Microsoft into one of the world’s biggest companies is doomed. Microsoft is shifting to the post-PC era where Windows has little role.

    Yesterday’s financial results emphasised the shift as the consumer licensing business fell 6% year against last years revenues while the company’s overall revenues rose 14% – the old consumer Windows business is dying.

    This is illustrated in the company’s quarterly report, where the business units that delivered the growth were all in non-Windows areas.

    • SQL Server continued to gain market share with revenue growing double-digits
    • System Center showed continued strength with double-digit revenue growth
    • Commercial cloud services revenue more than doubled
    • Office 365 commercial seats and Azure customers both grew triple-digits.

    Drilling down into the numbers the trend against Windows is even more stark, here’s a chart of the performance of the division over the last ten years.

    Microsoft Windows division financial performance
    Microsoft Windows division financial performance

    As we see, life was good for Microsoft Windows until the iPad arrived.

    Following Apple’s proof that tablet computers could deliver what business and home customers wanted from a portable device, Windows’ revenue stagnated and now income and margins are falling.

    The devices and services strategy of outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer recognises is a reflection of how Windows is becoming irrelevant to the business.

    It’s hard to see where Microsoft now goes with Windows, the product still remains a key part of the business with 22% of revenues – although that’s down from 27% last year – and its hard to see a buyer parting with the hundreds of billions the division would be worth as a stand alone business.

    For Steve Ballmer’s successor as Microsoft CEO dealing with the Windows problem will be one of many big issues they’ll have to deal with, the future of the once iconic product though won’t define the future of the business.

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  • Microsoft’s version three problem

    Microsoft’s version three problem

    Microsoft have released their second generation Surface tablet computers following the less than successful first versions that resulted in the company booking a $900 million write off.

    As always, the new devices boast improved battery life, better screens and more storage, all of which are important when competing against Apple’s iPad and the plethora of Android devices.

    For Microsoft, the stakes are high as the company tries to position itself as devices and services business in the post-PC world where tablet computers are one of the key markets.

    Unfortunately the PC industry’s legacy haunts Microsoft as the market believes it takes the company three attempts to get a product right.

    Microsoft Windows is the best example of this, versions one and two of the graphic operating system* were total and utter dogs. It was only with the arrival of Windows 3.0 that PC users started to migrate from DOS.

    This failure to execute lulled Microsoft’s competitors into a false sense of security, WordPerfect in particular completely flubbed the market’s move to Windows and never recovered which was a large reason for Microsoft Office’s eventual domination of the word processor and productivity suite sector.

    Strangely with Windows another pattern developed once Microsoft came to dominate the market, every second version was a dog – Window 98 was followed by the awful Windows ME which in turn was replaced by probably the most successful OS of all in Windows XP.

    XP, released at the high point of Microsoft’s powers, was followed by the disastrous Vista which was redeemed by Windows 7 that was in turn soiled by the now soon to be abandoned Windows 8.

    The problem for Microsoft is the PC industry model is in decline and the company is no longer a scrappy disrupter but instead a wounded giant wondering how to react to a rapidly changing market.

    In the face of Apple and Google’s domination of the tablet and smartphone markets, taking three cracks to get their tablet right is going to be an expensive and difficult path for Microsoft.

    Steve Ballmer’s place in business history might just depend on this version of the Surface, if it does take three attempts to get Microsoft’s tablet product right then his legacy may not be well judged.

    *Purists will argue that early versions of Windows weren’t operating systems as they sat on top of DOS which did the heavy lifting. They are right.

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  • Microsoft’s continued evolution

    Microsoft’s continued evolution

    Today’s investor briefing by software giant Microsoft shows the company’s evolution as their markets shift.

    Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner broke out the key numbers for the company’s revenues which illustrate just how the company’s business model is changing.

    Over half of Microsoft’s revenues are coming  from enterprise customers and of the product lines, Office unit makes up just under a third, Server and Tools slightly more than a quarter while Windows has fallen to 25 percent.

    Despite the decline in Widows’ revenues, there’s no doubt about Microsoft’s determination to drive the PC upgrade cycle through the retirement of Windows XP as Turner explained.

    We have a giant XP install base. But guess what? We’ve made so much progress on that XP install base. It’s down to 21 percent worldwide, and we have plans to get that number to 13 percent by April when the end-of-life of XP happens.

    A big part of the change is the shift to the cloud with Turner claiming two hundred percent growth in Microsoft’s Azure services.

    Despite the change in Microsoft’s focus, the threats remain with Apple releasing both iOS7 and their new range of iPhones along with Google making their QuickOffice mobile app free to iOS and Android users.

    While Microsoft are steering their ship around, the incumbents in other sectors are protecting their positions. In an evolving world, survival is not guaranteed.

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