Microsoft has just fired several key personnel and completely reorganized it’s entertainment divisions in an (last ditch? desperate?) attempt to breath some life into it’s non-Windows business units, the most successful of which has hemorrhaged billions of dollars over the past few years.
Microsoft’s has fared better in videogames with the Xbox. Although it has lost billions of dollars on the business since entering the game console market over a decade ago with the original Xbox, it’s in second place in the market behind Nintendo Co. with the Xbox 360 and now earns an overall profit in its entertainment and devices division as sales have improved. The company’s Xbox Live game service is considered an especially successful part of the company’s games business.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens from here. Will Windows Mobile 7 be able to gain any traction at all in the marketplace? Will anything they make outside of their Windows and Office monopolies succeed? Or succeed profitably, without costing them “billions of dollars”?
Ten years ago, who would have thought we would see the increasing irrelevance of Microsoft, forced to the sidelines in the most important (and profitable) segments of the computer business?
