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Business
商業(yè)報(bào)道
Microsoft and the PC industry
微軟和PC行業(yè)
Defenestrated
即將被拋棄
Steve Ballmer is a casualty of the personal computer's rapid decline
史蒂夫·鮑爾默是個(gè)人電腦產(chǎn)業(yè)迅速下滑的犧牲品。
UNTIL August 23rd few people would have described Steve Ballmer as retiring.
直到8月23日之前，也很少有人會(huì)將史蒂夫·鮑爾默與退休聯(lián)系在一起。
Microsoft's chief executive has played both tiger and Tigger: snarling at Apple's gadgets; and bouncing, with a whoop, onto conference stages to extol his company's wares.
這個(gè)微軟的首席執(zhí)行官一直在同時(shí)扮演老虎和跳跳虎的角色：對(duì)蘋果產(chǎn)品的小工具咆哮，在階段會(huì)議上為頌揚(yáng)他公司的產(chǎn)品而奮力吶喊。
But retiring he is, within a year.
但是，不到一年時(shí)間，他就選擇了退休。
Mr Ballmer's departure is a surprise.
鮑爾默先生的離去是一個(gè)驚喜。
He had announced a reorganisation of the company only in July and had hoped to oversee much of the change.
他僅在七月份就宣布了公司重組的消息，希望可以看到新的曙光。
Some celebrated his going:
他的離去也有一些值得慶祝的事：
Microsoft's share price went up by 7.3% on the day the news broke.
消息傳出的當(dāng)天，微軟的股價(jià)就上升了7.3%。
Mr Ballmer has plenty of critics, although Microsoft's revenues have trebled on his 13-year watch, to $77.8 billion in the year to June, and profits have grown similarly, to $21.9 billion.
雖然在他經(jīng)營(yíng)的13年間微軟的收入增加了兩倍，在今年六月更是到達(dá)了778億美元，利潤(rùn)也同樣增加了21.9億美元，但是鮑爾默先生仍然遭受了許多批評(píng)指責(zé)。
The critics point at the rise of Apple and Google, and say Microsoft should have done better—or handed some of its $77 billion of cash to shareholders.
批評(píng)人士認(rèn)為，在蘋果和谷歌迅速崛起的時(shí)候，微軟完全可以做的更好，或者可以交出77億美元的現(xiàn)金給股東們。
In an interview with the Seattle Times, Mr Ballmer denied that pressure from ValueAct, a fund with a small stake in the firm, helped push him out.
在一次《西雅圖時(shí)報(bào)》的采訪中，鮑爾默先生否認(rèn)了來(lái)自激進(jìn)投資基金的壓力，這是一個(gè)擁有少量股權(quán)但卻助他出頭的基金。
Microsoft sits atop a pyramid of companies that prospered from the long boom in personal computers.
微軟長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)，一直處于PC行業(yè)金字塔的頂端并保持繁榮。
The vast majority of PCs run on Microsoft's Windows operating system and are powered by Intel's processors.
絕大多數(shù)的個(gè)人電腦都在運(yùn)行微軟的操作系統(tǒng)，并采用英特爾處理器，
They bear the brands of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and others, and nowadays are mostly made by Taiwanese contractors.
他們承擔(dān)的惠普，戴爾，聯(lián)想和一些其他品牌，如今大多數(shù)是由臺(tái)商承辦的。
The trouble is that people increasingly prefer to buy mobile devices, made by Apple or running Google's Android operating system.
不過(guò)，麻煩的是，人們?cè)絹?lái)越喜歡購(gòu)買由蘋果或者谷歌安卓系統(tǒng)運(yùn)行的移動(dòng)設(shè)備，個(gè)人電腦的銷量正在以兩位數(shù)的速度迅速下降。
Sales of PCs have been falling at double-digit rates. From the pyramid's apex to its base, companies are desperate both to refresh the PC and reduce their reliance on it.
從金字塔的頂端到底層，所有的公司都在拼命的刷新他們的個(gè)人電腦，減少對(duì)它的依賴，
Few are having much success.
不過(guò)極少能獲得很大的成功。
Frank Gillett of Forrester, a research firm, reckons that Windows' share of the market for personal devices, once 95% or more, has dropped to around 30%.
福里斯特研究公司的弗蘭克·吉列特認(rèn)為，Windows個(gè)人設(shè)備的市場(chǎng)份額一旦上升到95%以上，實(shí)際上PC行業(yè)整體就下降了30%左右。
Microsoft responded belatedly with Windows 8, a new edition intended for touchscreen PCs and tablets launched last October,with variations for cheaper tablets and phones.
微軟遲來(lái)的回應(yīng)說(shuō)，將推出用于觸摸屏電腦和平板電腦的Windows8，以應(yīng)對(duì)更便宜的平板電腦和手機(jī)的變化。
Applications lie behind oblong tiles designed for fingertips rather than icons for mouse-clicks.
用指尖觸及的長(zhǎng)方形方塊的應(yīng)用，取代了鼠標(biāo)的點(diǎn)擊。
Microsoft's successful Xbox entertainment system was given the same look.
微軟成功的Xbox娛樂系統(tǒng)被賦予了相同的外觀。
The idea was that this uniform style would help to transfer Microsoft's dominance of the desktop to mobile devices, and refresh the PC too.
當(dāng)時(shí)的想法是，統(tǒng)一的風(fēng)格有助于將微軟在桌面上的統(tǒng)治地位轉(zhuǎn)移到移動(dòng)設(shè)備，并刷新個(gè)人電腦。
It has not happened yet.
但這一切并沒有發(fā)生，
Few businesses were likely to hurry to buy Windows 8 anyway; some have yet to switch to its predecessor, Windows 7.
因?yàn)楹苌儆善髽I(yè)急著購(gòu)買Windows 8，更有甚者還沒有更新到Windows 7系統(tǒng)。
Consumers have not taken to tiles on PC screens: a new version, Windows 8.1, due in October, will make it easier for them to stick with the old look.
消費(fèi)者并沒有，在十月份推出的Windows 8.1系統(tǒng)中，會(huì)讓他們更容易堅(jiān)持使用舊外觀。
Only now is a wide choice of touch PCs and tablet-PC hybrids appearing.
而現(xiàn)在正是一個(gè)觸摸電腦與平板電腦并駕齊驅(qū)的多選擇時(shí)代。
Microsoft's own tablet, the Surface, has been a flop, forcing it to make a $900mwrite-off in its latest results.
微軟自己的平板電腦，至少?gòu)谋砻嫔峡矗恢笔且粋€(gè)失敗，最后不得不以九億美元核銷其最新結(jié)果。
Windows phones, mostly made by Nokia of Finland, are far behind iPhones and Android devices, with just 3.3% of the world market according to Gartner, another research firm.
Windows的手機(jī)大多是由芬蘭的諾基亞公司制造，遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)落后于蘋果系統(tǒng)和安卓系統(tǒng)。根據(jù)另一家研究公司加特納的數(shù)據(jù)，他們只占有3.3%的世界市場(chǎng)，
They have ousted BlackBerry from third place, but that is not saying much.
被他們從第三位趕下來(lái)的黑莓，就更不必說(shuō)了。
Next to Microsoft at the apex, Intel has also done poorly in smartphones and tablets, though it is striving to catch up and in June unveiled a new chip that it hopes will bring new zip to PCs.
僅次于頂端的微軟，英特爾公司在智能手機(jī)和平板電腦上也做的不好，但它正在努力趕上并于六月份推出了一款新的芯片希望能給PC產(chǎn)業(yè)帶來(lái)新的活力。
Among the PC-makers, HP pondered quitting altogether in 2011, then sacked the chief executive who suggested it.
在這些電腦制造商中，惠普選擇在2011年停下來(lái)，然后解雇了提此建議的行政長(zhǎng)官。
Meg Whitman, his successor, chose to stay in, as well as pushing into services and software and shedding 27,000 jobs. She has plenty still to do: HP's latest results, on August 21st, sent a share-price rally into reverse.
他的繼任者，梅格·惠特曼選擇了留下她還是有很多事情要做：八月二十一日，惠普推出的最新成果，造成了股價(jià)的漲勢(shì)逆轉(zhuǎn)。
At Dell, which is scrapping for much the same ground, Michael Dell, the founder and chief executive, still hopes to win a battle to take the company private.
而在戴爾，也是大同小異，創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官邁克爾·戴爾 ，仍希望能贏得一場(chǎng)戰(zhàn)斗，將公司私有化。
Of the leading PC-makers, Lenovo has coped best. Its home market,China, is slowing but growing, and it is selling plenty of smartphones.
在領(lǐng)先的個(gè)人電腦制造商中，聯(lián)想應(yīng)對(duì)的最好，在其國(guó)內(nèi)市場(chǎng)—中國(guó)，正在緩慢但是持續(xù)的增長(zhǎng)，并售出大量的智能手機(jī)。
Despite its slow start in mobile, Microsoft remains hugely profitable.
盡管在移動(dòng)設(shè)備上進(jìn)展緩慢，微軟依然利潤(rùn)豐厚。
It's easy to get focused only on Windows, says David Cearley of Gartner.
將焦點(diǎn)集中在Windows上很容易。Cearley Gartner的大衛(wèi)說(shuō)道。
The firm was quicker than its rivals to provide cloud services to big companies.
該公司在為大公司提供云服務(wù)上比其他競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手更快。
Although Google's free word-processor and spreadsheet threaten its Office software, Microsoft still has most of its customers, to whom it can sell improved services online.
雖然谷歌的免費(fèi)文字處理和電子表格威脅其Office軟件，微軟仍然有大部分可以在線銷售的客戶。
The direction Mr Ballmer has set makes a lot of sense, Mr Cearley says.
鮑爾默先生已經(jīng)設(shè)置的方向具有很大的意義，
Had he set out sooner, he might have seen the journey through.
他越早出發(fā)，越可以看到更遠(yuǎn)的旅程。
