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Business
商业报道
Microsoft and the PC industry
微软和PC行业
Defenestrated
即将被抛弃
Steve Ballmer is a casualty of the personal computer's rapid decline
史蒂夫·鲍尔默是个人电脑产业迅速下滑的牺牲品。
UNTIL August 23rd few people would have described Steve Ballmer as retiring.
直到8月23日之前，也很少有人会将史蒂夫·鲍尔默与退休联系在一起。
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.
这个微软的首席执行官一直在同时扮演老虎和跳跳虎的角色：对苹果产品的小工具咆哮，在阶段会议上为颂扬他公司的产品而奋力呐喊。
But retiring he is, within a year.
但是，不到一年时间，他就选择了退休。
Mr Ballmer's departure is a surprise.
鲍尔默先生的离去是一个惊喜。
He had announced a reorganisation of the company only in July and had hoped to oversee much of the change.
他仅在七月份就宣布了公司重组的消息，希望可以看到新的曙光。
Some celebrated his going:
他的离去也有一些值得庆祝的事：
Microsoft's share price went up by 7.3% on the day the news broke.
消息传出的当天，微软的股价就上升了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.
虽然在他经营的13年间微软的收入增加了两倍，在今年六月更是到达了778亿美元，利润也同样增加了21.9亿美元，但是鲍尔默先生仍然遭受了许多批评指责。
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.
批评人士认为，在苹果和谷歌迅速崛起的时候，微软完全可以做的更好，或者可以交出77亿美元的现金给股东们。
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《西雅图时报》的采访中，鲍尔默先生否认了来自激进投资基金的压力，这是一个拥有少量股权但却助他出头的基金。
Microsoft sits atop a pyramid of companies that prospered from the long boom in personal computers.
微软长期以来，一直处于PC行业金字塔的顶端并保持繁荣。
The vast majority of PCs run on Microsoft's Windows operating system and are powered by Intel's processors.
绝大多数的个人电脑都在运行微软的操作系统，并采用英特尔处理器，
They bear the brands of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and others, and nowadays are mostly made by Taiwanese contractors.
他们承担的惠普，戴尔，联想和一些其他品牌，如今大多数是由台商承办的。
The trouble is that people increasingly prefer to buy mobile devices, made by Apple or running Google's Android operating system.
不过，麻烦的是，人们越来越喜欢购买由苹果或者谷歌安卓系统运行的移动设备，个人电脑的销量正在以两位数的速度迅速下降。
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.
从金字塔的顶端到底层，所有的公司都在拼命的刷新他们的个人电脑，减少对它的依赖，
Few are having much success.
不过极少能获得很大的成功。
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兰克·吉列特认为，Windows个人设备的市场份额一旦上升到95%以上，实际上PC行业整体就下降了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.
微软迟来的回应说，将推出用于触摸屏电脑和平板电脑的Windows8，以应对更便宜的平板电脑和手机的变化。
Applications lie behind oblong tiles designed for fingertips rather than icons for mouse-clicks.
用指尖触及的长方形方块的应用，取代了鼠标的点击。
Microsoft's successful Xbox entertainment system was given the same look.
微软成功的Xbox娱乐系统被赋予了相同的外观。
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.
当时的想法是，统一的风格有助于将微软在桌面上的统治地位转移到移动设备，并刷新个人电脑。
It has not happened yet.
但这一切并没有发生，
Few businesses were likely to hurry to buy Windows 8 anyway; some have yet to switch to its predecessor, Windows 7.
因为很少由企业急着购买Windows 8，更有甚者还没有更新到Windows 7系统。
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.
消费者并没有，在十月份推出的Windows 8.1系统中，会让他们更容易坚持使用旧外观。
Only now is a wide choice of touch PCs and tablet-PC hybrids appearing.
而现在正是一个触摸电脑与平板电脑并驾齐驱的多选择时代。
Microsoft's own tablet, the Surface, has been a flop, forcing it to make a $900mwrite-off in its latest results.
微软自己的平板电脑，至少从表面上看，一直是一个失败，最后不得不以九亿美元核销其最新结果。
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的手机大多是由芬兰的诺基亚公司制造，远远落后于苹果系统和安卓系统。根据另一家研究公司加特纳的数据，他们只占有3.3%的世界市场，
They have ousted BlackBerry from third place, but that is not saying much.
被他们从第三位赶下来的黑莓，就更不必说了。
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.
仅次于顶端的微软，英特尔公司在智能手机和平板电脑上也做的不好，但它正在努力赶上并于六月份推出了一款新的芯片希望能给PC产业带来新的活力。
Among the PC-makers, HP pondered quitting altogether in 2011, then sacked the chief executive who suggested it.
在这些电脑制造商中，惠普选择在2011年停下来，然后解雇了提此建议的行政长官。
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.
他的继任者，梅格·惠特曼选择了留下她还是有很多事情要做：八月二十一日，惠普推出的最新成果，造成了股价的涨势逆转。
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.
而在戴尔，也是大同小异，创始人兼首席执行官迈克尔·戴尔 ，仍希望能赢得一场战斗，将公司私有化。
Of the leading PC-makers, Lenovo has coped best. Its home market,China, is slowing but growing, and it is selling plenty of smartphones.
在领先的个人电脑制造商中，联想应对的最好，在其国内市场—中国，正在缓慢但是持续的增长，并售出大量的智能手机。
Despite its slow start in mobile, Microsoft remains hugely profitable.
尽管在移动设备上进展缓慢，微软依然利润丰厚。
It's easy to get focused only on Windows, says David Cearley of Gartner.
将焦点集中在Windows上很容易。Cearley Gartner的大卫说道。
The firm was quicker than its rivals to provide cloud services to big companies.
该公司在为大公司提供云服务上比其他竞争对手更快。
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.
虽然谷歌的免费文字处理和电子表格威胁其Office软件，微软仍然有大部分可以在线销售的客户。
The direction Mr Ballmer has set makes a lot of sense, Mr Cearley says.
鲍尔默先生已经设置的方向具有很大的意义，
Had he set out sooner, he might have seen the journey through.
他越早出发，越可以看到更远的旅程。
