Microsoft and the PC industry

　　微軟和PC行業

　　Defenestrated

　　即將被拋棄

　　Steve Ballmer is a casualty of the personalcomputer s rapid decline

　　史蒂夫鮑爾默是個人電腦產業迅速下滑的犧牲品。

　　UNTIL August 23rd few people would have described Steve Ballmer as retiring.

　　直到8月23日之前，也很少有人會將史蒂夫鮑爾默與退休聯系在一起。

　　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.

　　這個微軟的首席執行官一直在同時扮演老虎和跳跳虎的角色：對蘋果產品的小工具咆哮，在階段會議上為頌揚他公司的產品而奮力吶喊。

　　But retiring he is, within a year.

　　但是，不到一年時間，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驚喜。

　　He had announced a reorganisationof 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.

　　消息傳出的當天，微軟的股價就上升了7.3%。

　　Mr Ballmer has plenty of critics, although Microsoft s revenues have trebled on his 13-yearwatch, to $77.8 billion in the year to June, and profits have grown similarly, to $21.9 billion.

　　雖然在他經營的13年間微軟的收入增加了兩倍，在今年六月更是到達了778億美元，利潤也同樣增加了21.9億美元，但是鮑爾默先生仍然遭受了許多批評指責。

　　The critics point at the rise of Apple and Google, and say Microsoft should have donebetteror handed some of its $77 billion of cash to shareholders.

　　批評人士認為，在蘋果和谷歌迅速崛起的時候，微軟完全可以做的更好，或者可以交出77億美元的現金給股東們。

　　In an interview with the Seattle Times, Mr Ballmer denied that pressure from ValueAct, afund with a small stake in the firm, helped push him out.

　　在一次《西雅圖時報》的采訪中，鮑爾默先生否認了來自激進投資基金的壓力，這是一個擁有少量股權但卻助他出頭的基金。

　　Microsoft sits atop a pyramid of companies that prospered from the long boom in personalcomputers.

　　微軟長期以來，一直處于PC行業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 byIntel s processors.

　　絕大多數的個人電腦都在運行微軟的操作系統，并采用英特爾處理器，

　　They bear the brands of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and others, and nowadays are mostlymade by Taiwanese contractors.

　　他們承擔的惠普，戴爾，聯想和一些其他品牌，如今大多數是由臺商承辦的。

　　The trouble is that people increasingly prefer to buy mobile devices, made by Apple orrunning Google s Android operating system.

　　不過，麻煩的是，人們越來越喜歡購買由蘋果或者谷歌安卓系統運行的移動設備，個人電腦的銷量正在以兩位數的速度迅速下降。

　　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人電腦，減少對它的依賴，

　　Few are having much success.

　　不過極少能獲得很大的成功。

　　Frank Gillett of Forrester, a research firm, reckons that Windows share of the market forpersonal 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為，Windows個人設備的市場份額一旦上升到95%以上，實際上PC行業整體就下降了30%左右。

　　Microsoft responded belatedly with Windows 8, a new edition intended for touchscreen PCsand tablets launched last October,with variations for cheaper tablets and phones.

　　微軟遲來的回應說，將推出用于觸摸屏電腦和平板電腦的Windows8，以應對更便宜的平板電腦和手機的變化。

　　Applications lie behind oblong tiles designed for fingertips rather than icons for mouse-clicks.

　　用指尖觸及的長方形方塊的應用，取代了鼠標的點擊。

　　Microsoft s successful Xbox entertainment system was given the same look.

　　微軟成功的Xbox娛樂系統被賦予了相同的外觀。

　　The idea was that this uniform style would help to transfer Microsoft s dominance of thedesktop to mobile devices, and refresh the PC too.

　　當時的想法是，統一的風格有助于將微軟在桌面上的統治地位轉移到移動設備，并刷新個人電腦。

　　It has not happened yet.

　　但這一切并沒有發生，

　　Few businesses were likely to hurry to buy Windows 8 anyway; some have yet to switch toits predecessor, Windows 7.

　　因為很少由企業急著購買Windows 8，更有甚者還沒有更新到Windows 7系統。

　　Consumers have not taken to tiles on PC screens: a new version, Windows 8.1, due inOctober, will make it easier for them to stick with the old look.

　　消費者并沒有，在十月份推出的Windows 8.1系統中，會讓他們更容易堅持使用舊外觀。

　　Only now is a wide choice of touch PCs and tablet-PC hybrids appearing.

　　而現在正是一個觸摸電腦與平板電腦并駕齊驅的多選擇時代。

　　Microsoft s own tablet, the Surface, has been a flop, forcing it to make a $900mwrite-off inits latest results.

　　微軟自己的平板電腦，至少從表面上看，一直是一個失敗，最后不得不以九億美元核銷其最新結果。

　　Windows phones, mostly made by Nokia of Finland, are far behind iPhones and Androiddevices, with just 3.3% of the world market according to Gartner, another research firm.

　　Windows的手機大多是由芬蘭的諾基亞公司制造，遠遠落后于蘋果系統和安卓系統。根據另一家研究公司加特納的數據，他們只占有3.3%的世界市場，

　　They have ousted BlackBerry from third place, but that is not saying much.

　　被他們從第三位趕下來的黑莓，就更不必說了。

　　Next to Microsoft at the apex, Intel has also done poorly in smartphones and tablets, thoughit is striving to catch up and in June unveiled a new chip that it hopes will bring new zip toPCs.

　　僅次于頂端的微軟，英特爾公司在智能手機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產業帶來新的活力。

　　Among the PC-makers, HP pondered quitting altogether in 2011, then sacked the chiefexecutive who suggested it.

　　在這些電腦制造商中，惠普選擇在2011年停下來，然后解雇了提此建議的行政長官。

　　Meg Whitman, his successor, chose to stay in, as well as pushing into services and softwareand shedding 27,000 jobs. She has plenty still to do: HP s latest results, on August 21st, senta 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，造成了股價的漲勢逆轉。

　　At Dell, which is scrapping for much the same ground, Michael Dell, the founder and chiefexecutive, still hopes to win a battle to take the company private.

　　而在戴爾，也是大同小異，創始人兼首席執行官邁克爾戴爾 ，仍希望能贏得一場戰斗，將公司私有化。

　　Of the leading PC-makers, Lenovo has coped best. Its home market,China, is slowing butgrowing, and it is selling plenty of smartphones.

　　在領先的個人電腦制造商中，聯想應對的最好，在其國內市場中國，正在緩慢但是持續的增長，并售出大量的智能手機。

　　Despite its slow start in mobile, Microsoft remains hugely profitable.

　　盡管在移動設備上進展緩慢，微軟依然利潤豐厚。

　　It s easy to get focused only on Windows, says David Cearley of Gartner.

　　將焦點集中在Windows上很容易。Cearley Gartner的大衛說道。

　　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上比其他競爭對手更快。

　　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.

　　鮑爾默先生已經設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，越可以看到更遠的旅程。

　　第 2 頁：詞語解釋

　　1.describe as 描述為

　　He s quite bright but he s not what you shoulddescribe as intellectual.

　　他是十分聰明，但不是你所描述的那種高智商。

　　Tokyo s chic neighbourhoods certainly look betterheeled than their counterparts in taipei, which evensome residents describe as outdated and quaint.

　　東京的時尚街區肯定會比臺北的看起來更奢華，甚至有些臺北市民用過時和古舊來形容他們的城市。

　　2.hope to 希望

　　Democrats hope to finish the draft in a week.

　　民主黨人士希望在一周內完成該草案。

　　I really hope to find my prince charming soon.

　　我真希望能早點找到我的白馬王子。

　　3.push out 推出; 長出;開除; 除掉某人

　　It s not easy to push out multiple updates to get the metrics up.

　　但是推出多樣的更新來獲得量的方面上升并不容易。

　　Companies sometimes do this to be able to push out program updates every few weeks.

　　有時，這些公司這樣做是為了能每隔幾周就能將其程序升級一次。

　　Microsoft and the PC industry

　　微軟和PC行業

　　Defenestrated

　　即將被拋棄

　　Steve Ballmer is a casualty of the personalcomputer s rapid decline

　　史蒂夫鮑爾默是個人電腦產業迅速下滑的犧牲品。

　　UNTIL August 23rd few people would have described Steve Ballmer as retiring.

　　直到8月23日之前，也很少有人會將史蒂夫鮑爾默與退休聯系在一起。

　　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.

　　這個微軟的首席執行官一直在同時扮演老虎和跳跳虎的角色：對蘋果產品的小工具咆哮，在階段會議上為頌揚他公司的產品而奮力吶喊。

　　But retiring he is, within a year.

　　但是，不到一年時間，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驚喜。

　　He had announced a reorganisationof 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.

　　消息傳出的當天，微軟的股價就上升了7.3%。

　　Mr Ballmer has plenty of critics, although Microsoft s revenues have trebled on his 13-yearwatch, to $77.8 billion in the year to June, and profits have grown similarly, to $21.9 billion.

　　雖然在他經營的13年間微軟的收入增加了兩倍，在今年六月更是到達了778億美元，利潤也同樣增加了21.9億美元，但是鮑爾默先生仍然遭受了許多批評指責。

　　The critics point at the rise of Apple and Google, and say Microsoft should have donebetteror handed some of its $77 billion of cash to shareholders.

　　批評人士認為，在蘋果和谷歌迅速崛起的時候，微軟完全可以做的更好，或者可以交出77億美元的現金給股東們。

　　In an interview with the Seattle Times, Mr Ballmer denied that pressure from ValueAct, afund with a small stake in the firm, helped push him out.

　　在一次《西雅圖時報》的采訪中，鮑爾默先生否認了來自激進投資基金的壓力，這是一個擁有少量股權但卻助他出頭的基金。

　　Microsoft sits atop a pyramid of companies that prospered from the long boom in personalcomputers.

　　微軟長期以來，一直處于PC行業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 byIntel s processors.

　　絕大多數的個人電腦都在運行微軟的操作系統，并采用英特爾處理器，

　　They bear the brands of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and others, and nowadays are mostlymade by Taiwanese contractors.

　　他們承擔的惠普，戴爾，聯想和一些其他品牌，如今大多數是由臺商承辦的。

　　The trouble is that people increasingly prefer to buy mobile devices, made by Apple orrunning Google s Android operating system.

　　不過，麻煩的是，人們越來越喜歡購買由蘋果或者谷歌安卓系統運行的移動設備，個人電腦的銷量正在以兩位數的速度迅速下降。

　　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人電腦，減少對它的依賴，

　　Few are having much success.

　　不過極少能獲得很大的成功。

　　Frank Gillett of Forrester, a research firm, reckons that Windows share of the market forpersonal 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為，Windows個人設備的市場份額一旦上升到95%以上，實際上PC行業整體就下降了30%左右。

　　Microsoft responded belatedly with Windows 8, a new edition intended for touchscreen PCsand tablets launched last October,with variations for cheaper tablets and phones.

　　微軟遲來的回應說，將推出用于觸摸屏電腦和平板電腦的Windows8，以應對更便宜的平板電腦和手機的變化。

　　Applications lie behind oblong tiles designed for fingertips rather than icons for mouse-clicks.

　　用指尖觸及的長方形方塊的應用，取代了鼠標的點擊。

　　Microsoft s successful Xbox entertainment system was given the same look.

　　微軟成功的Xbox娛樂系統被賦予了相同的外觀。

　　The idea was that this uniform style would help to transfer Microsoft s dominance of thedesktop to mobile devices, and refresh the PC too.

　　當時的想法是，統一的風格有助于將微軟在桌面上的統治地位轉移到移動設備，并刷新個人電腦。

　　It has not happened yet.

　　但這一切并沒有發生，

　　Few businesses were likely to hurry to buy Windows 8 anyway; some have yet to switch toits predecessor, Windows 7.

　　因為很少由企業急著購買Windows 8，更有甚者還沒有更新到Windows 7系統。

　　Consumers have not taken to tiles on PC screens: a new version, Windows 8.1, due inOctober, will make it easier for them to stick with the old look.

　　消費者并沒有，在十月份推出的Windows 8.1系統中，會讓他們更容易堅持使用舊外觀。

　　Only now is a wide choice of touch PCs and tablet-PC hybrids appearing.

　　而現在正是一個觸摸電腦與平板電腦并駕齊驅的多選擇時代。

　　Microsoft s own tablet, the Surface, has been a flop, forcing it to make a $900mwrite-off inits latest results.

　　微軟自己的平板電腦，至少從表面上看，一直是一個失敗，最后不得不以九億美元核銷其最新結果。

　　Windows phones, mostly made by Nokia of Finland, are far behind iPhones and Androiddevices, with just 3.3% of the world market according to Gartner, another research firm.

　　Windows的手機大多是由芬蘭的諾基亞公司制造，遠遠落后于蘋果系統和安卓系統。根據另一家研究公司加特納的數據，他們只占有3.3%的世界市場，

　　They have ousted BlackBerry from third place, but that is not saying much.

　　被他們從第三位趕下來的黑莓，就更不必說了。

　　Next to Microsoft at the apex, Intel has also done poorly in smartphones and tablets, thoughit is striving to catch up and in June unveiled a new chip that it hopes will bring new zip toPCs.

　　僅次于頂端的微軟，英特爾公司在智能手機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產業帶來新的活力。

　　Among the PC-makers, HP pondered quitting altogether in 2011, then sacked the chiefexecutive who suggested it.

　　在這些電腦制造商中，惠普選擇在2011年停下來，然后解雇了提此建議的行政長官。

　　Meg Whitman, his successor, chose to stay in, as well as pushing into services and softwareand shedding 27,000 jobs. She has plenty still to do: HP s latest results, on August 21st, senta 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，造成了股價的漲勢逆轉。

　　At Dell, which is scrapping for much the same ground, Michael Dell, the founder and chiefexecutive, still hopes to win a battle to take the company private.

　　而在戴爾，也是大同小異，創始人兼首席執行官邁克爾戴爾 ，仍希望能贏得一場戰斗，將公司私有化。

　　Of the leading PC-makers, Lenovo has coped best. Its home market,China, is slowing butgrowing, and it is selling plenty of smartphones.

　　在領先的個人電腦制造商中，聯想應對的最好，在其國內市場中國，正在緩慢但是持續的增長，并售出大量的智能手機。

　　Despite its slow start in mobile, Microsoft remains hugely profitable.

　　盡管在移動設備上進展緩慢，微軟依然利潤豐厚。

　　It s easy to get focused only on Windows, says David Cearley of Gartner.

　　將焦點集中在Windows上很容易。Cearley Gartner的大衛說道。

　　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上比其他競爭對手更快。

　　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.

　　鮑爾默先生已經設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，越可以看到更遠的旅程。

　　第 2 頁：詞語解釋

　　1.describe as 描述為

　　He s quite bright but he s not what you shoulddescribe as intellectual.

　　他是十分聰明，但不是你所描述的那種高智商。

　　Tokyo s chic neighbourhoods certainly look betterheeled than their counterparts in taipei, which evensome residents describe as outdated and quaint.

　　東京的時尚街區肯定會比臺北的看起來更奢華，甚至有些臺北市民用過時和古舊來形容他們的城市。

　　2.hope to 希望

　　Democrats hope to finish the draft in a week.

　　民主黨人士希望在一周內完成該草案。

　　I really hope to find my prince charming soon.

　　我真希望能早點找到我的白馬王子。

　　3.push out 推出; 長出;開除; 除掉某人

　　It s not easy to push out multiple updates to get the metrics up.

　　但是推出多樣的更新來獲得量的方面上升并不容易。

　　Companies sometimes do this to be able to push out program updates every few weeks.

　　有時，這些公司這樣做是為了能每隔幾周就能將其程序升級一次。