Thomas Hazlett, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, looks at the various competitive pressures (Apple, Firefox) facing Microsoft and wonders whether its era of dominance might be on the wane in an editorial at the Financial Times.
Thomas Hazlett, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, looks at the various competitive pressures (Apple, Firefox) facing Microsoft and wonders whether its era of dominance might be on the wane in an editorial at the Financial Times.
No. Why? Because almost every computer manufaturer ships with Windows.That means when someone buys a Dell, Windows, Buys a CPU at Walmart, Windows,(save for their online store) When ppl need a new computer they want somthing they’ve used before, i.e. upgrading from 98 to XP.
Second when almost every software company makes products for Windows, wheres the ensentive to switch? And switch to what for that matter? Mac is a viable choice but again, a person who has been using MS since say 95 is comfortable and wont switch because they think they know how to use Windows, all the programs they’ve baught are for Windows, all their prorifrials say compatible with Windows.Its the only major OS running on the only major chip set,(x86-64).
Microsoft toast, I think not, when a company can release four OS’s in the span of 5 yrs (98,2000,ME, XP)you know they wont be going anywhere for the time being.
The only way I can see Apple making any real market gains is if they release OSX or OSXI for the x86-64 processors.
Yet the day Linux gets 100% compatiblity with Windows apps, the OEMs will jump to Linux setup as Windows clones.
You will walk into Best Buy and see every new computer that simply says Windows Compatible and it will be like when Compaq cloned the IBM, within 5 years nobody would care what MS does since the Windows clones would have totaly taken MS market share by then and every new machine would be a Windows clone not Windows.
While I am certainally not anticipating the downfall of Microsoft any time soon, it does strike me that the computer world has been enlarging and growth of smaller more agile competitors can’t have Microsoft happy. One major advantage that Linux has IMHO is that most Linux distros come bundled with a plethora of useful software that can be installed for no money and is from a trusted source (the install disk) so if I want to edit a photograph I can just use the GIMP which is for everything I need just as good as PhotoShop and doesn’t cost me anything or any inconvienience over learning the program. This is a significant value when compared to Windows in which adding any functunality is over the bare-bones state that Windows comes in is quite expensive. Rosegarden may be less complete than Finallie and OpenOffice.org may not be quite as nice as Word, but both work and come installed! Windows is nice as long as you take it as a given that you are only paying for an environment to run expensive third party applications that most people will not want to buy but very well may wish to run. Because of this my computer is much more productive and useful than I could ever afford to legally configure it to be using a Windows environment and significantally easier than installing all of those applications from their respective sources and hoping, nay praying that they work together. Microsoft does not offer this value and therefor offers an inferior product for much more money and that will not bode well in the long term for it. As Apple is a hardware company, it will bundle all of the software that it needs to to sell systems which will leave Microsoft very alone as a seller of bare bones systems. OEMs may add software to this value but in my experiance they do not tend to add Office, rather they add a crippled version of Word Perfect or one of the other office suits, how long will it be before they start adding OO.org and people start sticking with it, hurting Microsoft in their office market as well. In short, I don’t see Microsoft going anyware any time soon, but I do see them becoming an IBM-like player which offers products that compete in rather than dominate the market (although Microsoft’s brand isn’t nearly as IBM’s for that type of business).
Yes, I have, and its a large improvement over previous versions, but it still lags behind Gnome with respect to usability.”
You must be high if you think a primitive DE like Gnome has greater usability than KDE. No, I don’t believe you have used KDE much. It’s one thing to be bitching about how KDE has too many features like the Gnome drones always do, but to say the usability is less is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t see how anybody could take you serious.
Most of the applications you mentioned are available for Windows as well (GIMP, OO.o), so that argument holds no water. Doesn’t matter though (as it relates to the article mentioned in the post); for anyone to be threat to MS, they have to win over the business sector first, and businesses are very much willing to pay for software (read: support).
That being said, I have indeed seen the GIMP making some decent inroads into the business sector…it’s almost on par with Photoshop and is a fine piece of software. OO.o OTOH still has a ways to go before it can compete with Office (which you have to admit (besides having closed proprietary formats) is a *very* decent software suite and is probably one of the most polished products out there period). Office alone is one of the biggest reasons why businesses simply can’t convert desktops to *nix.
Sorry MS is here to stay. They are a cornerstone of the computing industry just like IBM, Intel and AMD. M$ is the biggest player in the industry and can afford to scewup many times over and lose millions in markets for years unlike Apple which needs to execute aggressively in order to survive.
There are alternatives to Microsoft products and no one is really stuck with them these days. Even if Microsoft loses marketshare from Apple and Linux the market is growing all the time and the marketshare that is the most influential is the large business sector.
There is plenty of room for other OS. Issues with malware, adware and viruses are bad but do not significantly hurt the bottomline for MS.
Maybe msft doesn’t quite have the stranglehold that it once did. Maybe msft’s glory days of explosive growth are behind it.
Msft is certainly not “toast” and won’t be for some time.
The area that I see as the most weak is office apps. That’s a big piece of msft business.
Also, I don’t see msft’s server offering to be that strong. I think UNIX and Linux are still stronger in the server area.
JMHO.
I have refreshed the home page since yesterday, and it’s been more than 24h that there is no new article
I’m addicted to OSNews, sorry.
The day micro$oft BEGINS its decline is the day Bill GateS dies. While big brother Bill is still around, micro$oft will remain a super power in the industry.
if you don’t know mutch about bill, you don’t have to look but at MS history to see how he does business.
<MS strategy programming: Enter new field and dominate, if not able to dominate then a) drag rivals through legal mud untill they are forced out of business. ,else b) buy rivals and then dominate buy “innovating” your (competitor’s) product.
Once domination is complete, then crapify own product slowly and cease ‘meaningful’ innovation until next opponet rises.>
Microsoft is here to stay. Period. You never will get 100% compatability between MS Windows and other OS’s because by nature of OSs you need different drives and programs for each OS. Right now, Microsoft Word is the single best Office Suite out there, I have AbiWord and OpenOffice.org 2 beta, and neither comes close in looks, usability, etc. In fact, I think that the Mozilla Foundation puts out the ONLY OSS that is better than the default Windows software. OSS is for now a shakey deal, and until more companies such as Mozilla are formed, with a sound business model, OSS will not be anywhere near paid for software.
Also, Apple is not a threat to MS, at least they don’t think so. MS has released software for OS X, including Office. Now, don’t you think fewer people would switch to Apple if Office were not availble for the MacOS? And don’t you think Microsoft is perfectly aware of this? The day you can port the Mac OS X to a PC will be the day that MS stops making any software for OS X, because only then will it be a threat.
Finally, one of the reasons so few people switch to Linux is driver support. While you can blame this on hardware companies (and I may be wrong, but this is partially Linux’s fault, not just HW manufacturers), it is still a major problem and until hardware companies make sound drivers for Linux, I know I and many people will not fully switch.
Are you guys for real! I know that some of you are dedicated to windows, and that is great! But trust me, you need to try another OS. I went ahead and made the leap forward and bought two new machines! One of them being a Mac Powerbook/G4, the other, a Micro Amiga G3! Holy cow, these computers respond very fast. Exp being under 2 ghz! My PC is an emachine with a 2.80ghz/ 80GB hard drive/ CD-RW / 512 mb ram running windows XP! I actually thought the wait times with it were normal. But know that I have tried other systems, no way! Now I see why people are crazy about these other operating systems! Look, your for windows, great! Stay with it! If you are tired of the popups, updates, security issues…and willing to learn another operating system that is at least 10x more responsive..then give another platform a try! I did..and it was worth it!
po
P.S. Good..windows should be toast..I am done with them! By the way..love the longhorn previews…heheheh..how about when that program had that window which said, wait and maybe this program will respond! Are they for real! What a joke! hehehehe!
If MS is toast, when should I expect to see everyone use other OSes than Windows? Please name a year, not the necessary circumstances for it to happen.
The point of these kinds of articles isn’t really to seriously address the issue of Microsoft’s long term existence. No one with more than a few brain cells seriously questions whether Microsoft, with its mammoth cash reserves (bigger than the GDP of many *countries*, for chrissakes), is going away anytime soon. Rather, these kinds of articles are written to influence the thinking of Wall Street investors. They’re intended to move money away from Microsoft and funnel it into different kinds of tech investments. Investors are the audience — not geeks. And, so far, it appears that people such as Hazlett have been pretty successful in suppressing the MS stock price by promoting the “conventional wisdom” (a euphemism meaning “hey, you — start running with this herd of bovine idiots”) that MS’s best days are over. Meanwhile, MS adds $25B in profit to its cash pile every year. No, it’s not growing 300%. That’s the nature of market dominance — sooner or later, there’s no more room to grow. But so-called rivals such as Apple earn a pittance compared to MSFT. Apples revenues are chump change. Gates probably carries more around with him as pocket change. So, remember this, folks: This article wasn’t intended for you. Money on market street is constantly looking for a home. The people that influence opinions in this country want to influence where that money goes. And, clearly, they are looking for the “Next Big Thing”. Until that happens, there’s going to be lethargy in the markets.
The only true constant is change. Change is a natural law of the universe. Dollars (money) is the gage which nearly all success for any company is judged. The MS success has one huge flaw and that is they have attached their entire business to a tool called a PC.
One day a new tool, a better tool will come along, and like the PC, it may take the world by storm and again a single company may easily out strip MS’s success. History tells the future. Look at the railroads, the auto makers, steal, steam ships, aircraft, etc.
It’s simply a cycle of change.
Yes, M$ is toast, the problem is too many paople like toast, it keeps the IT business running.
The current problem is, there is no good alternative to M$…
but http://www.reactos.com is cloning microsoft windows, and when it is finished, people have a choise for open source without changing the other programs they use.
Linux is not user friendly, and it is not integrated, all settings are floating around in 1000 files, so linux will not be an alternative.
BeOS … well … It had a chance before Be died… yT is trieing but i don’t think it will be a mush used OS.
But still … i see … microsoft is going down … slowly…
What i mean is, for the normal user, it is not,
for a power user, it is … but microsoft will use users of the normal user can use the alternative