As funny as this would be to watch, I think this underestimates the lock-in effect Microsoft has on business and everyday users. Even with Ubuntu, linux isn't going to capture the mainstream in a long time, so the only real threat to Windows on the desktop is OS X... and since you have to buy hardware to get it, Microsoft still has a pretty strong moat here.
Now if Apple were to give away their OS for non-mac hardware, that would be interesting.
As for Office, no online solution can compete until net access becomes ubiquitous. You can't use Google Apps on a plane at the moment, and a lot of users are comfortable with Word's UI.
I think Microsoft's business model is eventually doomed, but not in any time frame short enough to make the Yahoo deal matter in that regard.
It seems to me like Microsoft should leverage what it is very good at (marketing) and try to compete with IBM in the consulting business rather than try to compete online. There will always be a huge market of MBAs wasting money on overpriced tech advice!
"I think Microsoft's business model is eventually doomed, but not in any time frame short enough to make the Yahoo deal matter in that regard"
I'm not so sure about "doomed" -- "threatened," I might allow, for a sufficiently liberal definition of "eventually."
Vista isn't doomed because the desktop is dead -- it's doomed because it sucks. Web software may represent a legitimate threat to Microsoft someday, but it seems the more immediate concern ought to be that they can barely develop software anymore. It took 6 years to get from Windows 95/NT to Windows XP -- a huge step forward in so many ways. Then 6 years later, Vista brought us what, exactly? Worse performance on the same hardware? A pretty new interface that practically requires a 3D graphics card to open the start menu? DRM? A completely reorganized interface offering negligible improvements over the old one? A privilege escalation implementation that causes as many problems as it solves? An eye-popping $319.95 price tag for the "full" version? Sign me up...
Let them sell it then. I think a non-trivial number of Apple customers buy for the look and feel of the hardware too. A Macbook is just prettier than anything Dell offers, and that matters to some people. Regardless, I just meant the only thing killing windows in the near term is OS X.
But I guess Apple is smarter than me, realizing it can basically sell it's operating system (with bundled hardware) for $2500 rather than $100 by itself.
I'm not so convinced that Microsoft's business model is doomed. Even with ubiquitous net access, there are still issues with keeping sensitive information on evil corp servers. Not just legal (medical info, educational records, etc.), but also practical issues. After all, if you are a software company, you are competition for other software companies. (This is what MS overlooked as Google was taking root.) Putting your business strategy in their hands is not something I'm comfortable with.
I think MS's stranglehold will be loosened, however. I am fine working with Open Office (I really like MS Publisher, however), Firefox, and other "alternative" apps. I think others will be too, especially if the recession turns out to be very painful.
Imagine how much $ a school system would save if they went to Open Office?
Large corporations will never switch to Open Office, because they have too much invested. The home edition of MS Office is $129, which isn't too bad for most home and small business users, and it means they have exact file compatibility with other businesses.
I like Open Office, but I would never have bothered to switch except for the fact that I prefer Linux to Windows.
I owould say that cash-strapped startups and nonprofits are the most likely groups to switch to Open Office in particular, though I expect just as many OO.o switchers are actually people who switch to Linux and use OO.o by default. There would probably also be more switchers if the native Aqua version for Mac were rock solid.
Don't underestimate the difficulty in migrating users from an application that has been used daily for a long time. The average tech-saavy user could make the switch easily, but from my experience, that's a small percentage of a workforce in any reasonably large business. There are enough little differences between the applications to drive a non-technical user nuts (especially since it probably took them a solid year to learn MS Office well enough to do their job).
apple is never going to allow their OS to run on anything but apple hardware. not so long as steve jobs is alive, anyway. yes, a lot of people want that, because it would be good for them, but it wouldn't be good for apple, and it wouldn't be good for apple's non-technical users, either.
It honestly wouldn't be particularly good for the technical users either. A large part of why the Apple experience is so polished is that they can test the OS against every combination of hardware the software is specified to run on.
Yes. Essentially there's a technical reason why Apple would restrict OS X to only Apple hardware. Microsoft spends (or at least spent, they seemed to have given that up with Vista) lots of money & time ensuring Windows works with weird hardware combinations. Apple saves some money side-stepping the whole issue; if they released OS X for all hardware, they'd get people complaining things along the lines of "OS X sucks! It doesn't work with my e-Machines Craptastic Edition Model". Well the reason it doesn't work is because your e-Machines Craptastic edition sucks, but the customer is going to blame OS X, see?
"vista will collapse" is likely too sensationalist. i'd say it's more that windows is continuing its long, slow slide into irrelevance, a trend that has been evident for several years now.
the most encouraging sign i've heard about microsoft lately is that the next version of windows will supposedly break binary compatibility. it will continue to run old apps, but only in an old-windows-emulator, much the same way macosx used to run old mac classic apps. they'll finally get to break free of the 20 years of backward compatibility that's strangling them.
that means they'll have a chance for a smaller, leaner OS. will they also take that opportunity to make a better os, in terms of user experience and programming APIs? i kind of doubt it, because microsoft is too big to get out of its own way. but it will be interesting to watch, nonetheless.
The dirty little secret that public corporations don't talk about is that they NEED TO PAY SOMEBODY. Freeware, shareware, and ad supported software are good for many things, but as soon as something goes wrong (and it will), someone must be held accountable. Imagine management telling ownership that "Google lost our data and there's nothing we can do about it."
Microsoft's position may be threatened in the future, but only by someone willing to take on that responsibility.
IBM is making bank on that need. They offer Free and Open Source software, but take on the accountability and support. There's big money there, but I think you have to have some major clout to really take advantage of it.
His general notion is that the operating system is doomed, which is a flawed argument. Microsoft Office / iWork are still vastly superior to Google Docs. Not too mention that the combination of browser and web software still doesn't "feel" right in most desktop software emulation.
You might see some shift towards a truly portable environments but the idea that the O/S is going to give way to solely a web browser is a bit much and likely won't happen anytime soon. Computers do FAR too much with standard software right now. The path to this browser-centric world is 10+ years from now and too many other curve balls can be tossed in between to accurately predict.
I agree with the first comment by Xichekolas and also Raphael's comment (4th). MSFT is a very very large company. Most news sites paint the picture that everyone is switching to online word editors... the only people who I know use online editors are advanced tech savvy users who hate the load time of MSFT Office. However, I would still always use Office for doing any type of professional document such as essays, letters, resumes, etc.
Just because there are alternatives, doesn't mean the main competitor is doomed. Perhaps in the long term, with Bill Gates no longer at the helm since 2000 (which is when Google came to rise), MSFT might be in trouble in the next 15 years or so.
Cheers
P.S. I used to read Digg many years ago when it was still up and coming but now I cannot bare to read that site. The news posts are always the same predictable things and the commentators are so unintelligent it's almost mind numbing just being there. Great site here, will try to comment every once in a while and weigh in.
Microsoft is, in it's current state, far from "doomed". The lock-in effect mentioned will account for their survival for some time, look at businesses still using windows 2000 in large deployment. The other thing to consider is how they have been trying to refocus their direction and corporate girth to target the web, i.e. online advertising, Silverlight and such. how successful that will be remains to be seen.
This reminds me of the Doctor Who episode where the Doctor tells the Prime Minister he could destroy her with six little words, and all he does is whisper to one of her aides, "Don't you think she looks tired...?" It becomes a rumor that she's unwell and turns into self-fulfilling prophesy.
I dislike Microsoft, but the idea that the only hope of MS is online advertising is scary. We're talking about 30 billion in sales for office and windows. Is the only viable alternative for MS to give up all that in order to chase advertising dollars? Will 'free' really kill an entire industry?
If you believe Vista/Windows is collapsing, doesn't it validate Yahoo's resistance to combining with an even more doomed ship?
And so isn't TechCrunch's conclusion, including the "scorched earth" rant from yesterday which called a Yahoo-Microsoft combination "the only reasonable outcome", kind of silly? Reasonable for MSFT, perhaps, but not necessarily anyone else.
TechCrunch: good for scoops, atrocious for measured analysis.
I'm not familiar with Michael Silver or Neil MacDonald but wow, I hope this isn't a case of prediction being any kind of catalyst. These guys probably get high off the smell of their farts.
Now if Apple were to give away their OS for non-mac hardware, that would be interesting.
As for Office, no online solution can compete until net access becomes ubiquitous. You can't use Google Apps on a plane at the moment, and a lot of users are comfortable with Word's UI.
I think Microsoft's business model is eventually doomed, but not in any time frame short enough to make the Yahoo deal matter in that regard.
It seems to me like Microsoft should leverage what it is very good at (marketing) and try to compete with IBM in the consulting business rather than try to compete online. There will always be a huge market of MBAs wasting money on overpriced tech advice!