The Fall of Microsoft's Monopoly

[takeiteezzy]

Windows has 90 something percent market share in the operating system market. When do you think a new operating system will take Microsoft down. Do you think it'll be Mac? Linux? Or a completely new OS?

[hockey97]

Linux will take them out I think. I don't think any new OS will be able to get into this market.

[byzantium]

Linux will take them out I think. I don't think any new OS will be able to get into this market.

Linux is superior in the server market to Windows Server. Unix variants have ALWAYS been better in servers, but Microsoft takes no prisoners. I think that eventually Linux will destroy Windows Server. The occasional crash is ok when you're some average Joe surfing the web on a PC, but servers need 99.99% uptime or the business loses customers. The big problem with Linux and household use is that Linux is primarily command line, as are all Unixes. Average people far prefer GUI. Unless some way is found to integrate a GUI with Linux, not just cover up the command line, Linux will go nowhere with average people.

[hockey97]

There is desktop oses that's made based off linux. like ubuntu desktop is a gui os.

I do understand what your saying. Today it has not mastered user friendly and would take a while for linux to get to that point.

The desktops are for people that don't know anyhting about computers. all you need to do is pop in the cd and it will install you follow the questions just like windows.

I think linux still has an edge. The problem they are having is making it user friendly and advertise.

I talk to many people even in my business class my teacher is going for a masters in business admin. She and all my classmates never heard of linux. We learned peachtree.
I then talked about linux software that are free that are exactly like peachtree.

I just don't think any new OS will come into the market. I made a small OS and I am trying to in the long run make my own OS . It's just too hard and no money really in making an OS because it's more of a battle between mac,linux, and windows. I don't see any room for new OS since mac,linux, and windows pretty much hold most of the market. It would be very hard to get people to switch to your os if your new because people are mostly used to windows or macs or linux oses.

I do see that linux will win at some point.Time will show. Microsoft was smart to get into the gaming business. So it was smart to spread Microsoft in other markets.

I have heard rumors of bill gates going to make a high tech hospital in cali. So I think

linux will crush microsoft in the long run.

[SerialEntrepreneurs.]

I recently read something that says Microsoft profits $10M a week....I don't think anyone is throwing them off the horse so quickly......

Just my $.02

[Tkimx93]

i personally think microsoft is way to big of a company to take down
i dont think mac or linux can even compete with the numbers that microsoft produces
just cuz microsoft has been goin to hard times with things like yahoo doenst mean they are goin to lose their "magic"

i dont think microsoft is goin anywhere anytime soon =)

[SophieM]

I recently read something that says Microsoft profits $10M a week....I don't think anyone is throwing them off the horse so quickly......

Just my $.02

They could pay off my sisters entire uni bills in an under an hour

I hope Mac takes over, they look nice.

[crackah]

I hope Mac takes over, they look nice.

See thats the prolems with MAC.

They look nice, but they arent functional.

I think windows will still dominate. Linux is just rubbish.

Im saying it because I have it on another system. I dont want to goto a forum to know how to install an application or to get flash working with firefox. Windows just works.

I also think windows is more stable than ubuntu. I havent had 1 crash from Vista, but ubuntu I have had to reset the system several times.

[rogercbryan]

This conversation has been going on since the mid 90's. While Microsoft has lost market share they have not been dethroned. The problem is that no one has come out with a 'revolutionary' new operating system. Yes I prefer a mac to a windows based computer yet my office runs 12 PC's. Why? Well, the cost to change is to great and the reward factor is to little. Until that equation is balanced in the opposite direction you will never get the main part of the business community to move away from PC's.

[takeiteezzy]

but do you think it's doable? i mean, google wasn't the first search engine, but look it came out and took most of the market.

[jshua]

I think it will be a long time before windows ever goes down and if it does maybe linux would take over.

[byzantium]

but do you think it's doable? i mean, google wasn't the first search engine, but look it came out and took most of the market.

Google came along at a time when the "Internet portal" was fashionable. Sites combined search with a dizzying array of other stuff, classifieds and personals and chat etc. Google's homepage is a search box. Period. The menus to the other stuff are stashed out of the way. Not surprisingly, it was a huge hit. The too-busy web pages faded into history, except for Yahoo which is struggling.

People like simple. Techies, on the other hand, want to be entertained. Call it Asperger Syndrome, call it boredom, call it wanting to be way rad, but you can always tell the techie friendly websites because they stuff them full of features. It's like the iPhone-can do everything except perk your coffee, and for the moment it's way rad, but in the end it will flop because it attempts to do too much. Already, companies are coming out with cell phones that are just cell phones and not Internet-in-your-pocket whiz devices, mainly for older boomers who get confused by the tiny keys and multiple features of mainstream cell phones.

To take a simple photo on my cell phone requires about a half dozen steps, then it downloads to the company's special website where you have to do another half dozen steps to download it to your PC. Techie heaven, but Verizon will eventually lose business to the guys who let you use a USB cable to plug your phone directly into your PC. My cheap digital camera does that, and with fewer steps.

The next guy who comes out with a simple to understand OS, instead of Bloatware Deluxe that has you download 56 MB to add five proper names to the onboard dictionary (true story!), will destroy Microsoft. The irony is, DOS was a simple OS, it had a loader, a kernel, and a shell. (Not a geek? Don't worry, just know that it's SIMPLE.) The first truly Windows OS, OTOH, Windows 95, was "modular", which sounds great in the programming pit but in the real world worked awful. With the coming of the internet, viruses would eat a module or two and bring down your system. But Bill couldn't help himself, and kept packing it in.

Windows Vista is SO big that it requires a high capacity DVD to hold the COMPRESSED version, and it's extremely unstable, constantly crashing. A year of release hasn't helped. I wonder what will happen in the inevitable event that a mandatory update atomizes zillions of Vista installations. Microsoft is famous for doing just that-their systems are so bloated that the law of unintended consequences roars ahead. The market is ripe for some guy in a garage with a programming degree and too much free time due to his job going to Bangalore to eliminate Microsoft. That now-anonymous geek will be the next $100 billion entrepreneur.

[pboychuk]

Popular Science | PPX | Google OS by 2010

I dunno, my take is, MACs are too expensive, microsoft works with everything so it works for me. I don't think most people take the time to analyze weather microsoft works better than other operating systems they just take what they are given and use it.

But, if another OS was installed on PCs then im pretty sure people would be shocked, probably not buy as many computers, b/c most people arent computer savvy and when the Internet explorer icon is gone they might as well be screwed. So, its basically like changing our dependence on oil, its not going to happen quickly or easily at any rate.