Well, let us consider that in some more detail, and look where M$ have lost,
or just can't compete.- Washing machines and other kitchen appliances
(Gates claimed that WinCE was ideal for those, but almost all still use a 4 or 8
bit microcontroller, and housewives like the standard rotary
knob)
- Routers (don't have any use for a GUI, most run
Linux)
- Printers. Some larger office models run various varieties of
*nix
- NAS boxes and other storage appliances
- Video recorders/
Cable TV boxes (many use TIVO or similar)
- Gadgets such as
Chumby....
- Inexpensive educational computers, starting with OLPX/XO, now
Raspberry Pi etc
- PDAs, but who uses one now, see
phones
- Firewalls and security
appliances
- Supercomputers
Now let us think about where their
failure to compete is probable, but not yet proven, due to being very late to
market, or just plain useless. - Phones (remember the
KIN?)
- Tablets
Now think about where M$ still has a
significant share of the market. - Desktops/laptops (80 to 85%?, Apple on
the increase)
- Servers (business, not web), maybe 50%
- Web servers
(25%?) The "industry standard" is LAMP, but "L" is sometimes
FreeBSD.
Now let us think specifically about the closely related
phone and tablet markets. Android are outselling Apple 2 to 1 nbumerically, but
mostly on phones, Apple dominate tablets, and Crackberry seems to be on the way
out, preceded by Nokia who have dumped Symbian. The market is in no fit state to
accomodate a newcomer who has already failed once. It basically leaves the
desktop as the only place which may keep M$ afloat. Now people are becoming
thoroughly sick of the unreliability of Windoze, indeed both the Windoze
developers which I know actually do their work on Apples. Kids are already
learning to program on OLPC, and in more developed countries they will begin on
Raspberry Pi, so instead of learning how to click a mouse and navigate the
inefficient and dysfunctional ribbon interface they will actually know how a
computer works. They will not want an OS that is dumbed down to the most moronic
level. So demand for Windoze desktops is going to fall. (In any case, except for
those who do serious work all day on their computers, tablets have become more
attractive.) When M$ begin to lose their partly illegal grip on the
desktop market, they will fail quite quickly. Not too long now, I think. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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