ESR Says as PCs Get Cheaper, Windows Will Die

james writes "Eric Raymond reckons Windows will be obsolete because people won't be able to afford it soon." Owning the OS gives MS too great of an advantage. They'd sell the client for 5 bucks if it meant that they could still control Office, the server market, and the zillions of other markets that their OS monopoly lets them crush.

Comments

Hmm..

[zapfie]

Most people don't even know that there are other choices than Windows, and still rely on Windows applications. What will these users use instead? What would PC manufacturers put on their PCs? Somehow I think Windows is still going to be around for a while..

Yeah, but people can't afford office, either.

[arcanis]

I'm a college student, and I know that I can't afford anything near the amount of money that Microsoft wants to charge for office.

Even if they start giving away windows for free, people are eventually going to grow tired of spending another few hundred bucks for the next version of office with no worthwhile new features. Meanwhile, there are other products available that are catching up, like Star Office. Even if Sun's going to be charging for Star Office in the future, I don't think it'll be nearly as expensive as MS Office.