Microsoft at the Tipover Point

David Gerard writes "In the wake of Microsoft's first flat quarter, The Inquirer brings us The IT Industry Is Shifting Away From Microsoft - Linux is being taken seriously, Microsoft is not trusted and our favorite monopoly is finding it harder and harder to compete with 'free.'"

Comments

Let me get this straight, you are telling me..

[rkz]

Fact : Microsoft is dying

It is official; Netcraft confirms: Microsoft is dying One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Microsoft community when IDC confirmed that Microsoft market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Microsoft has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Microsoft is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Microsoft 's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Microsoft faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Microsoft because Microsoft is dying. Things are looking very bad for Microsoft . As many of us are already aware, Microsoft continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Microsoft Corporation is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Microsoft Corporation developers Steve Jobs and Theo De Raadt only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Microsoft Corporation is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Micro$soft leader Bill Gates states that there are 7000 users of Micro$soft. How many users of Windows XP are there? Let's see. The number of Micro$soft versus Windows XP posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Windows XP users. Windows 98 posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Windows XP posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Windows 98. A recent article put Microsoft Corporation at about 80 percent of the Microsoft market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Microsoft Corporation users. This is consistent with the number of Microsoft Corporation Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Wal*Mart, abysmal sales and so on, Microsoft Corporation went out of business and was taken over by Toys R Us who sell another troubled OS. Now Toys R Us is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Microsoft has steadily declined in market share. Microsoft is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Microsoft is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. Microsoft continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Microsoft is dead.

Fact: Microsoft is dying

Serious Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you mod this is as a troll please read the entire post (then mod it down ;) )

It seems to me that for years, the linux zealot community has been predicting the imminent demise of Microsoft.

But tell me this - if Windows is so bad, why do KDE and Gnome continue to recycle poor imitations of Windows XP?

Microsoft is always innovating... KDE and Gnome and always plagarzing and stealing ideas. How lame.

Re:Serious Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Because all operating systems are written by programmers, I assume that any operating system is much smarter than me. Thus, any good operating system should try to outsmart me by restricting my options at every turn. Linux, like all versions of Unix, is lousy at restricting my options because at the command line virtually any operation can be performed with ease. (For example, 'rm -rf /win' could 'delete an entire mounted directory, with no popup window warnings whatsoever.)

I'm proud to say that there is no such danger in Windows Server 2003. Windows pop up when I want to make a change, and then more pop up to ask if I'm sure I want the change. Thankfully, Windows Server 2003 looks after my computer's well-being by occasionally switching configuration settings from the way I want them to what the OS programmers think they might probably ought to be. Boy, I'm just impressed with how smart they are. Once I learned to live with whatever the default settings are on any new hardware I install, I can't say the number of hours I have saved.

I use that spare time to reboot my Windows Server 2003 machine multiple times a day. Technical support personnel recommend that I do it regularly-- kind of like brushing my teeth. To help remind me of this necessity, windows pop up to tell me to reboot whenever I make a configuration change. By now my machine is minty fresh, I figure.

There is no such useful rebooting in a Linux system. It is as reliable as the sunrise, with uptimes in weeks, months and years. Virtually no configuration change requires a reboot, to boot. Imagine all that plaque in the computer. Gross!

In XP I am prevented from making dangerous fundamental configuration changes unless I use a special "registry editor". I have found it so useful to have this separate editor that I hope in future versions they go all the way and supply a separate editor for each file on the disk-- in that way windows could pop up at every keystroke to warn me that changing any line in the file I am editing could cause the system to not run properly. If this were only the case, people would finally learn that it is best to just stick with the mouse and they would be freed of the need to constantly move their hands back to the keyboard. (If one stops to think about it, the mouse is a much better device to use than the keyboard. Ever hear of someone getting carpal tunnel syndrome from a mouse? No. It's comfortable and ergonomic. Like Morse code devices. That's how long distance communication started, after all.)

Linux, by contrast, requires no special editor to change configuration files. The fact that there is no "registry" in Linux allows the abomination of using any text editor whatsoever to do the configuration. Can you believe that configuration files are usually stored clear text? Talk about dangerous!

I am also happy to report that I have experienced no truth to the rumor that Windows disks become corrupt after improper shutdowns. Indeed, I have been forced to improperly shutdown the machine innumerable times after it locks up, and I have no apparent problems to report regarding the disk. No such claim can be made for Linux. They say something about lack of data points. Excuses are all I ever seem to hear from the Linux crowd.

By sheer size alone, Windows Server 2003 beats Linux hands down. It is so much bigger, it is _obvious_ that it is better. Why would you want a small OS with the large disks and RAM sizes we have these days? For this reason alone, I heartily recommend Windows as a way to maximize resource utilization. Your CPU and disk will constantly be pegged to the limit, the way god intended. The Linux kernel and drivers accounts for only about 750KB. Why, even the Microsoft Win16 subsystem uses more space than that.

It is no surprise that Windows Server 2003 costs $300 on the retail market and Linux doesn't cost anything. People know what they want, and they want Windows Server 2003. Because Linux is free, that means it's basically worthless. The sa

Inquirer loves to harp on MS

[W32.Klez.A]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6582

More like the calm before the success storm

[rnd()]

Anyone who has written any code using the .NET framework knows that it will drastically increase programmer productivity and allow more creativity back into an industry that thrives on creativity but had imposed so many low-level roadblocks to software creation.

This is the beginning of a growth period for Microsoft that is on a whole different scale than the last one.

The Inquirer? PLEASE.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please.

That article is the drivel typical of theinquirer. They have about as much credibility as a warm bucket of sputum.

I'm surprised Slashdot would even link to those complete and utter morons.

Anyone who thinks Open Sores software is coming anywhere CLOSE to Microsoft popularity needs to have his head examined.

Just more typical Linux Loser BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone with half a brain can rip apart every assertion in that story.

(1) Linux is gaining ground in the server space... but so is Microsoft; they are both replacing UNIX systems.

(2) Nobody is using Star Office over Microsoft Office. I haven;t met or heard of a single person who has made such a switch.

(3) MySQL replacing SQL Server... I had to laugh at this one. MySQL is consistently about a decaade behind the times when it comes to high-end database functionality. If people were moving away from SQL Server (and there's no evidence to suggest they are) then they'd be more likely to switch to Oracle before MySQL.

(4) SUN Java Desktop... give me a break. The guy who wrote that article is a moron who doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

Just more typical Linux Loser wishful thinking based on wet dreams instead of reality.

This Should Have Run on April Fools Day

[Anonymous Coward]

...and it might have been a little bit funny.

This fellow is delusional.

Nobody is replacing MS on the desktop in the next 20 years simply because the folks who care about Linux do not care about the desktop...period.

"Easy to use" and "linux" do not appear in the same sentence.

I have been in the corporate world for 15 years and I have yet to come across a document that has been sent to me that ws created by any other office suite but Microsoft office.

Articles like these do noting to advance the Linux cause. It is pure fantasy.

as i sit here and look around my office at

[Anonymous Coward]

as i sit here and look around my office at bms.com all I see are Windows nt/2000 machines and 2 butchered blade servers used for testing and only a lonely abandoned red hat 9 box that nobody can figure out how to get X to come up (keeps giving arts errors)

Seriously what the frig is this article talking about?

The Inquirer Confirms: Microsoft is dying!

[SharpFang]

Somebody post that troll?

Re:Oh shit!

[Unoti]

Oh please. A point by point comparison of America's system of government to China? And it's modded up? It's preposterous.