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Microsoft Expects 1 Billion Windows Users by 2010
prostoalex writes "The head of Microsoft Windows client division claimed there will be 1 billion Windows users by 2010, while nowadays there are 600 million of them, Microsoft-Watch reports. 35% of Microsoft's enterprise customers are still running Windows 9x and they are ripe for upgrade. Currently Microsoft's desktop PC market share is at 96%, with the closest rival - MacOS from Apple Computer - being installed on 2.8% of the desktops."
If users how many of those users will also be Linux/Mac users?
Maybe someone familiar with set theory can comment here?
Omnis amans amens
Perhaps the interesting claim here is that there will be over a billion computers currently in use in the world (one computer for every seven or people). That is, assuming that 96% figure is correct.
Doesn't one billion PCs sound a little high considering that the vast majority of the world's population doesn't have access to a telephone?
runs all your favourite RISC OS apps :'(
:
Thanks for reminding me of the Betamax of Desktop OS'es
One day, Bill Gates went to Herman Hauser, head of Acorn, in order to convert him to MSDOS.
Hauser answered
"-Thanks Bill, but we really cannot make that step backwards."
The BBC (RiscPC's ancestors) indeed had network (Econet which spawned ATM), mouse, color and sound while MSDOS almost had directories...
In 1994, my RiscPC had antialiasing, full-screen video and was able to execute Windows on a 486SXL second processor...
So, Microsoft is about to be used by 1/7 of the planet, I guess it's more because they know how to influence people who can take such decisions for their fellows.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
They don't.
Microsoft stock isn't rising anymore for several years already, Microsoft needs some optimism for the stockholders so Gates, Ballmer, etc. can sell the rest of their stock - oops, sorry: to diversify their portfolio - before it becomes worthless.
The cold hard truth is that MSFT is still vastly overvalued. In the late 90's Microsoft looked like the company that will take over everything: Servers, embedded systems, cellphones - and destroy anything else: mainframes, all non-x86 architectures, etc.
The stock was valued this high because of these huge perceived future earnings.
Now things have changed a lot and Microsoft is struggling everywhere outside their core-market (which is desktop software) and even their core-market is threatened.
Microsoft has 60 billion in the bank, but will they ever be able to earn enough to justify their market cap of 300 billion?
I seriously doubt that.
Seriously, this is not a troll of flaimbait. If Windows is really so bad as many people claim, why does it have so many users? I'm not looking for unhelpful onliners like "most users are idiots", etc. Some Linux and a lot of MacOS X users claim that their platform is superior to Windows in every way. Many Apple users will even argue that the Mac platform is not even more expensive (although they often confuse price with value). If so, why don't more people switch?
I'm a reasonably advanced computer user. Of the major platforms, I use Win2k/XP, Linux quite a lot, OS X somewhat less. In my opinion, they are pretty comparable for most things I want to do (and they each have their own set of quirks). But maybe I'm missing something obvious. So if anyone has some INSIGHTFUL comments on why people don't switch en masse to superior platforms, please let me know. And no flames please, let's try to keep the discussion polite.
Agreed. A few months ago my not-so-computer literate brother came to me asking me to install Linux for him; he had just gotten screwed around by some spyware or some such. He had never really used it before. Now he uses it for everything except the odd video game.
My father switched to Mozilla sometime last year without prompting from me.
Just two small examples.. But it's true; awareness is slowly coming around. It will be interesting to see just how far it goes, especially in light of the recent browser issues.
I dunno ... a lot can happen in six years. Microsoft claims a billion Windows users by 2010, but one might consider, on the other hand, Jeff Prothero's prediction that by 2010, Windows will be as dead as CP/M which is based on doublings-over-doublings of Linux market share.
Reality, as always, is probably somewhere in between.
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1) Longhorn will be the most expensive version of Windows yet developed (No shit Sherlock) BUT it will be the cheapest in real terms.
2) Linux will start to win around the time M$ start to push people towards Longhorn. Linux will have another 2 years of polish and development. Businesses will start to tale a long hard look at the choice of paying the Microsoft tax & taking it up the ass from Bill or shifting to Linux paying the short term pain (which will be a lot closer in cost for businesses when it comes to deploying Longhorn) with the long term gain.
We won't get everybody but as the O/S upgrade cycle swings around we will pick up a significant proportion of business. Once that business starts wanting features & sponsoring their development then it's bye bye monopoly.
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