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Linus On The Future Of Microsoft
An anonymous reader writes "There's a pretty good interview with Linus over at Good Morning Silicon Valley. The discussion seems focused predominantly on the future of proprietary software and what the tech landscape might look like if Microsoft's market share declines. 'Says Linus: I do not believe that anything can "replace" Microsoft in the market that MS is right now. Instead, what I think happens is that markets mature, and as they mature and become commoditized, the kind of dominant player like MS just doesn't happen any more. You don't have another dominant player coming in and taking its place -- to find a new dominant player you actually have to start looking at a totally different market altogether.'"
He didn't say the market hadn't been good to them, he said the market wasn't mature. And it isn't. The market for toasters is mature. And maybe cars. But not desktop operating systems or search engines.
Microsoft enjoys the Wal-Mart effect. People love to hate them and say "not here!" but they still go out and shop at Wal-Mart.
That's because most people don't hate Wal-Mart. Most people don't hate Microsoft, either. The people who hate the two companies are well out on the fringe. Almost everybody else is ambivalent.
-h-