When predicting a quick demise for Microsoft, people might be forgetting about the corporate environments that run Windows. There is a great deal of money in this market, and the revenue from these environments will not extinguish very quickly.
Most companies in the world use the Microsoft operating systems and office productivity applications. There are very few that have gone MS-free, and those are easily overshadowed by the number of companies that run only Microsoft servers and clients.
Many of the largest companies in the world also invest in developing solutions based on this platform, such as Sharepoint portals, Infopath forms, sales automation applications in Outlook and on and on. A lot of companies make at least a few investments in simple Access database applications or SQL servers.
Even if most of these companies decide to ditch Microsoft, how long do you think it will take for these companies to migrate their workflow applications? How much money do you think it would cost to roll out a Linux OS to all their clients? How much would it cost in retraining to teach someone how to recreate their Sharepoint portal? How many companies are prepared to spend the huge sums of money and time it would cost?
Even if investments are justified, somehow I sense that this would not happen quickly. Its much more likely that slow movement would happen, which may be the best news of all for Microsoft. Because in the next few years, Longhorn and its associated technologies may make the OS arguments moot by outpacing the Linux development effort and providing features that simply won't be offered in the Linux available when Longhorn ships.
In my opinion, huge teams of very good and highly paid developers (MS) will come up with better feature lists than smaller teams of passionate expert developers that are writing code in their spare time for no money (OSS). True, the code may be better thought out and more elegant with OSS (heavy peer review), but for office process automation, features are what drives the business to buy the software solution, not elegant code.
If the features of Longhorn are persuasive to the enterprise customers of Microsoft (again, far and away, most companies in the world use Windows), quite the opposite of what the author proposes will happen. Another round of enterprise purchases of Microsoft servers and record profits continue.
If not, what the author proposes will not happen either, until most companies have completed a long and painful migration of business process and technology.
True, he makes a good argument for instinct. But he provides absolutely no facts that support his instinct. No big business deal losses, profit losses, internal turmoil, brain-drain....nothing.
And OK, the guy guessed right on 2 obviously weak companies. That doesn't make his 'instinct' correct in this case or any other.
Do you really think that all the companies that buy Windows will suddenly stop paying the bill immediately and switch? Companies will be required to pay license fees until they remove Windows software.
Can you imageine all the Office applications, Sharepoint sites and SQL databases that will have to be migrated to make that happen?
I think a slow demise would be required for a transition of the corporate IT infrastructure to take place.
Who will define such all encompassing standards? How will you come up with one standard when more than one would really help? Why on earth would we limit ourselves intentionally to one way of doing things?
These same questions can be asked of tyranny and facism. Certainly not utopia, as some others have called it.
Not true! Using your own analogy, it is far easier if all cars standardize on the size of the fuel input hole. This way, when people go to a gas pump, they can just stick it in.
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When predicting a quick demise for Microsoft, people might be forgetting about the corporate environments that run Windows. There is a great deal of money in this market, and the revenue from these environments will not extinguish very quickly. Most companies in the world use the Microsoft operating systems and office productivity applications. There are very few that have gone MS-free, and those are easily overshadowed by the number of companies that run only Microsoft servers and clients. Many of the largest companies in the world also invest in developing solutions based on this platform, such as Sharepoint portals, Infopath forms, sales automation applications in Outlook and on and on. A lot of companies make at least a few investments in simple Access database applications or SQL servers. Even if most of these companies decide to ditch Microsoft, how long do you think it will take for these companies to migrate their workflow applications? How much money do you think it would cost to roll out a Linux OS to all their clients? How much would it cost in retraining to teach someone how to recreate their Sharepoint portal? How many companies are prepared to spend the huge sums of money and time it would cost? Even if investments are justified, somehow I sense that this would not happen quickly. Its much more likely that slow movement would happen, which may be the best news of all for Microsoft. Because in the next few years, Longhorn and its associated technologies may make the OS arguments moot by outpacing the Linux development effort and providing features that simply won't be offered in the Linux available when Longhorn ships. In my opinion, huge teams of very good and highly paid developers (MS) will come up with better feature lists than smaller teams of passionate expert developers that are writing code in their spare time for no money (OSS). True, the code may be better thought out and more elegant with OSS (heavy peer review), but for office process automation, features are what drives the business to buy the software solution, not elegant code. If the features of Longhorn are persuasive to the enterprise customers of Microsoft (again, far and away, most companies in the world use Windows), quite the opposite of what the author proposes will happen. Another round of enterprise purchases of Microsoft servers and record profits continue. If not, what the author proposes will not happen either, until most companies have completed a long and painful migration of business process and technology.
True, he makes a good argument for instinct. But he provides absolutely no facts that support his instinct. No big business deal losses, profit losses, internal turmoil, brain-drain....nothing. And OK, the guy guessed right on 2 obviously weak companies. That doesn't make his 'instinct' correct in this case or any other.
Do you really think that all the companies that buy Windows will suddenly stop paying the bill immediately and switch? Companies will be required to pay license fees until they remove Windows software. Can you imageine all the Office applications, Sharepoint sites and SQL databases that will have to be migrated to make that happen? I think a slow demise would be required for a transition of the corporate IT infrastructure to take place.
Who will define such all encompassing standards? How will you come up with one standard when more than one would really help? Why on earth would we limit ourselves intentionally to one way of doing things? These same questions can be asked of tyranny and facism. Certainly not utopia, as some others have called it.
Not true! Using your own analogy, it is far easier if all cars standardize on the size of the fuel input hole. This way, when people go to a gas pump, they can just stick it in.