Gatner “Windows is collapsing”
Friday, April 11th, 2008So Gartner, one of the largest analysis companies said in a conference that windows is collapsing. Lots of reasons were given including a large code for windows that became un-maintainable and lead Microsoft to start from a more stable release of Windows 2003, and improve on for Vista. This in turn lead to Vista not really delivering meaningful enhancements from the point of view of the end consumer. Also, the fact that applications now are moving on the web and becoming OS agnostic where you can run many available software almost on all operating systems (openoffice for example, inkscape and others based on GNU’s compilers or java).
Other reasons included a hardware demanding OS, which can’t fit on small PDA’s and thus giving the chance for Linux and OS X. I add to this list, the complete prevalence of Linux in embedded OSs in appliances like Tivos, with zero competition from Microsoft.
A big major contribution from my point of view is the reason of making a new release. When a company decides to allocate resources for the development of a software, they need goals. The only goal that is obvious from the release of Vista was to duress people into DRM, using windows position as a must be OS on every PC or laptop. A very important lesson that you can’t force the whole world into only your own vision, but you have to embrace what people want, make it your vision and may be add more on the side. After all people are the consumer. Unfortunately, that was the second time Microsoft did that, after they already suffered losses on the server side and hosting.
However, I do disagree with Gartner on the result that Microsoft or windows will crash. I believe that Microsoft is trying to embrace the standards and work with others, it’s just they’re not doing enough and lots of people doubt their intentions. My view is Microsoft becoming more like SUN or IBM where they will have to work with people and provide solutions for the problems that people see using ways that the people want.
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