It's one of those things you want to happen, but never will!

I'd rather see them have stiff competition than to be out of the game. I've kept steady jobs because of Windows. So while alot may want and end to the evil empire I enjoy staying employed because people are having problems with their PC. I used to work in a Warehouse and dont want to go back to that!! LOL!!!

Yep, this is very likely. Even in the near future PC's are going to become more spaecialized appliances and nobody will know or care what the OS is...

ie does anyone know what software runs in their microwave oven or dvd player? Of course not, it's just a tool...

This has already started and it's only nerdy guys like us on these lists who keep up with these things... Indeed even today most people don't know what the OS thing on their PC is. It's just 'the computer' and they use it to buy stuff on eBay or chat or email or whatever...

I wouldn't worry too much. There will always be jobs for talented PC people. And the computer illiterates will screw up any OS and need help

Well, it's just speculation either way. Computers were around a long time before microsoft and they were a late player in the technologie and had to play catch up when they ignored the internet early on... It's likely that computers of some sort will exist after microsoft is the big name in the field... And remember that MS is NOT a big name across the board in computers - they are only the big name in desktop PC's, not the big server boxes and verious other computing fields.

The one thing w do know for sure is that they can no longer maintain the huge growth they had over the last 10 years due to market saturation. Even if they stay as the biggest OS today they still have financial issues to deal with in a low growth market. Some companies never could cope with that change. Many diversified, but MS has not done a lot of that. They have tried a few things, but so far nothing that's really knocked our socks off.

It's hard to compare MS with macdonalds... For example you can imagine how long macdonalds would survive if there was a free hamburger shop next door

I disagree. I was using microcomputers way before MS existed. IT's the hardware that made this possible and if it wasn't MS on these boxes it would be some other OS - a descendent of GEM perhaps... Or something else...

Do you think apple was that hard to copy MS did a hack of it easy enough

explains why its so crappy ...

anyways, I'm sure lots of people would be using computers, and for windows making it easier for people to use p.c's i disagree, a lot of people cant even find the "start menu" or the "start button" if you ask them to click it, others a just above this level, if i person can use windows and gets pissed, they can use any OS they want as they are obviously smart enough to learn how (i doubt those people that cant find a start menu even when you tell them can learn anything)

windows might have been one of the first good OS's for PC's, but diffidently not anymore ... i remember this one program that shipped with the first PC i used (i don't remember the maker of it, but it had a picture of a bell on it, and the name had the word bell in it), i think the OS was windows 3.1 or 3.0 or something pre win95 on it, anyways, the program i remember gave a picture of a hallway, you could walk from there into rooms, one room was a office, if you clicked the notepad it would open a writer program for you, if you clicked a telephone it you call someone, if you clicked a calculator it would let you use the calculator, and so on .... each room had different things you could click on, another room for games .. and i forget the others ... but it made made win95 seem pathetic (well, as usefulness goes .. as i couldn't find anything in win95 for a long time)

if a OS ships with a program like that, it could diffidently advertise as among the easiest OS's

and there is no way M$ is going to stay in its current state of business when TC comes around, with people unable to download things M$ doesn't want them to, and the turning of a personal computer into a microsoft computer, all a linux distro (or open source in general) would need is a few well placed adds and you'll probably find lots of people upset that there music collection (this being probably 50% at least of all home computers) was deleted, if a distro made it easy to install (auto detect and auto configure everything at install with the user only telling the installer what they want to use the computer for) and if the distro shipped with a program like the one i described above, surely lots of angry people would switch to some sort of distro

I see what you're trying to say but understand my point...you were using computers and so was I (back in the Commodore 64 days etc) before MS was a major players but part of the reason why computers are in 65 percent or more of homes is a) cheap hardware /pc's and b) Windows 95 and 98. Unix was running servers far better and way before Windows NT but what was on 90 percent of desktops home and office? Windows NT workstation, Windows 98...

People try to make MS look like some fly by night company that is soon to die but any company that has as much money as they do will continue to find ways to profit even if it means hiring Open Source developers which they do now behind the scenes and some not all open source developers (as happy as they are coding for the general love of coding) who are used to living off of next to
nothing are easily persuaded when nice paychecks, benefits etc are flashed in front of them to work for the rival team. IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME in business.... people going to work for their competitors. Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates arent blind. They aren't stupid either. You dont go to Harvard and form the most succesful software company in history being idiots. As much as we want to call them that..LOL!!! What they are, are Kings in the chess game and pieces may fall but it'll be a long time before that company is checkmated.

oh and SciYro, Im going to keep an eye on Trusted Computing. I was talking to a former MS employee over the internet and he said he believes TC will be a seriously threat to the success of Longhorn if it is implemented. But he also speculated that the reason they want some form of Trusted Computing is for their own protection against software companies, media entertainment companies etc from sueing them because people are able to pirate music, software, movies etc on their OS without any repercussion. He also said the thinks Longhorns delay is not because of security of straightening the file system but because they are waiting for the court cases to settle before unleashing a new OS.

Interesting theory...we'll see how it plays out.

My point is that the software the PC runs is irrelevant. People still don't seem to realize that. There have been other OS's as good and better than windows - like mac OS or amigaOS. The hardware is what put PC's in the home.

The C64 was a toy compared to modern PC's. You couldn't do a lot with it. You needed a real PC. The new hardware made much possible.

After that you needed something to d with that PC. For most people that is the internet - something that MS didn't give us either, rather it was other software houses that made this work for the ordinary person.

You also need basic tasks like word processing. This was made popular by other than MS as well... Sure, MS Dos was there, but it didn't really do anything, and there were alternatives like DR DOS. MS only stayed ahead due to it's deals with IBM and the fact it was supplied with the hardware.

The point is that MS did not make the wave. At best they grabbed a board and surfed it and then called the new wave of PC's it's own...

But the hardware made the PC what it is. Apple has shown that. Others have as well. Without MS in the world, there would be others in it's place, just as there are other hardware houses beside IBM... Without IBM's PC there would have been another... But it was the IBM strategy of the open hardware was what caused the PC explosion. It almost happened earlier with the apple, but apple stopped it. Had it not been for apple stopping the clones or the IIe and such, we'd be using an apple compatible right now... Apple then had MS copy the mac interfece and used it to take over the PC market...

IBM and others had more to do with the micro revolution, and that was just luck... MS was lucky enough to hitch the ride with the PC. It could very easily have been DR, and very nearly was... In that case we'd be using GEM XP now

I doubt they'll ever die, but I suspect eventually F/OSS will have enough momentum to drive Microsoft (and many other proprietary software vendors) into a fairly small niche market. I think it could be sudden, but it's more likely to be gradual - it seems that few things happen suddenly in open source development, so any direct threat to MS' well-being will probably be anticipated long enough in advance that they find a way to adapt to it, unless there is some kind of coming awakening in which people switch to Linux in droves.

I'm firmly convinced that open-source software development is the only software development model with any kind of future. With proprietary development of any kind, a piece of software is limited by the resources a company can throw at it, and by whether it's economically viable. There's also the ever-present issue that the developer will work in his own best interest rather than in the interests of the users - hence problems with proprietary lock-in, incompatible file formats and standards, multiple re-inventions of the wheel, etc. Proprietary software development in many cases just seems like an extraordinary waste of resources.

With open-source software development, the only real restriction I can see is whether there are enough developers interested in working on it. The more useful and in demand a piece of software is, the more likely it is to attract developers. Time and energy are, I suspect, less often squandered, and more often put towards improving existing open-source code, documentation, and algorithms. Overall it seems like a much better way to work. Developing this way certainly has its flaws - lack of adequate preliminary work, poor developer-to-user communication resulting in often-cumbersome UIs, etc. - but I don't think these things are as big an impediment to progress as the limiting factors in proprietary development are.

But really, I have no clue what will happen. It'll definitely be fun to watch.

Amosf....that wasnt luck. I dont think Bill Gates is going "we are lucky" That was a mixture or strategy, shady business practices, determination, and a few smooth sly business deals. Im sure he was thinking that as a hobbyist in 1975 when he was developing BASIC (which was already written a decade earlier) for the ALTAIR and when he was creating MS-DOS (which supplanted QDOS) in 82 to run on IBM pc's. Again a geek hobbyist turned businessman with determination and a plan. In the mid 80's I think he strikes a deal with Apple (Apple was going to file a lawsuit for Windows 1.0 in 85 but remember Xerox is the company that actually created the GUI) to
include Apple features in future MS software products. Apple agrees and just like IBM letting MS keep the liscensing rights to MS-DOS (for $50,000) the rest is HIS-Story. By 1988 they were the top software company and continued their dominance in the 90's. Thats not being lucky, thats having a concrete plan and putting it into work.

So in that regards its somewhat absurd to say "Software is irrelevant" because its both hardware and software
that sells PC's. If it were just hardware then people would buy more XBox's than Playstation 2's but PS2's has the most games. Dreamcast would still be around but people were still flocking to their PS1's. Its not just the restaurant but what that restaurant serves also.

MS would not be where it is right now without IBM or Apple. BUT....the PC industry WOULD NOT be were it is today without the rise of the internet and without the success of Windows and MS Office. And it was a few men with a vision, ambition, smooth hustling and dealing, work ethic and whatever else that we can thank (and curse) for that. as the saying goes "have gun will travel..."

btw I'm praying for the success of Open Source and Linux as more than just a hobbyist platform and business solution but as a desktop alternative also BUT I think it will only work if everything and everyone works together. In other words to get it into homes we need Walmarts, Dell, CompUSA, BestBuy, Gateway, etc etc to sell more desktops with Linux. And we need (this is very important) more Linux commercials and not just as IBM solutions but family commercials comparing cost and benefits of using PC's equipped with linux. We need the Adobe's, Macromedia, EA's, and other software companies to port their popular software to Linux. We need hardware companies to make device drivers for linux shipped in the box (along with Windows drivers ) for new devices. We need the Mandrakes, RedHats, Suse, Xandros, Linspires etc to keep up with the latest in multimedia, and make it easy to use (instead of scratching your head configuring digital video players to work)
We need all of these things and more and if it happens then it party time!!!!!

"Amosf....that wasnt luck. I dont think Bill Gates is going "we are lucky" That was a mixture or strategy"

It was luck in respect that the IBM was such a hit. It was not MSDOS that made it a hit either. And it was not MS software that made it popular. Rather it was software from other vendors. Once upon a time the big hits were things like wordperfect and lotus 123 and such...

"when he was creating MS-DOS (which supplanted QDOS)"

MS did not create MS-DOS... MS-DOS **WAS** QDOS. They bought it cheap. The creator of QDOS has things to say on the subject, so look it up

By the time we get to windows days, MS has already had the lucky break and after that they just had to continue on the proven method of buying, stealing or copying the software they needed...

And I'm not saying ALL software is irrelevent - just a PARTICULAR software is irrelivent. If one type of software does not exist then another one will ne ther to take it's place. The computer industry does not NEED MS, something else would do as well or better. We don't need linux either as something else, like BSD could fill the space.

If not DOS then it would have been the x86 version of CP/M. If not windows then GEM, etc.

Software can drive the market, but it's not usually an OS that does it. A good point is your own - GAMES drive the market and push the hardware much more than an OS, which should be the case as an OS is just, after all, an OS...

In the early days an OS never has such unrealistic importance. It just came with the machine. This is something that even caught IBM by surprise. MS managed to market something that really should not have been marketable... That part was clever, admittedly, but they still rode the wave that was inevitable.

We would have had household PC's today with or without MS... They is a school of though that says the PC may even have bee BETTER today without the MS stagnation, but that's a matter of debate....

"the PC industry WOULD NOT be were it is today without the rise of the internet and without the success of Windows and MS Office."

Now remember that MS actually missed the internet and had to catch up on that one. They took over something that was pioneered by others. Taking over other peoples market is something MS is good at. They also did it with word and office. They were not first in any of these areas, rather they use their monopoly to later dominate them and wipe out the opposition. This is why they have had these recent legal difficulties and why they have such a bad name and why people won't mind seeing them come crashing down.

Whether it will crash is debateable. It won't really affect linux users either way. We are really outside observers and most of us have no real interest either way. It doesn't really have any direct impact on linux users these days and we watch on more out of a curiousity. MS blew it for us a long time ago, so we went our separate ways and made a new life for ourselves. WE may have been bitter early on, but now it's just old news and we don't need MS or any of that stuff any more...

I only chat about it for something to do on a warm sunny tropical Australian saturday afternoon

That has to be Microsoft BOB! Microsoft's biggest single flop ever.
http://toastytech.com/guis/bob.html

Martin

Microsoft as a company in other fields of IT : Will last for quite a while.

Microsoft's OS business : On the way to fast shutdown!