Microsoft will never vanish.

It will live on amongst small and scattered groups of nostalgic, computer historians.

Actually that was Al Gore only, but that was

what will happen if microsoft doesn't exist? many possible senarios exist, and they are all better than our own present in my openion... if microsoft was not to own the whole market for itself, if microsoft didn't work hard on preserving monopoly over the market, it would have been possible for many software companies to arise and florish the market with products that are much functional and secure... microsoft's policy have destroyed (in many cases) the attempts of large economies of scale to even start!!! no one will enter a losing business ?!!! the author says that people like to hate microsoft, in fact people don't have anyone else to hate !!!

If Microsoft would ever vanish, I wouldn't even noticed unless I came here and heard about it, lol.
I don't use windows anymore, just mandriva and suse.
I checked some reviews on amazon.com and a good portion of the reviews for mandriva/suse were good.
As for windows XP and XP pro, a lot were saying it was terrible, and switch to linux and/or Mac, giving off reasons why they hate windows and reasons why they love linux and/or Mac and reasons to switch to that instead.
I can see why Bill Gates is nervous. People are really beginning to see a different OS that in my opinion is better.

So if Microsoft vanished, I don't see a problem. People are getting by with linux and/or mac (like myself) just fine.

I've yet to see anyone mention government. Does anyone really, realize how much gov'ts around the world have invested in Windows? (US esp) Granted usually gov'ts aren't the best at spending money but if MS vanished... I think countries might collapse.

re:governments

micorosoft is a company which employ's people. those people, outside 3rd party consultants, etc would probably start up their own business and fill in the void nicely and the whole world would move on with other operating systems.

similar threads:

I agree. I can't see if Microsoft goes, the world goes. Would they say we're doomed even though there's several linux distributions and Macs?
"Microsoft is gone! We're doomed! There's several linux distributions, and Macs out there, but we can't use them. I don't know why though, we just can't."

I can't see the world saying since Microsoft is gone, even though we have linux and mac, that they'll just throw their hands up in the air, and say, that's it.

If MS died then alot of companies would move in to fill the gap. The market would grow and computer users would benefit.

Cheers,
Ithaycu

If Microsoft software vanished, then we are in a big trouble. It will be like stepping back 20 years. It won't be in anyway easy for end-users to migrate to another operating system, let alone software.

If Microsoft vanished, it will be less of a danger. But still, I cannot imagine how all those businesses and corporations whose infrastructure is built on Microsoft-related technologies would cope with this forced change to their technologies.

Then UNIX/Linux shall rule over the world and everyone would have a safe and stable computer under the desktop?

I think that thanks to Microsoft (yes, you are reading that right) we all have now standards, tons of them, from any to any kind. But we have them now, working outright without most of you even noticing. Those standars are already out there, some not thanks to MS of course, but some do. Anything that you could standarize it's already done. If something new comes around, it is standarized before you even know; and not with the help of MS anymore. We do not need it.

If Microsoft just vanished right now, what? Here's what I imagine.

Big enterprises would complaint over and over, but, to whom? the goverment? the police? 911? the CIA or the FBI? the Liverpool? to some 01-800 toll-free lines? the PFP? (<--- that's in Mexico)

Panic in the streets, some wars for powering over the information would raise at the beginning. There would be no patches nor updates anymore. New flaws would be discovered everyday and windoze users would need to change over their OS because it's too insecure to have that crap running on internet and *maybe* the most windoze-loving-geeks become some kind of underground all-known-but-always-denied subculture, providing their own patches over an internet black and restricted market to gifted ones or L337 people (supposing that somehow window's source code leakes on the net).

Windoze-based web sites shall get hacked eventually and become zombie domains in service to the dark spam forces. They would belong to no one.

The would be lots and lots of enterprises trying to become the new King-of-the-hill in the valley of closed software. No one would success. There is no need for anyone like that anymore.

Mac users would bloom like if there were no tomorrow in the desktops and laptops; also Ubuntu, Mandriva, Xandros, and all those distros that try to be a replacement to windoze albeit not an alternative (and I don't even know them all), would have the larger users base.

Unix would be the king of the servers and stability as always. Slackware, Red Hat, Debian and SuSE shall grow more remarkably as well in the server market.

Being a developer wouldn't be an employment anymore, but a style of life, like a hobbie for all days, a (hippie?) new-wave way to live. Giving away code for the sake of the humanity would lead you to happiness and salvation. (ROFLMAO! where did that came from?)

Life without MS would be ok. Maybe not nicer but certainly not worse. Maybe nothing would change, while changing everything. Who knows?

Ok, enough post-apocalyptic thoughts for today. I gotta torture.. say.. take care of some users

It is unlikely Commodore would still exist. After Tramiel was forced out (and in response bought a controlling interest in Atari and promptly introduced the ST) the new management at Commodore embezzled every cent they could and cut budgets for both development and for marketing. It was a company that fell HARD from being the dominant computer manufacturer which practically owned the market to "Commodore? Who is that?" over the course of just a couple of years.

The Atari ST would almost surely still be around.

what would happen if M$ dissapeared?
hmm, well the computer world would be alot cheaper
and people might actually be forced to learn how to use a computer

scary thoughts

Information riots... Data revolt... Bit battles... Nah we would just switch to Unix/Linux OS X and never look back. Sure there would be learning curves and data would need to be migrated into the new systems.

I had a commodore growing up and learned basic programming from that machine, however I was not fortunate enough to own an Atari ST. I have heard many good things about the ST and the Amiga', yet I never used either machine.

Cheers,
Ithaycu

Then the whole world will become secure, and Apple computers will flourish and takes a major portion of the hardware industry.