[Nottingham] Microsoft challenge

[Michael Leuty]

On 10/07/06, Peter Chang <Peter.Chang at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:
> I'll believe when I see it.

Your cynicism is understandable and I'm not saying that you're wrong,
but I think that at least some people inside the company are aware
that the future will be different and are trying to make changes to
survive in that future.

Their tight control on the desktop software market is under insidious
attack from many quarters, and their effective monopoly will not
survive ten years and possibly not five.

They therefore have but a short time to win friends and change from
being a feared ruthless and aggressive monopolist to everybody's
favorite innovative software company, playing an important and
respected role in the software community.

I don't think they can do it.

Several years ago now Linus said (a) that the destruction of Microsoft
would be a totally unintended result of GNU/Linux, and (b) that they
weren't doing things that were technically interesting. He may be
wrong about the merits of KDE over GNOME, but he was quite correct
there.  ;-)

Despite the high quality and good intentions of many Microsoft
programmers, the unwieldy and huge bureaucratic structure of the
company will prevent it from becoming a nimble responsive and
innovative player in the future market.

Bill Gates has pushed the monopolist model as far as it will go. It's
been fascinating to watch, and it will be just as fascinating to see
what his ruthless legal mind gets up to in the international charity
business.

As Douglas Adams might have said: "so long, and thanks for all the
license fees".

-- 
Michael Leuty
Nottingham, UK