Ex-Microsoft Programmer Taken Entirely Too Seriously
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I discovered this article today and right off the bat, I had the feeling that this ex-Microsoft programmer had an ax to grind with their employer. I read this article three times. Each time, I had held out hope that there was some concrete nugget I could point to in hopes of getting myself interested in what the piece was saying. Sadly, while the person featured in the piece had some interesting points, I see the entire idea as just that, ideas.
Windows, despite its flaws, is not going anywhere. And no matter how foolish the mistakes made in Redmond might be, Windows is heavily entrenched in the minds and hearts of millions. And where mind share fails, for many legacy software for that platform picks up the ball. Folks, some people are locked into Windows - pure and simple. It matters little if it is worse or better than Linux. My worse is another man’s better.
So the idea of Windows and proprietary software dying anytime soon is not going to happen. As powerful as the open source community is, money writes the checks of life. And open source business models are still being felt out in the consumer desktop market for Linux. Open source in schools, the enterprise and other areas is doing well. But there is still much work to be done before it is going to dethrone Microsoft anytime soon.
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Microsoft and the open source threat « How I see the world
May 22nd, 2009
at 1:26am
[...] Microsoft and the open source threat Matt Hartley writes on Lockergnome about a former Microsoft employee predicting proprietary software death, or at least Redmons’ products one (full article at http://www.lockergnome.com/linux/2009/05/21/ex-microsoft-programmer-taken-entirely-too-seriously/). [...]
Hotrao
May 22nd, 2009
at 1:26am
I think that most important thing is something very similar to adverse selection seen in insurance (the phenomena for which those at most risk are those most likely to take insurance for this risk).
Open source software is quite interesting for companies (because of less cost associated, at least at startup), but proprietary software is so present and binded within companies that feels to me quite difficult to substitute it with open sources.
This is true, at most reason, for OSes: if I can agree that funcionalities of a Linux based system (whichever it is) are more usefull and easily available to the power (or not so power) user than those in proprietary systems, on the other side I must admit that Windows is so pervasive in today computing that seems quite impossible to drive it to death in medium term.
There are also other two points:
People using computers are, in general, not hackers nor power users, nor technical aware people. And this is a barrier to understand and accept the open source switch;
Companies that use open source systems rely on a set of tools, functions and other means specifically tied to an OS (think of APIs and DLL on 3270 web emulation packages that are tied, oftenly, to specific OSes and browsers)
So, Bill can sleep well for another couple of decades, maybe loosing some of his tremendous market share, but, definitely not closing his business.
The king is dead (?), so long live the king. :-)
Hotrao
May 22nd, 2009
at 2:12am
Above comment also at http://ictheworld.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/microsoft-and-the-open-source-threat/