Posted on 07/17/2013 8:09:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the late 1990s, a single technology company became so unfathomably rich and powerful--and so hellbent on dominating not just its own industry but a massive and rapidly growing new one--that the U.S. government dragged the company into court and threatened to break it up over anti-trust violations. The case was settled, and the company, Microsoft, agreed to play nicer.
But it turned out that the world had nothing to worry about. As often happens in the technology industry, what has really destroyed Microsoft's choke hold on the global personal computing market over the past 15 years hasn't been a legal threat but a market shift.
Just when it looked like Microsoft's vision of the PC as the center of the tech world would lead to the creation of the world's first trillion-dollar company, the Internet came along.
And it washed over the PC industry like a tidal wave swallowing a pond.
In terms of market value, Microsoft's loss of power has long been visible: The stock is still trading at about half the level it hit at the peak of the tech boom 13 years ago. The effects on the actual PC industry fundamentals have taken longer to develop, but they are also now crystal clear.
Microsoft's "Windows monopoly" hasn't been so much destroyed as rendered irrelevant. Thanks to the explosion of Internet-based cloud computing and smartphones, tablets, and other mobile gadgets, the once all-powerful platform of the desktop operating system has now been reduced to little more than a device driver. As long as your gadget can connect to the Internet and run some apps, it doesn't matter what operating system you use.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I have a laptop that runs Android. It works better than my old XP laptop and runs all day on the battery.
I suspected that you had no idea of how to define what an OS is or what it does. Thanks for confirming my suspicion.
A current phone is more computer than I owned for the first decade or more of my computer owning life, probably you too.
You are quite correct.
However, the point of the article was that about a decade ago it looked like MS was going to become more and more dominant in the tech field.
That hasn’t happened and isn’t going to happen. We can expect MS to continue losing market share and dominance, though they will be profitable for a long time to come.
Hmmm...in the past 15 years I have (privately) spent on MS products...$50 for a WinXP Pro license via ebay. Granted, my firm spent/spends somewhat more for the newer OS, MS Office etc. But in the home PC sector? Who needs MS anymore?
I’m using the mainstream definition.
I suspect that you are trying to use the definition of it that involves kernels our some technical jargon where any toaster or server that uses a Linux kernel can be counted (the whole Android is Linux line), which isn’t even what this article is using.
Ahh--You must mean the definition of software operating the hardware.
You're right--phones and tablets don't have any software operating the hardware. It's all just magic.
In other words to you an OS is something that has a Windows logo and a start button. If you choose to educate yourself you may find that most people that devote their lives to studying and working with concepts like computer operating systems would tend to employ a broader, more abstract and more technical definition than you. Rock on, dude.
It doesn’t matter how you define it. Are people cancelling or deferring decisions to buy Windows-based products because of their Android or iOS based products? If yes (and that is indeed the answer), then regardless of arguments over what is or isn’t a computer, comparing the units sold and the dollars spent on each is absolutely a head-to-head comparison.
Oh please. You what I’m talking about.
It’s just that definition inconveniently keeps Windows at such a prohibitively high usage level, some people just merely decided to all of a sudden start to count the mobile OSs on phones so they push some narrative that they couldn’t do with desktop Linux and OSX.
Lol!
OK. you go ahead with that definition them if it makes you feel better.
For 99% of the population, like the people that wrote this article, we will go with what we’ve been using.
I've *always* used that definition of OS--software that operates hardware.
That is why I have such a difficult time accepting that MS was allowed to get away with claiming that IE is part of the OS--it controls no hardware. Other applications as well should not be included. The OS should be merely a collection of drivers and firmware that controls access to the hardware.
Nothing more.
“It doesn’t matter how you define it. Are people cancelling or deferring decisions to buy Windows-based products because of their Android or iOS based products?”
No, seeing that the usage of Windows itself hasnt slacked by any significant amount and windows 8 usage is climbing. Already long passing OSX. The purchasing of a new PC is irrelevant because the OS isn’t tired to one device and can be purchased separately.
OK, then you are an exception because most conversations regarding this are almost never based on that. When is the last time someone bought a kernel for their computer? Or asked what kernel version is on your phone?
Every time XBox Live crashes!
This is posted from an XBox
Henry Blodget-—HAHAHAHA. I guess being charged with civil securities fraud does not prevent you from being the CEO of a crap internet business “news” site.
Really?
Check out the Samsung Ativ Q. Intel Core i5. 3200x1800 13-inch display. 4gb RAM. 128gb SSD. Convertible between tablet and laptop form.
Also convertible between Windows 8 and Android Jelly Bean. Writes Matt Baxter-Reynolds on ZDNet:
This is a Windows 8 hybrid that also runs Android. Double-tap the physical Start button on the device and a full-on copy of Jelly Bean pops into view.Imagine if you will trying to break this news to Steve Ballmer without causing him to spontaneously combust. One of his key OEM partners -- a company that has a degree of success at shipping Android devices that from some angles it looks like Google did Android as a personal favour to Samsung's accountants -- turns round and says, "we're not so sure about this New Windows vision of yours, we're going to give our customers Android".
The only safe way to do that is to escort Steve to a soundproof bunker deep on campus, fill it full of two-to-three-hundred especially cute kittens and bunnies and spend a week or so breaking the news to him gently.
“Imagine if you will trying to break this news to Steve Ballmer without causing him to spontaneously combust. “
Amazing how juvenile this has become.
It seems like the only people exploding are those desperate to try to knock off Windows for the past 20 years.
Why would he “explode”? The thing runs a copy of Windows that had to be paid for, while the copy of Android made Google zero dollars.
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