Get Off Microsoft

Good news! Competition has returned to the industry. I can go on to better topics now. Thanks for all the fish!

What will change the landscape and make it possible for larger numbers of users, especially corporate users, to overcome Microsoft inertia? I’m tracking the development of software as a service, smartphones that don’t do Windows and don’t need to, Apple’s OS X that may some day run Windows XP apps, and Linux on the desktop, which is growing fast in overseas markets.

The Microsoft brand is getting pummeled overseas, in the music industry, and in the server market. Can you even estimate how much good will has been lost? Gates and Ballmer must get indigestion every morning as they scan the headlines on their pocket PCs.

This is how Microsoft gets away with “interoperability” — co-opting proven standards (like XML) and turning them into Microsoft pseudo-standards, which are then set as defaults for the program while offering the real standards as options.

Microsoft’s shakedown turned Novell into a Microsoft partner with SuSE Linux; now it has turned Xandros into a partner as well. Microsoft made them a deal they couldn’t refuse. Like garbage hauling contractors in the Northeast Jersey of The Sopranos, Xandros and Novell have nothing to lose by paying tribute to Microsoft. Linux is thriving in the shadow of Microsoft’s cold war.

Microsoft is resorting to a Cold War on Open Source and Linux, using fear and uncertainty as it primary weapons. Microsoft is using this threat to bring Open Source developers and Linux suppliers — and their large clients — to the bargaining table to pay licenses. The patents should be challenged, because many of them are probably suspect. But these patents probably won’t be challenged in court, because Microsoft does not want a public legal fight. Microsoft would rather keep the Open Source community muttering underneath its breath, and reveal nothing.

Windows XP users — have you recently been “unable to complete genuine Windows validation”? You may be a pirate — or at least Microsoft thinks you might be.

In countries and cities around the world, mandated or not, Linux desktop PCs are decisively replacing PCs.

Microsoft’s delay in providing Windows Vista to the general marketplace has sparked all manner of criticism and analysis. ‘ve addressed a number of questions from reporters and journalists and gathered them here, with paraphrased questions and my responses.

So, why not a cheaper Origami-like device from a manufacturer that runs Linux and Web services? And what about Microsoft’s own Origami becoming a leverage for Web services that eventually dethrone Microsoft Office?