Get Off Microsoft

As Apple eats away at Microsoft’s market share on the consumer side of PCs and mobile devices, and Google chips at Microsoft Office’s share in business, Microsoft is caught in the middle and facing a two-front war.

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.

Google introduced Google Apps Premier Edition for $50 per account per year. The best thing about these types of Web applications (or Web services) is that the software is NYP — Not Your Problem.

It should come as no surprise to learn that the inventors of the spreadsheet and the first companies to market spreadsheet software were refugees from the Sixties counterculture. How often have you looked at a spreadsheet and thought, what were they smoking?

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

Apple’s 30th anniversary is a prime subject for journalists this month, and I’ve fielded a number of interesting questions concerning Apple’s success. I gathered some relevant questions and my responses here.

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?