How does microsoft fall under 50% market share?

[weasel fierce]

Not nescesarily from linux (just like IE didn't drop under 50% from Firefox alone) but how would it happen?

Speculate :)

Apple dropping prices by 50%?

Google pulling out all the guns?

Piracy rates of windows and office reaching 99% making microsoft unable to profit any longer?

Chinese influence?

Rogue space alien infiltrators?

[Shining Arcanine]

It would be from the increasingly large groups of people buying Apple hardware.

This could be accelerated if Apple allowed companies to sell systems running Mac OS X. I believe Dell tried making a deal with Apple, but Apple declined, so Dell went with Ubuntu.

I doubt that Apple will ever allow other companies to sell Mac OS X. It would lose control over the hardware being used, their resources would go toward indirectly supporting other OEMs' customers and Apple's reputation would be the one that suffers if those companies do stupid things that destabilizes Mac OS X. After all, people tend to blame their OS when they have computer problems.

[Npl]

This guy:
http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/the-terminator-terminator-297809_555_800.jpg

(and some unimportant details like timetravel)

[msrie]

Would need a dumbed down version of os, or cloud computing with those devices doing all the net things from devices that access clouds. Windows is dumbed down os, so it would be hard to turn people of it for linux.

[Jay Car]

The best way for Microsoft to keep dwindling away is for them to continue doing what they've always done, the exact same ways they've always been doing it.

Oh yes, almost forgot, keeping Steve Ballmer in place should also greatly help in reducing Microsoft's place in the market.

The truth is, companies grow and companies decline, it's a normal part of things. In Microsoft's case it's nice if we can all do our part in helping that normal process along.

I'm sure they'll thank us someday... :D

[MisterGaribaldi]

I wanna say something about this, but I'm going to go off-topic for a moment first.

Let's take a look at the U.S. economy, which at the moment is basically a microcosm of what's going on around the world. Our currency has no value and has been getting hyper-inflated especially over the course of the last four decades. Right now, we're in one of the worst economic times we've seen since the Great Depression. (For the record, during the Great Depression, the U.S. was still on the gold standard and even though times were awful for people, the U.S. Dollar was worth its stated value. But that's another story.) Anyhow, between our economic and political turmoil, we've been going through some pretty lean and bad times lately.

And so has the business world, which has seen plummeting revenues and a diminishing customer base. Whole industries have gone down the toilet, and whole other industries (tech, airlines, services, tourism, etc.) are in some pretty bad shape.

It is against this backdrop that Apple has been doing exceedingly well. In fact, frankly, they've been enjoying banner year after banner year. Their products all have healthy profit margins, and in general they have also all been sales leaders. So say whatever you want about Apple, but remember that as a business, they are everything that any sane business person would want as their company.

Now, let's return to the topic of this thread, which is Microsoft's marketshare.

Microsoft is and has been an insanely over-valued company when it comes to their market cap, their assets, etc. However, they are also in what some call a "catbird seat" because they've been able to do what they want, and push court systems and governments and businesses and individuals around. But, Microsoft has traditionally put out some pretty buggy software (especially their OS, which certainly up through XP was a piece of security and good-design swiss cheese) and even Vista (which was a massive cluster-you-know-what) has had security problems and has been exploited.

Frankly, lots of people and businesses, as Apple's been on an upswing of visibility, have been willing to risk the possibility of there being someone other than Microsoft which can put out a platform they can use. Whether it's been through iPod/iPhone "halo effects" or through simple exposure to "something different" Apple has as a business had a very big impact. And, of course, everybody else "bundles Windows" so eventually it comes down to dawning on people that the "Windows-running" world is all much the same in terms of hardware.

Anyway, Apple's hardware sales are huge and swamping most of the others out there. And while it's still a LONG way off, *this* is how (if it is to happen at all) that Microsoft's marketshare will fall below 50%.

Sadly, it sure as he** isn't the result of the Linux community's "herding cats"-like efforts.

[JRV]

MS will fall below 50% market when you include mobile devices. More and more people are moving from computers to mobile phones.

Android (Linux) market share is huge in mobile devices. They are outselling iphone and microsoft.

[MisterGaribaldi]

And Android owes none of its commercial success to the Linux world, but rather to a company (Google) deciding to be productive and innovative and (frankly) "cathedral"-ize the thing and put a bunch of money behind it.

Maybe this makes me sound anti-Linux or anti-F/OSS community. I'm really not, but honestly when you look at any of the Linux platform's success stories, it's *always* been as a result of some company throwing a LOT of money behind what they want to do with it and basically not really adhering very much to Eric Raymond's paper's principles.

I wish the F/OSS community would come down off their high horse, but in the "bazaar" one is not likely to ever see that, so... *sigh*

[laceration]

If you are just talking desktop OS's, that's one thing but things are becoming more browser-centric and more device-centric.

The new generation browsers, which are soon to be here, will approach the graphical richness of video games. MS's IE, alone of major browsers, will not support technologies such as webgl that will make this happen. Will people be dumping it in favor of browsers that will run hot new sites and webapps?

Tablets. I want one, doesn't everybody? Tablets are an Ipad, Android world. Meanwhile MS is just catching on to smart phones. They are way behind the curve.

So MS can do business as usual in the stodgy business world, where they rule. But as this propped up, house of cards sector has to eventually face reality when all the bad debt is finally flushed out, will they not be turning to cheaper solutions like the cloud and FOSS?

[3Miro]

If Apple wanted to go for the Desktop market, they would have done that with competitive pricing, right now their products are way overpriced to fight MS. Apple doesn't care to win the desktop market.

Ubuntu is now getting noticed, by 12.04 they will have a very stable very end user oriented system, basically cheap OSX. More and more manufacturers take a notice of that. The major problems of Ubuntu are: manufacturers don't make drivers, most users are not savvy enough to setup their own systems, most people have not even heard of Ubuntu, it looks very different from anything people have seen before. Breaking those three is a slow process, but once people learn about Ubuntu and can get it cheaper, with same hardware and software support, MS will go down (very slowly).

[Swagman]

I wanna say something about this, but I'm going to go off-topic for a moment first.

Let's take a look at the U.S. economy, which at the moment is basically a microcosm of what's going on around the world. Our currency has no value and has been getting hyper-inflated especially over the course of the last four decades. Right now, we're in one of the worst economic times we've seen since the Great Depression. (For the record, during the Great Depression, the U.S. was still on the gold standard and even though times were awful for people, the U.S. Dollar was worth its stated value. But that's another story.) Anyhow, between our economic and political turmoil, we've been going through some pretty lean and bad times lately.

And so has the business world, which has seen plummeting revenues and a diminishing customer base. Whole industries have gone down the toilet, and whole other industries (tech, airlines, services, tourism, etc.) are in some pretty bad shape.

It is against this backdrop that Apple has been doing exceedingly well. In fact, frankly, they've been enjoying banner year after banner year. Their products all have healthy profit margins, and in general they have also all been sales leaders. So say whatever you want about Apple, but remember that as a business, they are everything that any sane business person would want as their company.

Now, let's return to the topic of this thread, which is Microsoft's marketshare.

Microsoft is and has been an insanely over-valued company when it comes to their market cap, their assets, etc. However, they are also in what some call a "catbird seat" because they've been able to do what they want, and push court systems and governments and businesses and individuals around. But, Microsoft has traditionally put out some pretty buggy software (especially their OS, which certainly up through XP was a piece of security and good-design swiss cheese) and even Vista (which was a massive cluster-you-know-what) has had security problems and has been exploited.

Frankly, lots of people and businesses, as Apple's been on an upswing of visibility, have been willing to risk the possibility of there being someone other than Microsoft which can put out a platform they can use. Whether it's been through iPod/iPhone "halo effects" or through simple exposure to "something different" Apple has as a business had a very big impact. And, of course, everybody else "bundles Windows" so eventually it comes down to dawning on people that the "Windows-running" world is all much the same in terms of hardware.

Anyway, Apple's hardware sales are huge and swamping most of the others out there. And while it's still a LONG way off, *this* is how (if it is to happen at all) that Microsoft's marketshare will fall below 50%.

Sadly, it sure as he** isn't the result of the Linux community's "herding cats"-like efforts.

^This^

Microsoft is an enormous company with enormous overheads... In a recession people make do with what they've got. In the meantime Microsoft still has it's overheads.

As a company I don't expect it to fail anytime soon but heads will roll.. Mass retrenchments etc.

[forrestcupp]

Google pulling out all the guns?
Google is going to have to come up with something a lot better than a crappy cloud-only netbook with no local storage.



Oh yes, almost forgot, keeping Steve Ballmer in place should also greatly help in reducing Microsoft's place in the market.
People forget that Ballmer has been around since almost the beginning. He was the 30th person hired by MS, and he was the first business manager Gates ever hired. By the time MS incorporated in 1981, Ballmer was an 8% owner. Ballmer has been a top guy there almost the whole time, and they still got where they did. I agree that Ballmer is a big ape, but they're not going to lose any ground just because of him.

[MooPi]

My speculation, hmmmm. An incredibly nasty trojan runs amuck affecting the entire globe shutting down whole industries and governments. Everyone scrambles to recover and discover anything that is secure and able to handle day to day duties. That is how Microsoft will fall below fifty percent. ;-)

[oldsoundguy]

All Microsoft has to do is keep on conducting business under their current business model.


They have already lost majority in the most lucrative phase of operating software .. that of enterprise or server software.

The current rate of shift is about 1/2 of 1% (or .5%) loss per month. (according to the W3 website) Even Win 7 did not create a rush and the users of Win 7 came mostly from Vista users that were fed up.

[phrostbyte]

Apple has the right idea, the trick is not to make Windows irrelevant, but make the PC itself irrelevant.

They start a new market with the smartphone and tablet that made them more money that Microsoft could ever hope for (with Windows) in just a few years.

[andymorton]

Apple has the right idea, the trick is not to make Windows irrelevant, but make the PC itself irrelevant.

Ubuntu's in deep trouble as well then :cry:

[phrostbyte]

Ubuntu's in deep trouble as well then :cry:

Don't get me wrong - we can overtake Microsoft at the desktop. It just will take a long time and not be like the explosive growth Apple has had with their iOS line of products.

Microsoft's execs have commented before on the companies ability to stay in market despite being unprofitable for years, wearing out their competitors. They have a point, Microsoft strength is their ability to outlast their competitors.

There is one exception to this. They can not outlast FOSS.

The thing is about the GNU/Linux desktop is that no matter what it will continue to fight and fight and never stop fighting for what basically amounts to world domination. If Canonical won't take it there, someone else will (Google?). That's the power of being beyond the control of a single corporation or government entity, and being immune from bankruptcy, as Ballmer himself has noted as a trait of FOSS.

[MasterNetra]

Would need a dumbed down version of os, or cloud computing with those devices doing all the net things from devices that access clouds. Windows is dumbed down os, so it would be hard to turn people of it for linux.

Closes to one would be Pinguy OS.


Ubuntu's in deep trouble as well then :cry:

Not necessarily, Ubuntu runs on macs too.

http://lowendmac.com/ed/bgray/bg10/ubuntu-10.04-review.html

[MasterNetra]

*Accidental Double Post*

[Jay Car]

Google is going to have to come up with something a lot better than a crappy cloud-only netbook with no local storage.

People forget that Ballmer has been around since almost the beginning. He was the 30th person hired by MS, and he was the first business manager Gates ever hired. By the time MS incorporated in 1981, Ballmer was an 8% owner. Ballmer has been a top guy there almost the whole time, and they still got where they did. I agree that Ballmer is a big ape, but they're not going to lose any ground just because of him.

I may have been a little flippant with my remarks, but they're still on point, I think.

No one has forgotten Ballmer's role in Microsoft's early years. But it's not 1981 anymore, the 80s and 90s are long gone, the world has changed, but Ballmer hasn't.

You say Microsoft won't lose any ground just because of him, and I'm sure you're correct. There are certainly more than enough other reasons they'll continue to lose ground. However, with him at the helm they likely won't gain any new ground either.

[Khakilang]

I believe there will be a point where people stop buying new computer and stick to the old due to economic downturn unless they have certain need. And when they use old computer like myself will look for alternative from other OS and switch to make it useful again. Not many people can keep up with the hardware resources hungry OS. Just imagine what if Window 7 can run on Pentium 3 computer with 128MB RAM I think many people will stick with Windows.

[inobe]

Google is going to have to come up with something a lot better than a crappy cloud-only netbook with no local storage.


google is betting on cloud, i am, and i suggest everyone else does it too.

[asifnaz]

when Haiku R1 gets 40 % desktop share :popcorn:

[forrestcupp]

google is betting on cloud, i am, and i suggest everyone else does it too.

Cloud is alright for some. But 100% cloud for 100% of the people 100% of the time is 100% crap.