End of the Windows Era? A Renaissance of OS Choice

The Window Vista release seemed to finally surface a smoldering revolt against  mediocracy of innovation and usability in computer operating systems. For the first time a many years, Microsoft  seems to have finally felt the pain of their decision to be the cloner of great ideas and the fast reproducer of lesser worthy copies of better products.  Microsoft’s gorilla grip on consumer market perception is finally unravelling. As consumers, many learned to just accept poor quality and high prices because of lack of realistic alternatives in the computing market. But this appears to have changed.

Microsoft seems to be losing ground on many on many fronts. Lets take a look at a few examples:

Mobile Computing: Until the last year, Microsoft was making a substantial dent in the mobile OS market. They were becoming the de-facto choice for smart phone technology. Even Palm pushed forward products that were Windows Mobile options to its own Palm OS. It seemed that RIM and Microsoft were becoming the only games in town. Still, many Windows Mobile users ended up using devices plagued with instability and funky functionality. Then came the Apple iPhone. With Apple’s introduction of the iPhone, users finally had a real choice in mobile computing in the smart phone market. There was a new player in the market and quality and user experience became the focus and consumers responded. Google Android might even deal the coup de grâce to Windows Mobile in the end.

Productivity Software: Microsoft has long been the de-facto choice for office productivity software. MS Office was the gold standard of the group. It was seen as an essential component to computers and other options out there just didn’t have any market attention. At around $300.oo for a single user license, Microsoft charged a premium and users felt there was no choice but to make the investment. Now with Google Apps, Apple’s iWork and the latest version of OpenOffice, consumers have cheaper and often better alternatives that often exceed the usibility of MS Office. iWork includes a spreadsheet, word processing and presentation applications that are 100% compatible with Office formats, but at a total price of $79.00 per user. Moreover, Bento is a much more elegant option to Access.  Putting the total price a $160.00 for a full professional office suit on your Mac. OpenOffice is free and very platform agnostic. I used to  believe that Visio  and MS Project were irreplacable. Now with OmniGraff an Project X, that belief no longer holds true and the aforementioned applications are much less expensive than the Microsoft offerings. Like OpenOffice, Google Apps are free and with a little patience will allow you to escape the tyranny of the MS price point. So, clearly Microsoft’s claim to the productivity market has serious multi faceted competition. 

MP3 players: Microsoft tried to move its OS for MP3 players into the iPod space and even developed the Zune. Offering some original features didnt help Microsoft break the market barrier. What they failed to “get” was usability and design that just works for users. Also, quality was clearly inferior to Apple’s flagship product.

Web Browsers: Back in the day, Netscape has the corner market on web browsers.  They invented the concept, but Microsoft aggressively attacked the market and put out a better product. Internet Explorer was lighter, faster and more developer friendly. But Redmond followed the path of their defeated rival. The bloated IE and never resolved its architectural problems. It became swiss cheese for viruses and phishing. It was slow and rendered applications inconsistently.  Microsoft increasingly make IE more proprietary by tossing open standards with the goal of squeezing out Java and other “standards” supporting platforms. Microsoft didn’t really expect the speed at which industry favor would switch nor did they expect Apple’s Safari to further exacerbate the move away from IE. In the end, speed, security and openness will prevail. Microsoft finds itself trying to emulate FireFox in IE 8, but then Google comes out with Chrome and again, deals an uncomfortable swing at Redmond.

Finally, Operating Systems: What’s left for Microsoft in the consumer market is Windows Vista (and soon Windows 7). The release of Vista was late, full of bugs and bloat. It was a disaster.  Moreover–the end consumer cost was more than double to that of Mac OS X. Mac OS X is more stable, secure and very intuitive.  The hardware from Apple is comparable in price and even able to run Windows. Microsoft is losing it battle with Apple on the OS front, little by little.  Even for those who are not fans of Apple, have choices that are REAL alternatives to Windows. Take the free Linux based Ubuntu. Ubuntu is very easy to install. It can be installed on virtually any PC or Laptop with ease. It is Linux stable and secure.  Ubuntu offers free productivity applications that will allow a user to forgo MS Office. Recently, I have noticed developers and users at my company (day job) moving over to either Macs or Ubuntu, leaving only 10% of the entire company remaining on Windows. Also, Asus and others unbundling their products with user friendly versions of Linux seem to be making progress. The Eee PC is an amazingly affordable notebook, but only if you buy the non-windows version. Many users end up learning that they are actually more happy without Windows in the end.

I have learned that many more consumers and power users out there are moving away from Microsoft for operating systems. Choices are getting the attention of blogs and news stations.  I welcome this change in trends. I have no patience for inferior technology that costs more than better products. I don’t think Microsoft is going away, but their day in the center stage might be ending. I am not certain what the future holds for Microsoft, but I am one former Windows developer who now fully functions 100% Microsoft free in a “Windows” world and people are interested in how I do it.  

I have no prejudice against Redmond; I just don’t have patience with poor quality. If they produced the best products, they would get my money. But the simple fact is that they don’t, but have a tendency to act like they are the only game in town.

What’s your take?  Is Microsoft still the 800 pound gorilla?

~DK