I am thinking that Microsoft has reached a peak and will shortly be displaying signs of decline.

• A few year ago, I spent all my efforts getting rid of Unix / VMS based equipment to replace with cheaper Wintel stuff. Now I find Microsoft products the most expensive on the market and am looking to move back to Unix.
  
• Microsoft are doing their best to squeeze as much revenue out of its products e.g. putting serious anti-piracy protection on newer versions of software.
  
• They are also stinging people for upgrades and releasing more and more versions of the usual unstable and insecure software with a high upgrade license fee.
  
• Microsoft has only got 20% of the webserver market (I understand) and this is not growing.
  
• More and more companies are bringing out products that used to be based on Unix, then moved to Windows and are now moving to Linux.
  
• Microsoft may own the desktop market but they still have not cracked the server market.
  
• More and more apps are moving to browser based architectures and the long term need for fat client desktops becomes less and less.

We all know that companies rise, dominate and then fall - IBM being the famous example but now IBM has reinvented itself as services company.

By this, Microsoft will be set to fall but the question is when and I suspect that serious cracks will appear by the end of this year. I don't believe that .NET will change them much since .NET relies, once again, on Windows platforms. Any newer versions of Operating Systems will be met by the wait-and-see or the no-benefit-no-upgrade schools of thought.

Nope - I see Microsoft being pushed into a corner and will either downsize, need to start suporting freeware platforms or reinvent itself as something different.

Now, I'm still trying to spot the next Microsoft since I want to buy some stock. Any tips would be appreciated.

Bill Gates is a genious. As far as business anyway. He knows who to target and how to get money out of people. He will continue doing this as long as he is alive. So M$ will not fold; however, they will eventually lose the O/S and other platform markets to more stable and possibly GPL software competitors.

I was just reading about M$ new plan for businesses. Tell me if this is 100% insane. M$ is sore that most businesses that use M$ Office are still using MS Office 97, and won't upgrade due to cost, and lack of new features. Since M$ can't do what other software companies are doing and actually releasing better products with more features, they are planning on charging subscriptions. Basically, in a year or two if you are a business and you buy licence for 40 copies of MS-Office, Windows, or other MS product, you will be able to use the product for 1 year only. At the end of the year you _have_ to pay for it again, or pay for an upgrade. So much for the days of buy once, use forever I guess.

Just my 2 cents.

I use Windows for.. uhh.. hmm.. oh yeah, playing Unreal Tournament, Tacops Mod. That's about it. For EVERYTHING else, Linux is the answer!

Locu - thanks for your reply. Lets discuss this further !



As I understand, Bill Gates is no longer the main man at MS. Steve Bulmer is. BG is now doing a more technical strategy role while SB runs the company. I'd reckon that the whole culture of MS is orientated towards getting money out of people so I'm not sure how important BG is to MS's ability to squeeze more money. He's just an icon really.



I'd tend to agree that MS will not fold - but I see it possibly downsizing and reinventing itself. I also see it losing market share to the open source world. The real product that is keeping Microsoft on the business desktop is Office/Windows. If a good enough alternative can come onto the market at very low cost or even free, then over the next few years (or sooner), we will see businesses moving away from MS.




Obscene ! But typical Microsoft and further evidence of desperation on their part. I think more and more IT managers are getting fed up with MS and their costs and I'll bet, many of them are looking at alternative desktop environments with the same functionality but using cheaper software.

To keep their premier position, MS will have to:

• Stop employing blatant rip-off business techniques
• Stop abusing their monopoly
• Increase the quality of their products

I don't see MS really doing any of these things except for possibly quality ! There is some evidence that quality is being considered in the .NET initiative. Even if they did, it would take several years for people to adjust to the new MS !

I liked MS a lot, a few years ago, during the time I could get rid of Unix platforms and standardise on MS platforms. When you emailed a spreadsheet, it was Excel format and you knew that anyone receiving it would be able to read it. Now, if people do move away from MS on the desktop, the old problems of lack of standards will return and you'll find someone on the other end running a different desktop platform with incompatible office type software.

Its tricky ! But I hope that newer technologies such as xml or even just html will be used as the standard method of transferring documents between people. That way, we are not tied to a particular manufacturer of software. Browser based desktops are the way forward but, i'd say, at least two years away before you'll walk into a company and find this type of desktop environment as standard.

Firstly, I think youve got t be careful when you read stats. Although on the face of it you might think MS share of the market isnt growing, if you look deeper, and view the sites whose servers they now support, you will see their market share has grow considerably:


Server Breakdown Across All Domains of servers with more than 1% market share. Server order is based on global market share Server Name Number Found Percentage:

1. Microsoft-IIS/4.0 = 556,315 or 19.03%
2. Apache/1.3.12 = 389,210 or 13.31%
3. Apache/1.3.9 = 277,661 or 9.50%
4. Apache/1.3.14 = 241,561 or 8.26%
5. Microsoft-IIS/5.0 = 232,620 or 7.96%

Secondly, you cant underestimate their move into the hardware market. The official launch of Xbox later this year could take them into a whole new market, currently dominated by sony. If they get it right, I can forsee a whole new era of MS software domination.

Finally, with longterm partnerships established with industry giants such as Intel and Dell. It will take a sizable marketing effort on the part of any competitor to break their hold on the both the small business and home user market.

MS as a business isn't going away or declining. The life cycle of any business is one of start up, rising star, cash cow, decline, and finally dog.

MS is in the "cash cow" phase now. Unless MS totally screws up they aren't going to decline for some time.

Quoting the boston matrix! No end of suprises Jaiem

And in the world of the internet a E-things, that cycle often moves at warp speed!