The possible downfall of Microsoft - Google Vs. MS The overview

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Microsoft is seeing a monumental, momentum shift. Never before has Microsoft seemed so vulnerable. It is being attacked on all fronts by huge, game-changers. Is this a repeat of computing history? Microsoft changed the scene when they licensed MS-DOS and later Windows to IBM — which was the dominant force, at the time. In those days, everything had to be IBM-compatible. Microsoft’s operating system powered IBM computers — and, as we know, software can be highly profitable. Thus, Microsoft quickly eclipsed IBM and went on to rule the world with an iron fist. Is this deja vu’?<SPAN id=more-395></SPAN>

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<BIG>Corporate Alliance</BIG>

Google and Apple have joined forces against the Microsoft Empire. Google has grown at a phenomenal rate and has been releasing platform after Internet platform to make Microsoft’s offerings less relevant. Meanwhile, Apple has taken over the consumer market, dominating where Sony use to be. Both companies have left their respective competitors in the dust in technology, business strategy, and execution.<P align=center>

Google seems to not only beat Microsoft at technology, but also every business play. It’s like a giant game of chess or poker. Each one calling the other’s bluff. So far Google has trumped Microsoft at every turn. First, with the $1b AOL deal for a 5% stake, beating them to a $900m partnership with MySpace, acquiring the $1.65b YouTube sweepstakes, and winning the $3b DoubleClick bid — which forced Microsoft to pick up aQuantive for an enormous $6b sum. Google has also snapped up, game-changing companies like: Blogger, Keyhole which later became Google Earth, Where2 used in Google Maps, PeakStream, etc. before Microsoft recognized the value of these companies. This is all part of Google’s acquisition strategy.

Then, when Microsoft cozied up with Facebook, in a $240m deal for a 1.6% stake, everyone thought Microsoft had finally won a hand; instead, Google released OpenSocial to eliminate the threat. Google has a competitive advantage due to their incredibly, efficient infrastructure. No one can compete with them on cost or scalability at the moment. I’d give them a 3-5 year lead on that alone. In addition, they have at least 60% of the entire search market. They dominant online advertising. Their maps platform has led to mashups everywhere. Now they are making a heavy push into the enterprise with Google Apps and Search Appliances. In effect, this is beginnings of neutralizing the reliance and need for Microsoft Office.

Google has built many of their platforms on the Internet and their applications are Web browser-based. This neutralizes the need to use Microsoft Windows. Instead, users can use Apple Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, or whatever operating system to use Google’s applications, so long as they use a modern web browser. Being aware of this fact, Google has partnered with Mozilla Firefox and Webkit [used in Apple’s Safari], providing alternatives to Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Meanwhile, Google has built new offices in the Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue, and Kirkland areas and has been taking away some of Microsoft’s top executives and engineers. This ploy has worked so well that Yahoo recently starting building some offices

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

eh don't worry MS has such a monopoly now I can't see google really hurting them for another decade or so.

 

I just hope Apple doesn't gain any market share in the computer market. With their monopolistic views on hardware, it would mean lots of companies such as AMD would go out of buisness.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the FOSS movement (I use GNU/Linux at home more than any other OS) but the simple fact is that MS really monopolizes the desktop PC world -- and they didn't get there by sharing their source code (i.e., the "Open" in "OSS") or by giving it away (i.e., the "Free" in "FOSS"). Now that Bill Gates has announced that 100 Million people are using Vista, when you think about how much money they raked in for something that was, essentially, an OS upgrade, does anyone really think that MS is on its way down?? At an average price of $150 a copy (and that's low), that amounts to over 15 Billion (that's Billion, with a "B") dollars of revenue!



And, this announcement is hot on the heels of the claims by pundits that since some vendors were offering laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled, while others were still offering XP, Vista was dying out. Yeah, right. And that was when MS was only claiming 88 million copies of Vista in the wild!



Also, look at who's making these predictions -- Google and the Linux crowd -- each with their own "agenda" regarding MS. By analogy, if the Blue Ray people started making wild claims about HD DVD being on its way out, but the HD DVD folks had just announced selling 100 million HD DVD players, would you believe the Blue Ray folks? Probably not.



I'm not saying there's anything wrong with FOSS stuff, I use it every day, but let's get real -- the world's largest computer SW monopoly is not going down without a fight, and that won't happen any time soon.

 

I completely disagree. Microsoft is burning their own bridges.They get one OS released already they are working on the next. Each OS is more graphical intensive, and requires more hardware to function correctly. Then ontop of that, their prices are so ridiculous and support SUCKS. Like windows XP, it came out, everyone loves it, stable, secure, works great. Now they came out with CRAPSTA(Vista) and a lot of people use it but CANT STAND IT. Now they are taking XP off the market, and in 2010 they will stop supporting it via live updates, etc. They are FORCING people to upgrade. When that happens they are encouraging software piracy, as most of us cant afford to fork out several hundred dollars every few years for a stupid OS. Drivers are not always developed for the new OS for OLDER hardware, so then you have to upgrade your hardware, and other devices such as printers, scanners, etc. Yeah they are the LARGEST in the world, most well known, but if push comes to shove, you will see more people using Mac's or going to a *nix based OS. Personally I use all sorts of OS's. From IRIX, Solaris, FreeBSD, BSD/OS, Suse, Slackware, Fedora, RedHat and many more. I use 1 version of windows, Windows XP. I will continue to use it. Bill has great ideas, good software, but it bloats your system and hogs resources.

 

And you .. are a fraction of one percent of the PC marketplace -- like me, not your typical PC purchaser. And you're overlooking the lengths that MS has gone to with Vista to deter piracy.



There's no question that Vista has left a bad taste in the mouths of lots of people -- a really bad taste. And yes, more people are using Macs than ever before, and a LOT more people are using flavors of Unix than before. But I'd be willing to bet that when you add these people together, they still don't amount to more than 10% of all PC users.



And ... that still leaves MS with over 100 MILLION copies of Vista sold, with easily twice that many copies of XP. Plus, over a year after Vista was released, we still hear of LOTS of companies that are NOT upgrading, prefering instead to stay with XP.



And ... you're forgetting about the Enterprise market that, still today, is pretty much locked into Windows on the desktop. Sure, every month I read in one of the Linux zines about another agency or company that has switched over -- usually to redhat or something similar. Buy there are hundreds of agencies and companies, of which only a handful have switched away from Windows.



You're also missing the revelations that more and more companies are talking about sticking with XP, regardless, until Windows seven comes out -- and that's only two years.



I'm a systems engineer, have been for over 30 years. Have designed and built systems using every programming language generation known, on over a half-dozen different platforms ranging from single board computers in research labs, to mainframes, to minis, to PCs, to hand-helds -- and, you know what? People like me are NOT the ones making the corporate/agency buying decisions. The ones that are have titles like CIO, or CTO -- and most of them got where they are by being politicians, not by being engineers.



So, while we might LIKE to see a much more widespread diversity in the desktops, as long as the politicians are buying the machines, it will be pretty much wall-to-wall windows.



But .. I could be wrong ...

 

Perhaps i'm not reading this correctly, but after what has transpired maybe this should be edited out of your post



But anyway, I agree with what your saying, Windows will be a significant market share for years if not decades to come. For every company that switches from windows, 10 more companies have formed using windows. Windows works, and people know how to use it. The only market share microsoft are going to lose is to linux and thats going to be only marginal each year.



As for people saying "Vista is worse than XP" - I fail to see why its worse. XP couldn't run on hardware 5 years before it came out, same can be said for vista. If it can run properly on the hardware, vista is better than XP in every respect.

 

King:



Yeah -- bad example!! But I remember hearing something a while back about Vivid (you know who) being an early adopter of HD DVD. If that was true, maybe the big companies adopted blue-ray just to spite that "other" industry.