The Microsoft Monopoly – Still Running Strong
DOS and the Windows OS is what made Microsoft what it is today. They did this by building an adequate OS with the best pricing and by having excellent marketing.
Being the sole provider of operating systems for consumers made Microsoft billions as it still does today.
Then Linux came along and many had high hopes that Linux would also be a major competitor for the end user. Well, Linux never panned out for the consumer. It is still very popular among servers and a growing corporate base but not home customers.
Switching an OS is a huge job when you have lots of data that may need to be transfered over, software applications, hardware drivers and the usability learning curve. Simply stated, most of your stuff won’t work in Linux. If you want to run your commercial accounting program such as Quickbooks in Linux, it isn’t possible because there isn’t a Linux version offered.
The other option is to switch to an emulator such as Wine which sometimes will allow Windows programs to be run in Linux. The program is far from easy to install like most Linux apps and has a limited list of know working apps.
Apple is another competing company which offers its OSX operating system. The problem with Apple is that they are a niche computer maker selling pricey, proprietary computers that look more like artwork than something that is practical and affordable. Apple still has a tiny market share of the OS market and most likely won’t catch up anytime soon unless they offer more affordable alternatives.
Recently Apple has created software which allows Apple PC’s to run Windows XP. So far this interesting but far from practical for most. First you must own an expensive Apple computer, second you must own licenses for both OS systems.
Microsoft has recently stated that on it’s new Vista OS, Apple users will only be allowed to run the more expensive Vista versions on Apple. They claim it is security related but most likely it is related to making it difficult to use Apple and MS together. MS wants the choice to be Microsoft and Apple wants it to be Apple.
A project has developed called the OSX 86 Project which aims to use less expensive Intel dual core systems that can be bought anywhere and then aims to run OSX on them. Of course these won’t be Apple systems which means the OS support may be limited or excluded. The legality of this also comes into question.
Software copyrights in the US allow software makers to dictate the rules that they want. Microsoft has laws on who or how many people can use a single Windows license, whether that license can be result to another person and so on. It seems that Apple could do the same and not sell the OS to non Apple systems.
After all, Apple’s business model for PC’s is similiar to the old days with IBM: money is to be made on the hardware not the software. Apple will do what it can to protect its pricey computers from becoming less pricey non Apple hardware computers. This means Microsoft’s only real competitor is Linux on the corporate side.
Many corporations operate like streamlined machines with employees only doing a particular task or function. One task jobs typically don’t require a powerful computer or a powerful OS. Inventory software or specialized accounting software can be run on a cheap Linux system. Yesterday’s Intel Pentium 3 or Celeron can do any of these tasks.
Having an OS with lots of GUI features isn’t a big priority for one task jobs in a large corporation. Many have already disabled these features so that employees aren’t goofing off by playing games or browsing the internet while at work.
These PC’s can often bought second hand from large corporations and re-installed with Linux. This is only practical for companies that are large and can support a full time Linux IT administrator to do this task and to keep them up to date with the latest security updates. Many linux distributions allow security updates and program updates to be done automatically now but it still requires someone around to look over everything.
The licensing issues with Windows and future updates is a big issue for many corporations. At some point the support for the OS will end and to get the latest “secure” Microsoft product requires hardware upgrades. With Linux this is rarely the case.
The saving of using an older PC over a newer one might be $300 or more per employee. This multiplied by hundreds or thousands of employees adds up to some serious savings.
So in order to keep corporations from switching, MS will need to offer some serious price discounts for corporate customers and to computer makers selling to corporations.
For the home consumer, Microsoft has no real competition right now. The pricing for off the shelf Windows Vista is pretty high ($217-364) which really seems that Microsoft is pushing consumers to upgrade their computers rather than upgrade current PC’s to Vista.
This decision to keep prices high for retail Windows Vista is going to hurt Microsoft in the short term because people are not going to upgrade to Vista. Instead they will have to wait a year to save for a new PC or forgo Vista entirely.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/apr/05bootcamp.html
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/11792
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