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"Are we entering a post-Microsoft world?"

Nope.

Hm .. now you don't have to fly to Amsterdam - but you will probably feel obliged to invite Bink to dinner.

Oh the old ways where friends would stay the weekend.

Enjoy your time, Paul.

But let's be honest, you really should be holding speak in the UK...so I can attend : )

'Are we entering a post-Microsoft world?'

Probably

Enjoy your time in the Netherlands.   I was stationed on the Dutch border for 3 years and it was super.  Very nice people, breakfasts and markets.

Three weeks in Europe?  I hate you.

"Are we entering a post-Microsoft world?"

No

We're also not entering "the world where the browser makes the PC obsolete", "the world of desktop Linux", or "the post intellectual property world" or any of the other silly topics that people keep announcing to justify conferences.

But, enjoy the trip. Amsterdam seem quite appropriate for the topic. :-)

I would have said you were high by asking if we're entering a post-Microsoft world, but you're not in Amsterdam yet ;-)

Anyway, enjoy your Europa hols.

My online world is run (well, monitored) by Google, but for offline and desktop based needs, it's still Microsoft and will cont. to be for a while.

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"Are we entering a post-Microsoft world?"

I guess that has something to do with Google's Apps platform and their browser/OS.

Stay away from those brownies.....

Or don't.

I know you need some Holiday time but NO windows weekly? What am I going to listen to? Oh and in Amsterdam, a coffee shop is not a COFFEE shop.

"Are we entering a post-Microsoft world?"

I cant believe any of you say "No".

Most of Microsoft's products have either peaked or are starting to shrink.  Microsoft is like IBM when it had peeked.  Microsoft will always be a big player, the best in some areas, but their day of 90+% desktop OS is fading.  Their browser share has dropped.  The corporate world is moving most of their applications to a browser, mostly in house and not in the cloud, which negates the requirement of Windows as the OS for desk computers, if you want to move off it.  

I increasingly see desktop computers outright replaced with thin clients more and more.  Sure these thin clients are connecting to a Windows OS for the most part, VDI or TS, but with the move to browser based apps, that OS at the end of the thin connection might be something else in the near future.

If some big linux desktop player like Ubuntu teamed up with Citrix or VMware to deliver Windows applications to Ubuntu desktops that run in a VDI fashion, it could be a tipping point for some corporations as they would save big time $$$$ on MS OS licenses.  It has to be done very well to take off though.  

Think about free Ubuntu, running most applications via Firefox, and a handful of Windows apps (Outlook, and other office apps) with a Citrix Unbuntu client or VMware Thin App for Ubuntu, all accessed by cheap Wyse thin clients running Wyse OS.  Sure you would have the cost of VMware servers, or Xen servers running the Ubuntu desktops, and the cost of the Windows apps, but Zero money would be spent on Windows OS software.

I seriously cant see Microsoft growing its desktop or server OS market share at this point.

"Are we entering a post-Microsoft world?"

No, not for some time yet

Happy holidays in The Netherlands

I'll be "blunt"... Have SOME fun in Amsterdam! Stop by The Bushdoctor cafe' located at Thorbeckeplein 28!

Were we ever living in a Microsoft world? I don't think so. Microsoft dominates some markets and does not dominate others. It's like saying we live in a Google world because Google dominates search and advertising.  We do live in an interesting world where we get to see the CEO of a tech company elevated to the status of God.

@Lindy,

I think you're already in Amsterdam. What the heck are you talking about Enterprises switching to browser apps and such? Have you even spent any time in an IT department at a real business? I'm betting not.

WHEN they start hemorrhaging customers like Sprint is or IBM did, THEN you can make these kind of dire predictions. Until then, you're way off the mark... at least, for the real world.

Actually, shark47 might have the best idea... they dominate some areas and not others. But I don't think that's the point of Paul's conference. They do dominate the desktop world, and they will continue for a while longer.

Lindy is right in that Microsoft will never double the market share of desktop operating systems. It's impossible to double your share from 95% to 190%. Will the share numbers fluctuate a point or two either way? Sure. But that's about it until there is a massive change in computing and even then history has shown that Microsoft has been sufficiently nimble and their competitors sufficiently clueless that the best bet is that Microsoft will win those dislocations as they did with the jump to GUI and the jump to highly interconnected systems.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Microsoft won't double their installed base in the meantime from 1,200,000,000 copies of Windows in use to 2,400,000,000 copies. The whole point of the low cost versions sold in developing countries is to expand the entire personal computer market to the next billion users.

But, the bizarre assumption that Microsoft will lose desktop share to Linux desktops or Mac desktops or some other implementation of Unix is absurd and totally without merit. (You'll notice that he doesn't say why this would happen just that magically it will)

What will likely happen, however, is the continued collapse of Unix in the server market as the integrated nature of Windows servers and Windows management tools takes over the massively overprised and obsolete Unix world that Linux has already weakened.

So, are we in a a "post-Microsoft era"? Short answer - No.

(Now, can I get a free vacation in Amsterdam to present that view at the conference?)

Have a safe, wonderful trip.

Doc

We oughta have a Winsupersite brunch in Vegas sometime ;)

@GoodThings2Life almost all of what a user uses at my company is via a browser.  We have over the last 5-7 years upgraded all of our home grown applications, and where they used to have a Windows GUI, now they are web based.

Even most of our shrink wrapped applications are web based.  We use the heck out of People Soft and its all web based.  Sharepoint has replaced our public folders in Exchange and most of our file servers.  The rest of what was on our file  servers have recently moved to CIFS shares right off of our new NetApp Filers, 4 less Windows servers right there.  Those filers, I manage them with a web browser.  My proxy appliance that replaced our, MS ISA server, I manage through a web browser.  My Cisco VIOP manager application, web based.  All inbound and outbound email passed through Postini, managed with a web browser.  Solid Core for PCI compliance, web based.  ETAC accounting software, web based.  Our TS users (75% of our users) use only OWA and not the full Outlook, which is web based.  Our document management software (Knowledge Lake) web based.  All of the printers at our stores on the network, are managed via a web browser.  I am sure I could think of a few more.

Have you worked in a IT department in the last 5 years?

Enjoy Amsterdam.  I know I would if I were going.

So Mike you think that Windows servers will gain more of the installed server, market share?  I dont at all.

To Lindy's point, I think he/she is somewhat right.  Not that Linux will replace Windows, but that as applications become web based, as in the browser is how you use them, the OS is less and less important.  I think that is the change, wether massive or not, that is happening now.  It could be that you have a very thin OS, so thin you dont consider it an OS, that has a browser.  I know that Wyse ships a thin with a stripped down copy of SUSE.  It makes you wonder why Microsoft has dragged its feet with IE and standards compliance.    With IE only on Windows, then trying to keep web based apps coded for IE helps them fight off the OS not being as important.

There is a lot of movement right now in delivering applications to a desktop with out installing them.  Microsoft play's in this market as well.  Citrix is multi OS, or at least support delivering Windows Apps to OS X, I am not sure if they support Linux?  As this movement picks up, support for operating systems out side of Windows will make the operating system irrelevant.

I often wonder of the 1.2 billion windows copies installed, how many were pirated?  I have been to Hong Kong, you can get a copy of Windows XP for $5 US, and I doubt Microsoft gets any of that $5.

news.netcraft.com/.../web_server_survey.html  

Good stats on web servers.

“It's impossible to double your share from 95% …” The best available current stats: worldwide desktop market share stands at 88%

Given the obscenely high price tag for Win7 it’s unlikely any increases will occur throughout 2010.

By the bye, of the largest 25 websites globally, only 1 uses windows servers.

"I often wonder of the 1.2 billion windows copies installed, how many were pirated? "  I’ve been to Amsterdam in 2007 for a Black Hat conference. Met a number of deft crackers - I left there with the impression a significant percentage of college age computer users were pirating windows.

________________________"A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.”

rr0de74

Yes. I think Windows Server will gain more share. You'll notice that even the rise of Linux in the server space (the only place it's made any significant penetration) has been at the probably fatal damage to commercial Unix but all the while Windows Server has increased share.

As some apps more their presentation to a thin client (and terminals do have some limited uses) you'll notice that the servers that run the actual apps tend to be Windows servers so, again, that's just a growth of Windows server as well.

As for client OS's being replaced by terminals outside of that niche market of highly managed, single purpose business desktops (think order entry stations) history has shown that users like flexibility and power and that management likes simple management suites.

We saw an amazingly similar parallel to the current market about 30 years ago when the mainstream players (DEC, Data General, Xerox and others) in the terminal/server market spend years warring about which escape set should become the dominent one in terminals. (Parallel to the browser wars a decade ago). Later they standardized on an "ANSI Standard" smart terminal that was supposed to make all the terminals interoperate and make the server dominence of DEC obsolete (of course, what they picked was essentially the DEC VT-102 terminal) but this ended up with disagreements on how the "standards" should be implemented where the spec was vague (As we see now in the "web 2.0" standards which are both too vague to code to and where "standards compliant" really means "we did it the way Firefox did since they're the "cool company")

What they all missed in their interoperable terminal wars was that people didn't want better terminals. They wanted interoperating networks of personal computers. And that's what won and nobody now cares about the differences between the VT-102 and the ANSI Standard Terminal (or, for that matter the differences with an LSI ADM3a or a VT-52 etc)

In short we have the following parallels

Server/Terminal - Web 1.0

ANSI Standard "Smart Terminals" - Web 2.0

Peer-Peer networks of PCs - Software + Services distributed smart devices

"I often wonder of the 1.2 billion windows copies installed, how many were pirated?  I have been to Hong Kong, you can get a copy of Windows XP for $5 US, and I doubt Microsoft gets any of that $5."

Piracy has always been there. Your comment is akin to saying, "Piracy in the music world will result in a post-music world." Yeah, that makes sense.

Lindy's comment sounds more like wishful thinking than a prediction.

"history has shown that users like flexibility and power and that management likes simple management suites."

User do like flexibility.  I started in IT 20 years ago, in the days of AS400 apps, and PC's took off.  They were popular with users because of the flexibility.  As the grew they got harder and harder to manage.  Yet in places I worked say 10 years ago, users had control over their PC's.  The number of PC's continued to grow, and then malware exploded.  One of the main reasons malware exploded was the fact that users had control of their PC's and installed what they wanted.  With the cost rising from the management of more and more PC's, and the explosion of malware, users started losing control of their PC's.

Today users, rightfully so, have no control over their PC's.  IT management and management in other departments see the value of a user, using their PC to get their job done, no more, no less.   Hence the totally locked down PC is now the norm, thankfully.  Once locked down that PC, does not have to be a PC.  It can be a VDI session, or a TS session, as long as the user can still do their job.  

This works for probably 95% of the people in my company.  IT, Marketing, Advertising and our engineering department are the only groups that need a real PC these days, and for Marketing and Advertising its a Mac.  95% of our users use 4-6 apps, and 50% or more of those apps are accessed via a browser.  Oh and executives, get laptops, that stay docked all day/night, so they can run 2-4 apps, but it makes them feel special and important.

Scoble said some time back that Microsoft has 14 billion dollar businesses. Yeah, we live in a post-Microsoft world.

"See you on the other side (of the ocean)"

Huh?  You talking about me?

"Are we living in a post-Microsoft world?"

That will be a short talk.  Answer:  No.  Not for a long time, if ever.  But it is a insanely good thing to have legitimate options on the market.  Even Mike Galos agrees with that.

Enjoy your vacation.

>>Most of Microsoft's products have either peaked or are starting to shrink.<<

Not true.  Have you used Windows 7?  It's Mac OS, but for the rest of us.

"Are we entering a post-Microsoft world?"

Definitely not!!

We definitely not in a post-Microsoft world.... But we will be when a company will coming with new way off using computers... A new revolutionary manner of interacting with computers...

But the chances are really high that this new technologies will come from Microsoft... Think Microsoft Surface... or Microsoft Sync or something... So there is good chances that the post-Microsoft world will be the begin of another Microsoft reign... But ... Maybe from an other company... We will see...

How live will see...

EricoF3,

Have you used Microsoft Surface?  I have. It sucked...but that could be just because of the applications available.

Plus...funny how Surface comes out after the incredibly successful iPhone and iPod Touch, and you use SURFACE as the example of a new way to interact with computers.

Ocean

" Answer:  No.  Not for a long time, if ever.  But it is a insanely good thing to have legitimate options on the market.  Even Mike Galos agrees with that."

And, for once, Ocean is right about what I would say. :-)

However, I'd add that when I'm critical of other companies it's generally because they don't provide even halfway decent competition but rely on deception to make up for their lack of dedication and talent and creativity.

For example it's not that I think Apple shouldn't compete in operating systems, it's that they don't really compete.

@panache1023: I don't told the revolutionary way to interact with a computer will be Microsoft Surface I told "May be or something..."

Also, I am a sorry but Microsoft begin to work on Surface prior to Apple begin to think about its IPhone and IPod Touch!!!

Microsoft begin to work on Surface at the same time Apple begin to work on the first generation of IPod, the iPod classic, which not include any touch technologies...

And more, I really think that Apple copy the Touch screen technologies from Microsoft Surface technologies and include its cheap copy in the IPhone and IPod Touch...

@Mike Galos: "For example it's not that I think Apple shouldn't compete in operating systems, it's that they don't really compete."

They don't really compete because they yet trying a way to implement their own Virtual Memory system that correctly work...

"For example it's not that I think Apple shouldn't compete in operating systems, it's that they don't really compete."

New task bar, Home Group, Jump Lists, Snap, Win Touch, etc…

Get past your reptilian visceral perceptions and what is Win7? Not much more than WinME with a new splash of paint. NTFS is inferior to other filing system; OS level journaling in window is rudimentary at best, DRM infestation, registry corruption and Software Rot exclusive to MS platform...

If not for a vast sea of third party apps Windows would be seen for what it is: a technically backward system.

Tonight I build (from scratch) a 10inch netbook for a family member. Installed Sabayon Linux with FULL office, printer, PDF conversion and streaming media capabilities. The new owner will never have to dfrg or scandisk or any maintains apart from routine updates. Welcome to 2009!

@Balthazar9 : Sorry but what you told is near to obscenity!!

Balthazar9: ...what is Win7? Not much more than WinME with a new splash of paint."

If you think such a things that shows your ignorance about the Windows operating system... Tou cannot by as far of the reality... WinME is a DOS GUI shell and Win7 is a Win NT core system ... It is like if you compare a Chevrolet Aveo with a F1 car... no possible comparison....

Linux based OS are 45 year old technology !!! You cannot have a more old crap technology for an OS...

Please be serious

"If not for a vast sea of third party apps Windows would be seen for what it is: a technically backward system."

You're right. I'm sure if OEMs bundled PCs and netbooks with Linux (or another modern OS), people would realize the disparity and abandon Windows en masse. Oh wait, they've already tried it. Moreover, Linux had a 100% marketshare among Netbook OSs not that long ago.

I think we've got to stop and think - just a little.

Those enamored of the web and "cloud computing" frankly don't do very much with their computers (and I suspect that extends to a lot of other areas). They consume content and what they produce by way of content (on/for the web), is constrained. The tools they use are limited - as limited as the web based platforms currently are.

We've also got to stop calling things x, y, or z computing. It's all just computing and whether a few features have been moved to the web browser, or not, it's all just computing. The reality is that it is, as it has always been, about remote code execution following invocation - collectively and simply, RMI, or the causing of code to execute at a remote location. COM, Java RMI, Adobe AIR, FLASH RMI, CORBA and WPFe... None of it is new. The idea is nearly as old as computing itself.

The notion that in its present, or any single form, that the browser can or will support the diversity of information systems needs of even a minority of users is preposterous. It's also wasteful and ignores not only the science as it applies to computers, but many other disciplines as well. As a platform, the browser isn't and it's horribly inefficient, precisely because the very word "browser" is misused, overused and therefore irrelevant in the larger context of widely connected distributed networks of computers. It is right to ask some very tough questions of those insisting that the browser is a platform unto itself. Until it can create itself and the applications which may run in it, it is not a platform. Until a browser can be created on a browser, it is no more a platform than a drill press is a machine shop – a press also cannot create itself.

Frankly the very bad problem this site, this post and the web presently have is that they have departed from that which they were created - the very reason the web was created in the first place. Articles, blog posts, and comments (my own included), are far too vague, and abstract and therefore fall off into the philosophical, because any meaningful discussion would bore all but the very few people who created the technologies in the first place.

I don't even know how to continue. It is all so frustrating. Most of these characters don't even know what they don't know and here they are declaring the end of this or that and the rise of "cloud computing" - they have got to be kidding me/us. It makes me nuts and I just thought of a bit of irony, that it would take books and books and laughably, technical books about how to write technical books - "Technical Publications Manuals" which I and others did in fact write decades before we voted to release the technologies through the national science foundation to the public. We watched how extremely wealthy and celebrated personalities abstract and re-sell work as their own and others pretend it was all new. Tens of thousands of engineering scientists worked like rented mules for decades to create these technologies and it has been maddening watching the truth of them perverted into a socio-economic binjo-ditch.

I feel like that really old guy at the bottom of the oil tanker in "Water-world" when Costner drops the flare down the hole and his death is imminent. He says simply: "Oh thank God"

If you don’t realize that those calling for the wholesale acceptance of the browser as a platform in its present form are doing so, because it is something they feel they can control and wrest away from those that created the balance of information technologies, then you’re mistaken. I can’t even encourage people to go to school until they learn differently, because the schools no longer teach and search for the truth – each now parrots the same utter nonsense.

Of course you’re right. I recant that specific sentence. What I meant to say was Win7 is a slight evolution on the TRS-80. I’ll try to be clear in future posts.

“Linux based OS are 45 year old technology”

Things that make you say ... Hmmm!  You said something about ignorance in your post… Although UNIX and BSD can accurately said to be old BUT ask NASA or CERN or Global Warming modeling or artificial intelligence research what OS they prefer and WHY. Windows OS mere enslave the masses.

"Oh wait, they've already tried it. Moreover, Linux had a 100% marketshare among Netbook OSs not that long ago..."  Now this is about as ignorant a declaration if there ever was one. If is absolutely clear to any observer if not for M$ predatory monopoly status and their ability to bully OEMs into submission, Linux would continue to dominate sub-notebooks. Dell and HP forums are replete with anecdotal stories of M$ possibly bribing OEMs (at least offering deep discounts on volume licensing) in order to replace Linux with windows XP on netbooks.

Let us NOT ignore, Windows practically gives away their software to Universities, Govt, non-profits while the avg Joe/Jane subsidize these tactics.

You are in Europe for the next 3 weeks... i've just arrived in The States for the next 3 weeks!

Dam iketchum, you are the definition of a blowhard if there ever was one.  Do you practice that speech in the mirror before you paid someone to type it up?

Regardless of wether the browser is the best way to use an application or not.  The fact is many applications are moving that way.  A typical user at my company uses the browser as application interface, in more than 50% of what they use a computer for.  These are commercially purchased applications as well as in-house developed applications.  5 years ago that number was a lot less, and those same applications had a Windows based GUI front end, which required Windows.

I never said Linux will replace Windows as the desktop OS.  That will NEVER happen, for many reasons the #1 being the lack of commercially available apps in a Linux format.  

What I meant was that the importance of the OS could diminish greatly if more and more applications are run from a browser and you could deliver the remaining Windows applications to a FREE OS, such as Linux or what ever, via VMware Thin App, or Citrix.  Its all about the apps in the corporate world.  Once you get it running on a free OS I can see how you could make the justification to keep a Windows OS, simply on cost alone.

Microsoft's desktop market share has dropped already from its peak.  Being that Windows makes up Microsoft's lion share of revenue, Microsoft is already on the decline.  Like I said before they will continue to be a big player but they will go through a transition, very much like IBM did.  Everything comes to an end, Microsoft will as well.  Microsoft has many competitors today, much more that it did in the past.  They are constantly under the scrutiny of the law.  The IT world is changing on many fronts.

@Balthazar9: I am sorry but NASA use Windows Based PC .... I am a senior software developer for a company that develop a software that run on the Windows XP/Vista Platform and one of our primary client are NASA so... Don't talk about what you don't know....

Of course they use Linux PC too!! But they also use Windows systems...

And... The only reason that Linux is used in Research labs it is, firstly because the scientists work a long time at different university and in general we use Linux or Unix in university... So this is simply because if you give choices to people the normally choose what they know... Secondo, Research labs have difficulty to get fund to do research so they prefer linux or unix because it is free! Simply!!

And don't tell me university prefer Linux or Unix because these are top notch OS ... The only prefer Linux and Unix because these OS are free...

For the case of FBI, CIA, and all gouv spying intelligence, the prefer Linux and unix because they can control all the OS because they can have all the source code... In this case it is normal they want all the control because this is a case national security... Not because Windows is not Ok!! just because they cannot get all the Windows Source code...

@Lindy :  " Microsoft has many competitors today, much more that it did in the past."

Cometitors?? What, Where, Who?? Google? Apple? Not in Desktop OS world!! None of these companies will be close to the tail of Microsoft if they don't write their own OS from A to Z...

No *nix based OS will NEVER get more market than 10%... NEVER!!!

You all talk but you probably don't have a near Idea how it is complex to implement a OS, even not me... I mean a real OS ... I don't talk about doing an Ubunto like Linux Shell ... Or a cute Machintosh Unix FreeBNC GUI facad... I mean a real OS from A to Z that support near 99% of the devices that exist in the actual world...-

lketchum

Just two quick points

1) You forgot to include DCE/RPC in that list

2) It's nice to have somebody else on here with a systems level background.

@Balthazar9

"If is absolutely clear to any observer if not for M$ predatory monopoly status and their ability to bully OEMs into submission, Linux would continue to dominate sub-notebooks."

A lot of accusations there and nothing to back it up. Microsoft has not bullied any Netbook maker into installing Windows on Netbooks.

Microsoft offered discounts on an older version of Windows to compete with Linux in the Netbook market, so what? That's business, legitmate business.

What you are missing is that Microsoft didn't bully, rather manufacturers  want and people are willing to pay for an older version of  Windows even though Linux is available for free (free if your time is worthless, of course).

The Wild West Days of IBM, RedHat, Netscape, Lotus, Micron and so on are long over .. perhaps completely dead by 1998 or so. Microsoft doesn't "bully" anyone anymore.

Hey, look at Windows 7. They've even stripped out the very basic calendar. No basic calendar, no instant messenger, no automatic picture and video import, no email client, no news client and in the KN and E versions no media players and no browser respectively.

Microsoft has gone way beyond legal requirement to make the Windows platform open to competition.

To me it's gotten to the point that when I hear criticism of Microsoft, I know it is because whoever is criticising has or supports an inferior product that cannot compete by merit.

"Microsoft begin to work on Surface at the same time Apple begin to work on the first generation of IPod, the iPod classic, which not include any touch technologies...And more, I really think that Apple copy the Touch screen technologies from Microsoft Surface technologies and include its cheap copy in the IPhone and IPod Touch..."

I think you brain is as fractured as your English. OTOH, at least you're entertaining. You're not as bad as "lketchum", who probably masturbates in front of a dictionary as s/he writes.

"Dam iketchum, you are the definition of a blowhard if there ever was one.  Do you practice that speech in the mirror before you paid someone to type it up?"

Lindy, you have it exactly right. You're also correct when you say "Microsoft is already on the decline.  Like I said before they will continue to be a big player but they will go through a transition, very much like IBM did.  Everything comes to an end, Microsoft will as well."

Nothing lasts forever. Except cockroaches.

EricoF3,

Thanks for your response but you’re mistaken. My very best friend in this universe or possibly multi-verse is the chief designer/maintainer of gyroscope systems aboard ALL space shuttle mission. A critical component at NASA! Think I’m full of it? Contact me privately I’ll give you his name and phone number in Houston. Perhaps we can do lunch.

At NASA, windows is not much more than an email/IM client with some excel thrown in.  UNIX is for REAL work.

Lindy, Lotsamystuff:

You two are the most glaring examples of the malaise that infects this site. When folks like you cannot argue on the same level of technical expertise/experience as a Mike Galos or LKetchum, you resort to name calling - 'blowhard', 'arrogant' - etc. etc. Your MO is getting tiresome.

@panache1023:

Do your research before spouting off nonsense. Microsoft demoed the prototype what would be released as Surface, all the way back at CES 2005 during Bill Gates' keynote. iPhone and iPod Touch launched in 2007-2008.

Lotsamystuff,

Fantastic post! Many on this board may not realize in the past 100 years of the 30 Dow Jones components only one original company still survives. That is GE – itself nearly bankruptcy.  With the release of Win7 RTM imminent, MS stock is anemic whereas Apple stock is coveted by everyone in the know.

Microsoft market cap is 217 Billion with worldwide monopoly status.

Apple’s market cap is 135 Billion with 3% worldwide desktop usage. In about a year, Apple should consider a hostile buyout of Micro$haft.

"Nothing lasts forever. Except cockroaches."

While amusing, I don't see how you can compare a publicly traded company to a living organism. How long a company lasts depends on how adaptable and willing to change the management is. These adaptations are not a result of random mutations like those that occur in living organisms. (Unless you believe in Intelligent Design.)

Of course, if you do want to make those comparisons, in the tech field, Apple and IBM would be the cockroaches. These are hugely successful companies that found a way to reinvent themselves when things were down, just like roaches. (Apple had a lot of help from MS, though.)

When you talk about Microsoft having peaked, remember that Google had to do an IBM to show an increase in revenue last quarter. The company had to reduce headcount and capital expenses to boost revenues. And this within five years of its IPO. Does that mean Google has peaked?

"I think you brain is as fractured as your English. OTOH, at least you're entertaining. You're not as bad as "lketchum", who probably masturbates in front of a dictionary as s/he writes."

That's just nasty. Instead of attacking the argument, you attack their English now?

Personally I wonder how a post about Amsterdam triggered a discussion on server operating systems.

@Balthazar9: No no!! you are right!! NASA don't use Windows for the space shuttle!!! Windows is not a system for that!!! They need all the control of they OS to do thing like that and it is normal they use *nix system in these cases!!

But it is not exact to say NASA use only *nix system for the real work....I work for a company that develop a software that is used for quality insurance of Aeronautic hardware piece that is used by NASA ... So .... This system is used to verify microscopic fissures in pieces... and NASA use Our system to check Space Shuttle broken pieces and to verify that pieces are not fissured... They also use our system to verify that satellite mirrors are perfectly clean before sending it in rotation around the planet so...

And our system Run on Windows ... So... I should know!!

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