Microsoft is in more danger now than it has been for decades. This is because almost its entire edifice is built on two products: Windows and Office. Everything else that it produces is an also-ran by an incredible margin. The trouble is, that edifice has a major fault line running right through it.
The start of that fault line is government procurement and the seismic event that could open it is the long-running austerity drive that most governments are having to implement.
To understand that fault line, you need to understand a little about governments. If a government uses a particular file format, it normally expects its suppliers to use that format too. If the suppliers are using that format, their suppliers need to use it. And so on. It's like one big, slow toppling of dominoes.
Then there's procurement. Most governments have rules that do not allow them to just buy something. They need to put out a request for tender. In the case of software, they can't just request Microsoft Office because that would be anti-competitive. So they have to request something like, “Office software that is standards compliant and Microsoft Office compatible to allow opening of existing files,” so that competitors have a chance.
If you know anything about open source software, your mind may well have jumped to OpenOffice.Org but there are plenty of other OpenDocument Format office suites including some from big name brands like IBM and WordPerfect. Not forgetting that Google's online office suite is all compatible too.
Crucially, in 2006, OpenDocument Format became an ISO standard. Which meant, in theory at least, that it was the only format government departments should be allowed to use. Open source activists started a good push to get OpenOffice.Org and similar suites into government departments. Companies like IBM and Sun put plenty of effort in too. Microsoft Office was not standards compliant.
But governments also have opt-out clauses that they can use to name specific products in their tendering and many did just that so that they could continue using Microsoft Office. And then, in 2008, disaster of all disasters for the OpenDocument Format proponents: Microsoft controversially managed to get its new OOXML format made into an ISO standard too. Government departments could and did go back to just buying Microsoft Office without putting any thought into it.
Many of the activists and promoters of OpenDocument Format gave up trying to get it into government. The moment that OOXML became an ISO standard, the wind seemed to leave their sails.
Those activists and promoters now have a new weapon: the austerity drive that most European governments are implementing. It won't take long before government department heads are being shown figures that show just how much money it will save them to switch to OpenDocument Format. Those heads are trying to find at least 20% cuts in their budget here in the UK and more than one hundred pounds per desk will be incredibly tempting.
What's more, government IT staff will be looking to try to secure their jobs. A big internal project to switch to OpenDocument Format will be just the kind of thing they want. Offering to cut software licensing costs will potentially mean fewer job losses. It will mean the IT staff, with no outlay whatsoever, are too busy saving the department money to be laid off.
There can be little doubt that Office is Microsoft's Achilles heel. Without it, why would anyone buy Windows? Governments and companies have put huge effort into making most of their enterprise applications web-based. You don't need Windows for web-based applications and you don't need Windows for OpenOffice.Org or StarOffice. And without Office and Windows, Microsoft will crumble.
No wonder Microsoft has started to treat OpenDocument Format as the enemy.
As a person who has used both MS Office and the free alternatives (Oracle's OO, IBM's Lotus Symphony, Google, Zoho etc) I am amazed how much the ignorance of people is costing us.
Makes me wonder if the people making decisions have some kind of incentive (like monetary) to waste money and not try free alternatives. I guess we all are at fault because we don't ask our governments for more accountability & accept sloth.
Why would they buy Windows? Because it's a very good product.
The incessant underlying negativity and sarcasm in technology reporting has grown become quite repugnant, in my opinion.
When Microsoft stops making Windows the proverbial "OS designed by a committee" and corrects its many shortcomings, then perhaps there won't be such negativity and sarcastic reporting about this abhorrent 'technology' crapware.
"Why would they buy Windows? Because it's a very good product."
I think you're missing the point. It's not about whether Windows is a good product or not, it's about whether there's any need to use it if Office isn't there. For the vast majority of businesses and governments, the answer is, "no."
My bet is M$ is not going anywhere but places.
OpenOffice, LibreOffice, IBM Symphony, Zoho & Google Docs are free and this competition is great.
You can't fool all the people all the time.
I wish more people like Arron speak up & educate the world.
Well, yes and no. Most people will continue to buy Windows, because they have some app or other that runs nowhere else. Currently, for a lot of people that app is Office, and getting them off of Office would free up a lot of non-Windows possibility. But there are plenty of other apps (mainly in-house or vertical market stuff) that will continue to require Windows.
That said, I'll address the 'very good product' part. Windows has one big thing going for it. Consistency as an application platform. The same binaries run on XP->7 (and many will also run on 9X as well). Linux fans like to pooh-pooh that advantage, and they have a point that serious compromises in reliability have accompanied all that backward compatibility. But from an IT support person's point of view, Windows' 'simplicity' is the proverbial no-brainer.
Still, once the chinks in the monopoly armor start to open up, things could get really interesting...
Nobody really *needs* Office or Outlook or IE or Windows servers. They use 'em because everybody else does. Once that stops being true, the alternatives start looking a lot better.