The why of tech
The why of tech
While I can't imagine Bill Gates calling it quits, I have a hard time seeing any real future for Microsoft Corp. Microsoft’s dominance
is getting whittled awayAnd certainly nothing even remotely resembling the magnitude of success the company has enjoyed these past 20 years.
At about the same time the first consumer-based personal computer was shipped by IBM, Gates and his soon-to-be formed Microsoft was there.
He wrote one of three operating systems for that machine. MS-DOS (short for Microsoft Disk Operating System) was no better then the others, but Gates was shrewd enough to offer if for something like $10 a copy rather than the $700 or so the other guys were asking for theirs.
While this wasn't going to make Gates rich, he was smart enough to realize market share is more important to a growing company than profits.
And given the dramatic price difference, it didn't take long for IBM to decide to go with DOS exclusively.
The operating system is software that tells the computer how to function.
It makes it so your keyboard can be used for inputting characters and makes it so your monitor displays that.
Therefore all applications (or programs, as they used to be called) have to be written with the operating system in mind.
And every day since he created MS-DOS, Gates has used this insurmountable advantage to engineer a cycle that cannot be broken: Person buys computer with Windows (new version of DOS), learns to use it, buys applications for it; computer breaks, needs news computer, buys a Windows machine cause he knows how to use it and owns applications for it; and on and on.
Gates' real brilliance -- and the key to being the world's richest man -- was capturing a market before anyone realized it existed.
His shrewdness -- and the reason for the antitrust case -- was keeping it.
To this day Windows is the operating system on virtually every personal computer sold.
So why the doom and gloom opener?
Simple, as was the topic of last week's column, the computer as we know it is going being replaced.
As we move away from big, heavy, all-in-one machines that require a desk, an electrical outlet and a telephone line and move toward portable devices designed to simply handle specific tasks, we are moving the source of control away from Microsoft and to myriad companies with relatively tiny markets.
It's akin to having your impregnable fortress being eaten by termites.
There you are fighting off all attackers when your floorboards fall out beneath you.
The arguments about whether Microsoft should be broken up are moot, because the market they controlled is rapidly being eaten away.
It's no longer about owning a big clunky machine that can do everything for anyone; it's about having the power to do what you want, where you want.
Steve Jefferson is a Honolulu-based freelance writer
and section editor for InfoWorld. He can be
reached at: stevej@lava.net