

Nocera: Does Windows Still Matter? - robg
http://executivesuite.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/does-windows-still-matter/index.html?hp

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stcredzero
Does being "dead" mean that you are large, highly successful, can afford to
fund massive R&D, but have become too big and ossified to deliver on anything
truly groundbreaking your R&D produces?

Maybe Microsoft is just in the same stage of life that Ma Bell and Xerox was
in awhile back?

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raganwald
"Maybe Microsoft is just in the same stage of life that Ma Bell and Xerox was
in awhile back?" => Not to mention Kodak, General Motors, Lotus, and many
others.

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jcl
_I’m convinced that iTunes and the iPhone are not the only reasons Mac is
gaining market share. The other is that people have come to realize that they
do not really need Windows anymore. Any ol’ operating system will do._

If any ol' operating system will do, I'd expect people to choose the cheapest
one they could find. Since Mac is gaining market share and is not the cheapest
option, the operating system's contents must still matter.

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gamble
Any operating system will do, in the sense that since the network effects of
Windows client applications are no longer an overriding concern thanks to the
web, consumers are free to choose an OS based on other considerations.

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jcl
Yes, but the fact that people are choosing an OS based on other considerations
indicates that Microsoft _could_ do something to win them back, which runs
counter to the article's thesis.

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volida
yes

