Microsoft is still an enormously profitable and powerful company in the real world, and you should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in your insular little "Web 2.0" bubble.
More seriously, I mostly do business right now with small businesses (2-8 people), and some stupidly high proportion of these businesses run totally on Windows. When they go to buy the computer(s) they need, it never even occurs to them that there is any choice about whether to buy Windows, because Windows is just what programs run in. This kind of customer laughs ruefully along with the Apple commercials they see on TV, but I don't think it ever crosses their mind that they could actually buy a Mac for their business, much less a Linux box.
Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, and Exchange are the core software apps of 90+% of small businesses.
Well, there is that. I spend rather more time gloating about my Macs than I should, I suppose, and much of the gloating is about antivirus suckage for the Windows boxes. :)
Come on, we're not talking about the homefront here, we're talking about the frontier. This is the startup news site; we're not here to talk about the current industry standard.
Well, the first part of my comment was a joke, and the second part was only asserting that Microsoft wasn't going to go away soon, because they're a de facto standard.
I'm not saying that I worry about them for my own projects, or that you should for yours. :)
Oh, no problem. I thought that more people would notice that it's lifted directly from the article. On the other hand, I guess it's quite possible that it isn't funny. :)
More seriously, I mostly do business right now with small businesses (2-8 people), and some stupidly high proportion of these businesses run totally on Windows. When they go to buy the computer(s) they need, it never even occurs to them that there is any choice about whether to buy Windows, because Windows is just what programs run in. This kind of customer laughs ruefully along with the Apple commercials they see on TV, but I don't think it ever crosses their mind that they could actually buy a Mac for their business, much less a Linux box.
Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Outlook, and Exchange are the core software apps of 90+% of small businesses.