Microsoft - Will the dominance continue ?

"With great power comes great responsibility." No one understand this better than Mr. William H. Gates. Watching Peter Parker think these lines in the closing scene of Spiderman reminded me instantly of Bill Gates. The dude has earned his fortune. And a lot of it. His products are the reason most of the people use computers today. Even for trivial things like watching movies. Or listening to music. "Windows" has acquired a completely new definition. Yes, its still the small opening that offers us glimpses of hitherto unseen 'vistas'. Only, the vistas are composed of "bits" this time. And Windows is capable of a lot more than allowing us to "view" the world.

A lot has changed since Microsoft introduced first Windows in November 1985. Although a GUI, Windows shot to instant stardom with the launch of Windows 95 in, well, 1995. Computer became a lot more easier to use now. It was no longer just for the engineers or the office folks. People started buying computers for their homes. And Bill Gates had everything to do with it. Had it not been for Windows, PCs would not have been so popular and omnipresent as they are today. Yes, GUI did exist before Windows. Apple had it first, but remember, the proprietary nature of Apple as a corporation prevented other clones of the machines, and so, never really got that critical mass.

Windows continued to dominate the world client operating system market for long, and it still does. What with over 90% of all people using the Windows OS. Microsoft always emerged as a smart company. So, although it already had the largest selling software in world history, it was prompt enough to introduce other softwares like the Office suite of products. The world, already familiar with the Microsoft Windows familiar platform, jumped to have another piece of software giving them the same look-n-feel. Perhaps, one of the two great strength of Microsoft is to keep churning out products that people will like and keep updating its existing portfolio with newer releases. OK, I said "two" strengths. So, whats, the second, you ask ? The seconds is the immense amount of support that Microsoft gives to the developers community to develop products on the Windows platform. They know and know this very well, they cannot make every software in the world. So, they invited people to participate and build softwares that others might feel useful. Their Visual Studio suite of development application is an excellent development platform. They also keep releasing the latest APIs of their softwares and holding events that attract fresh developers to the Microsoft platform. From giving free Visual Studio copies to the engineering students, to providing complete source code of some of its web applications (Yes , yes, NOT Windows) to striking an alliance with Novell, the prominent name in the Open Source community, Microsoft does it all and does it right.

So, the latest release form Microsoft is out. They call it "Vista". Microsoft Windows Vista. Beautiful eye-candy, secure and robust. Thats the claim. Well, it had to be. These are the issues reported with any previous release of Windows. This time, they say, its different. Any release HAS to be better than the previous one. Thats for sure. Now the important question is "Is there a compelling need to upgrade to Vista". And the market sentiment says "No". Users can still do without Vista, thats what's out in the open. What with its requirements of 1GB RAM, how many present computers are actually geared to handle the OS ? One of my colleagues narrated an incident. He went to a computer showroom. The guy at the showroom told him that they never demonstrate a new customer a computer running on Vista 'coz its painfully slow and gives a wrong impression on the prospective customer.

So, what went wrong. Well for one, I think, Microsoft did really bad in managing the software development process in the new OS. Under immense pressure of meeting the already-missed deadlines, they put in code that has bloated the software to no limits. Vista could have been a lot leaner. The programmers need to use their creativity. But the market pressure was just too much. Why, I fail to understand. Many complain, it took Microsoft 5 years to come up with an OS. Now why would you need an operating system upgrade every year, I completely fail to understand. Even now, we are claiming we could do for few months without upgrading to Vista.

Microsoft has made a bad image of itself in the past by making softwares that have been, at times, sub-standard. It hung, crashed and lost the important data. The reputation was build mainly 'coz of Windows 98. Even while the following release, Windows XP was better, the image continues. And even as we use Windows, there is an increasing affinity and above that, sympathy for the Linux and the open source movement.

Microsoft now has a challenge to maintain its dominance. And for this to happen it needs to change it image. It needs to become more user-friendly. The software needs to be changed, COMPLETELY. Perhaps with the introduction of its next-gen file-system, WinFS, it will achieve that. The user HAS to be in the center of all activities. And the total cost of ownership of Microsoft products needs to be brought down drastically.

The open source movement is taking more and more people into confidence. Although, its far to think that Linux will take over Windows as the most widely used OS, anytime soon, the shift is clearly visible.

Mr. Gates has ruled the world for long. And if he wants to continue doing so, he better act now.