[odf-discuss] Re: Curtains for Windows? Was: Member of EU Parliament asks if Microsoft should be excluded from public procurement

[Ian Lynch]

On Thu, 2008-04-17 at 11:17 +0200, Pete Harlow wrote:
> On 11/04/2008, Ian Lynch <ian.lynch at zmsl.com> wrote:
>         I think it is a further sign that the tipping point was
>         actually reached
>         some time ago and MS know it. The tipping point is just the
>         point where
>         change becomes inevitable.
> 
>  http://practical-tech.com/operating-system/linux/windows-is-on-its-last-legs/#more-152

Pretty good analysis. The snag with tipping points is that they need
hindsight to extrapolate back to see when it actually happened.
Personally I don't see Apple's market share in desktops increasing much.
They will gain with ipods and cool consumer gadgets etc but the people
that use Macs tend to be a fairly stable group willing to pay a premium
for an image mostly linked to the arts and media. Seems to me much more
likely that as Linux keeps improving and getting more supporting apps
and lower costs it will enable more currently disenfranchised users to
participate. Once volumes and confidence rises take up will continue to
accelerate. Whereas in the 80s big industry players dragged government
and consumers into "industry standards" I think that a lot of the
initial change will be from small businesses and new industries based on
the web, schools and consumers in the developing world and such like.
Look at Apache take up compared to IIS. Apache is newer companies, the
entrenched multinationals are still using MS. The biggest inconvenience
in change is the perceived risk to CIOs in big corporates. New companies
don't have the baggage so it is easier, same for individuals and in the
developing world cost of globally set commodity prices is far greater in
real terms so if they can't pirate they'll change.

Of course MS can drop prices to stave off the evil day but doing so
could cause profit warnings and further under-mine confidence and let's
face it confidence is really the main issue in choice of technology
adoption. Capitalism is driven by fear and greed. Ooops maybe risk and
reward depending on your politics :-)

Ian
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