Windows losing share
A recently published Forrester Research report states that during the year 2007 Windows lost 3.7% of its enterprise desktop market. On the other hand, Mac mounted to 4.2% and Linux to a meager 0.6%. This should be not too bad news for a company holding still more than 95% of the market, except for the fact that Mac more than tripled its share and Linux multiplied its by six… in just one year! In the meanwhile, Windows Vista, Microsoft’s biggest hope in maintaining its share in the long run, has managed to get just 6.3% of the market.
Now, this could be considered as a temporally slump before users are forced to Vista by the nature of the market or before Microsoft releases its new Windows version. The situation becomes more challenging when considering an Evans Data report on developer’s trends: it seems that less than 65% of software developers targeted Windows as their platform as opposed to 74% in 2006, while the targeting of Linux by developers increased by 34 percent.
Microsoft is in crisis and is risking a major collapse. So, what is Redmond’s response?
- Starting to embrace open development models: this is a step in the right direction but not enough, as long as it does not adapt its revenue model
- Discontinue support for XP to force migration to Vista while the development of Windows 7 is sped up: wrong, wrong, wrong. Windows is not anymore the only viable option in the desktop market so going against what users want is not anymore reasonable from a business point of view
- Press OOXML as an ISO standard without any clear improvement to existing ODF standard and by using very questionable tactics: again wrong. When losing market share and working to gain the developer community’s support, the most logical strategy does not seem to be to seriously damage one’s image and credibility. It is just the best way to start losing large and influential customers.
I could continue, but I think I made my point clear. Microsoft will not disappear any time soon but it is in a very serious crisis and its reaction does not seem to be up to scratch, which can only make the situation worse for Redmond.
