Nobody cares. Apple is successful, and is more profitable that Microsoft, regardless of how big Microsoft’s share might be. Getting all hung up on meaningless indicators such as how many boxes you can have rotting under desks used only to read emails and view spreadsheets means you will miss the boat on the future of computing.

1. “Apple will never be as big as MS or even get to 40% market share…”

2. “Apple does not even have a mid-range tower which is one of the most sold desktops in the world… you can build your own PC from many different hardware mfg, it makes it cheap & easy to repair & upgrade, which cannot be done on the mac mini or imac.”

#1. Why does Apple need to get as big as Microsoft, or get 40% market share? I’m more concerned with them maintaining profitability, than some arbitrary amount of market-penetration.

#2. Why try to compete in the toughest, leanest-profit segment of the market?

You yourself admit that the major attraction of PCs is how “cheap & easy” it is for people to build and/or upgrade their computers.

Why would Apple -want- to jump back into that dog-eat-dog world, when they can make better margins in their “niche” markets?

“If I was in charge of microsoft I would buy the best modern OS I could find and pay VMWare to virtualize XP.”

From whom are you going to buy it? Apple could go to NeXT and do exactly that, but in this case there is no one like NeXT.

However, they could do something like this themselves — migrate to a more modern set of APIs and support the old Win 32 API as an interim measure. In fact, this is what they are doing:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/what-microsoft-could-learn-from-apple.ars

Will that solve their problem? I don’t know. But I do think Daniel did a very good job of expressing his thoughts. He thinks they have a dilemma. They have two poor options and have to choose one — hence the phrase “caught on the horns of a dilemma”:

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/horns+of+a+dilemma.html

On the one hand, MS have to compete with Apple and with the new Linux-based distributions that will arrive over the next few years. (In this connection, note that KDE is currently getting a major re-write, and Gtk, which the GNOME desktop is based on, is in need of one but will get it soon.). But if they cut the cruft, Dan says above:

“A new OS from Microsoft that doesn’t run Win 32 will have no advantage over Linux or Mac OS X, which already has mature frameworks for building modern apps.”

Presumably, if MS were to make it clear to business users that the old Win 32 API was being phased out and their crufty old applications _really would not run_ on the next version of Windows those business users would have to think about getting their apps rewritten now. Now ask yourself: if know they’ve got to do that why would they rewrite them as .NET rather than use some more cross-platform means? Will they want to get tied to MS a second time, or would they prefer to leave themselves with an escape route?

Sure Microsoft *can* die. Our history is full of epic “unsinkable” steam vessels hitting icebergs and real going down. In fact the “unsinkable” label is a risk in itself because it makes the crew think they can afford reckless behaviour (i.e. providing clients with crappy products).

I don’t think they *should* die. We are witnessing the rear of a wave of creative destruction and the only way to get out of that alive is to adapt to changing market circonstances. Even if we don’t see how Microsoft has a right to try and meet with their challenges.

I’d like to suggest a future article topic: The disconnect made between Microsoft/Windows and PC gaming.

It’s one of the few remaining vestiges of Microsoft’s monopoly, thanks in large part to the use of the proprietary DirectX, yet now that DX10 has come up short (most PCs can’t handle it and many devs are avoiding it), no one has made the connection between it and MS.

Vista struggled because MS blew it in the PR realm. I think the criticisms of it’s technical failings are more a results of MS’s own misteps in marketing: too many versions, the whole Vista Basic debacle, and promising features that were never delivered. On “modern” PC hardware comparable to the iMac, MacBook, and MacBook Pro models of the time period in which Vista was released, it seems to run fine. The criticisms about it’s memory requirements are rather moot given that I just bought 4G for $85. I think Vista’s real improvements are (1) improved security and (2) reworking the OS to deal with the problems of DLL hell to support legacy code.

Microsoft did dig it’s own [in]security hole back with Windows 2000 by not making the defacto behaviour to run as a non-Admin user. XP actually supports running as a non-admin and would allow alot of the OS X/Linux sudo-like behavior. Unfortunately, the majority of applications assume admin rights and would thus fail. This is the cause of some compatibility issues with Vista. While there are some valid criticisms of the clukiness of Vista’s admin-access nags, it is a much needed improvement.

I think the MS is Satan argument is a little tired. Daniel gets too excited this time on that soapbox as Mac lovers tend to. I agree that MS has never been an innovation leader. They’ve played it safe, followed where the industry was headed, and used what they would consider good business practice to grow their company. Unfortunately in many cases they used unfair monopolistic practices (which massive companies tend to do). In the end they make them feel (even more) like the evil giant. That’s where the Justice Department comes in. Considering that the number of types of hardware that need to be supported by XP and Vista and the years of legacy code that can be run, I think they deserve a little more respect.

Interfected thought: WINE (the layer that attempts to let Windows apps be run on Linux et. all) isn’t a viable solution. It still isn’t even to a 1.0 version. It doesn’t have near the compatibility that it needs. Mainly because the Windows API is so quirky and inconsistent it is impossible to get right. It is not a threat to Microsoft.

One also has to consider Microsoft’s success in the business world. I’m just not aware that Apple worked to provide the business application support that MS did (until it was too late). I mean specifically the ease of interfacing to databases and the ability to distribute stand-alone dynamically loadable binary objects like COM components. I don’t know much about Apple’s current offerings, but I’d be surprised if it comes close to matching .NET’s ease of use. .NET is a much improved evolution of COM, too.

Apple has an easier market into which to deliver it’s software. The scope of Apple’s testing of it’s software is so much less that MS. Apple controls the hardware and has much better control over testing. Apple doesn’t have to worry about it’s development environment running on more than a handful of machines, it’s phone OS running on more than one hardware platform, or its OS working in cooperation with 17 year-old legacy code. While some businesses are experimenting with introducing Apple hardware into their inner workings, most companies would be loath to lock into a single hardware vendor or give up their existing infrastructure.

Concerning Windows 7 being vaporware, we’ll have to see. But, like Daniel, I ain’t holding my breath. Here’s a point I think Daniel may be missing regarding MS pre-announcing products. Microsoft HAS to do this pre-announcement because they have so many users, partners and hardware manufacturers that they need to get folks beating their alphas and betas into shape. We see the same thing with Apple and its SDKs and OSes. Where MS errs is being too optimistic about release dates. They don’t seem to learn from their own mistakes. I’m not sure any MS developer or partner puts stock in MS’s release dates anymore. However, being that they own the desktop we’ll still be using their technology. Daniel is right about MS being unfit/bloated. It’s suffering from what huge companies without strong leadership usually feel: the inability to overcome they’re own inertia.

If Windows 7 does what the MS PR machine is leading us to believe, it will be gratefully received by the Windows development community. .NET is already a hit. I haven’t developed any OS X apps yet (still saving up for my MacBook and I’ll tell you how it goes), but .NET development is fantastic. I love it and can write highly functional, great performance apps, with ease. The only hiccups are when I have to interface to the inconsistent legacy API.

Apple seems to have finally figured out the need to get it’s developers good support. From what I saw, back in the days of Metrowerks CodeWarrior, I’d have to say I felt for all the Mac Developers. With the kludgy OS that MacOS was at that time it looked like a nightmare. Looking through the mass of excellent tutorials and at demos of the fantastic development environment, I’m itching to write some OS X code.

Here’s what I think MS needs to do to continue it’s dominance (none of these are original and the MS hype of Windows 7 promises some of this):
(1) Work to make all it’s own rolled apps consistent. That is, make it look like IE, Windows Media Player, Office, and the OS came from the same freakin’ company! That would go a long way toward a positive user experience
(2) Roll all the Vista-and-previous interfaces into a virtual machine/emulator managed space. That is, kiss the Windows API goodbye. Support it in virtual machine/emulator environment, but End-of-life any new development.
(3) Roll a new, consistent, and modern native API. Drop all the heterogeneous legacy API kruft of ActiveX, COM, DirectX, ApiFunctionName + ApiFunctionNameEx in favor of an API as elegant as Qt (of KDE fame). .NET would remain. It can fulfill the COM like requirements and most new business app development is .NET anyway. The dropping of the legacy stuff would result in a major performance improvement.
(4) Have one version of the OS. Drop the network and domain restriction differences between Home and Pro. Make use of modularity to let users drop/uninstall features they don’t want. One version of the OS will make MS appear a lot leaner. Let MS make up it’s financial loss of the Vista Business premium through a business version of Office.

As Daniel has said, the legacy compatibility issues are what is really hampering MS. It’s a victim of it’s own success. Apple was able to pull off a sea-change.

I am so glad for Apple’s growing popularity. Without it, MS wouldn’t have the pressure to improve or the great ideas to rip off.

Apple has the midas touch. I think The Steve is the main reason. Apple may make it into the business world in droves, yet. But, they may not need to as they are one their way to own the consumer market. As long as the pressures to grow their stock don’t overwhelm good business practice and they respect their customers and developers the sky is the limit.

Love your blog, Daniel. I always gets my brain awhirling. See, you got me to post this tome!