But, chances of knocking Microsoft off the desktop at home and work are equally (or if not more) remote.
With respect, Alok, I don't agree with this statement. On the contrary, I believe that Microsoft's supremacy on desktops is certain to end, and the question is not a question of "if", but rather a question of "when".
I don't see Linux as the instrument of Microsoft's downfall. I like Linux and I run it myself. But it now looks mostly like a fad. Though it will have some success, it faces too many logistical problems to be adopted either by individuals or corporations in the volumes required to unseat Microsoft. But that isn't the main issue with Linux.
The main issue is this: even though Linux is, in some purist's sense, a better mousetrap, in a few more years we won't need mousetraps any more. The small, inexpensive matter-energy scrambler that will painlessly and instantly scatter the mouse's quarks throughout the universe, will soon render the mousetrap a museum curiosity. People won't use them. (Sorry, that's a weird metaphor, but dinner's getting cold.)
This is hard for people to realize because we all tend to imagine the future as a linear extrapolation of the present. But that's the short-term future.
It won't happen this year or next year, but it will happen, that much is as clear as day. And Microsoft won't own the world when it does.
Regards,
--QwikSand |
