I am not sure I followed your logic. You said there are a lot more dead software companies than semiconductor manufacutures. This is the premise of my original posting. Intel has made the large investment in capital necessary to put out progressively sophisticated chips. The more complex the chips become, the more power Intel will wield.
Software companies are inherently unstable. Microsoft makes 50% of its income on products developed within the previous year. It is a lot easier to develop a software program than it is to build a CPU chip.
I do not think that Microsoft has as firm a position in the market as you might think. When they held the DOS operating system as the underlying software to make computers tick, they were in much tighter control of the market. Now that the Windows 95 in basically supplies its own operating system, they lost this competitive edge. (I know 95 still uses DOS as the basic substructure).
But, if a Corel or a Borland came out with a Windows 2000 that could be modified to look and function the way you wanted it to, and was fully compatible with Windows XX, Netscape, Java, Active X, etc., I think Microsoft could take a real tumble.
I think an good comparison might be McDonald when they first appeared some 40 years ago. No other competition, and it grew fast. Yes, they may be good now, but the other burger joints all take from the market share. I would not be surprise to see Microsoft sharing their market share with other competitors soon..particularly if they continue to have this major chip on their shoulder!
Greg |
