I’m betting MSFT will do just fine
Earning season is in full swing and with a couple days before MSFT is scheduled to report earnings, Steve Ballmer lets out that Microsoft will not be creating products which are “much more successful than Vista.”
I am not a huge fan of Vista, but I was one of quite a few people I know who skipped XP all together. Moving straight from Windows 2000 to Windows Vista (disclaimer, I used XP on a laptop – this strengthened my resolve not to use XP on my development machine).
Paul McDougal rants on the failures of Vista, and cites other well sourced articles (also written by him) about states which think Vista sucks so hard, that they are going to use XP until Microsoft pushes out the glorious Windows 7.
Ballmer may have been providing cushioning for an inevitable poor earning report, or may just be reflecting the fact that Microsoft has fundamentally changed the way they create operating systems, and will never again release as big a platform as Windows Vista.
I’ll agree with Paul that Windows 7 will not be as big a platform change as a conceptual change. Windows 7 and the rumored Windows Stratos will focus on the “Cloud” much more than the specific hardware.
Everything is pointing to Microsoft moving away from making their money as a Hardware OS platform and moving towards an internet services model, building a cloud computing platform which will surpass hardware and OS platform.
I am watching this PDC more closely than ever, and my money says that MSFT will do just fine.
