I was originally going to write this on Feb 28, 2007, but many things happened. You can read my personal blog to find that stuff out. Now, on with the show...

Microsoft has created a monster with their new operating system. I believe it will be the beginning of the end for their dominance in the market. I don't believe it is the beginning of the end of the company. That would just be way too much wishful thinking. I am not an impartial judge, but I think I see some rumblings that are interesting.

The rumblings started when Vista was late and soon was discarding features I was (and many others were) excited to see. Such as a new file system, tentatively called WinFS. Then Vista came out, and is a large ball of problems. Plus, it borrows heavily from other operating systems while the company is toting it's "betterness." This new different OS does not make things better for the general public, or for computer people. It makes things harder for all of us. Decreased productivity is not a good thing. Lastly, the slow emergence of actual competition makes Windows look less and less like "the answer" anymore.

Many people might wonder what Windows Vista being late has to do with Microsoft. It is a very large and complex OS, and takes a lot of effort to create. This is my issue. Microsoft is a 20+ year old company. They are the company for OS and Office software. But this company can not get a product out the door when it was it will. Any small or medium company that broke their promises and delayed their product as much as Microsoft did would soon be out of business. But Microsoft, being the behemoth that it is, can do whatever they please. For now. So, igoring this point for a second, what happened when Vista finally did come out?

There are currently a raft of hardware and software problems with Windows Vista. I predict that it will take at least one year and one service pack to get all the wrinkles ironed out. It will be another year until Vista is really ready for general consumption. I do not think that is good enough. Sure, this OS has to interface with hundreds of thousands of different hardware configurations. It also has to run hundreds of thousands of programs. I understand the complexity. But if I, a lowly blogger, understands this, shouldn't Microsoft? Shouldn't they have found a way to make all this stuff work by now?

Sure, you've got endless combinations of hardware. But they only use a few ports. Hard drives and CD drives use two different plugs. SATA and IDE. Expansion cards use four different slots (I don't think ISA counts anymore). PCI, AGP, PCI-Express x1, and PCI-Express x16. CPUs only use a handful of slots- I will say 8, 4 for Intel and 4 for AMD. So that's, at most, fourteen different variables. You're telling me that a software giant like Microsoft can't work with sixteen variables? They can't regulate I/O on sixteen possible variables? That should not be too hard.

And you've also got endless combinations of software. But, again, there could be easy ways to fix the problems software might cause. You could setup memory blocks for each running process thread, and limit them to those blocks. That would save the rest of the OS from erroring programs. You could also set higher standards for what software works on Vista. Windows XP still was allowing some Windows 95 and 98 programs to run. Vista might be the same way. That is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen. Programs from ten years ago can not run well on a new OS. But Microsoft leaves legacy code in so they will work. That adds bloat and could add stability problems.

Microsoft Windows Vista directly rips off features of Apple's Mac OS X. Vista has Gadgets, much like OS X has Widgets. Vista has enhanced window browsing, and OS X has Expose. Mac OS X had these features first, and the features in OS X work a lot better than they do in Windows Vista. This is disheartening to me. A huge software company not only can not make up their own new things, they can't even do a good job at stealing things.

Windows Vista is a step backwards for gamers and regular users. You need more to do less. The OS is so laden with "features" that you need more processor power and more RAM just to do the same tasks you used to do with less. Games require a lot more hardware than they used to, because some of it is being used to run the OS. Likewise, with simple things like Office documents, you need a very fast and expensive computer just to be as productive as you were with Windows XP. I know that new operating systems are a good spur for hardware sales, but this is ridiculous. I would recommend 2 GB of RAM for anyone who wants their PC to run as well as WindowS XP did. That's an inordinate amount for simple Word documents.

While all this is objective, it does not add up to much without something "else" to turn to. Windows ME lasted as long as it did because home users did not want to go back to Windows 98, and had nowhere else to turn. Windows XP had quite a few problems when it first came out, although I don't remember it having quite this many. So what is different in 2007 that Microsoft's mistakes will cost them? Who else is out there?

Apple, Linux, and Google all connected to The Internet. Four big names. In 2003, when Windows XP came out, I would have said there were zero alternatives to Microsoft Windows for the general user. Four years later, there are four. Why?

In the past few years, Apple has slowly grown from "that other company" to "the alternative." More and more tech sites sport a "I switched to Mac for 48 hours and this is how it went." More and more techy people are looking at and buying Macs (I have one. Penny Arcade bought a few- that is big.) More and more IT firms are slowly looking into the feasability of Macs in the workplace, and not just for artists (Network World). More and more computer people are seeing Apple as a possibility now. Their computers look sleek, run very well, and have the two basic necessities of a general user: Office and an Internet browser. Plus, with Boot Camp or OS Virtualization, you can have your cake and eat it too.

I will give you a personal example to prove the point. I honestly think I will be replacing my parent's PC with an iMac as soon as I can. They won't be calling me as often with tech questions, as they won't have nearly as many problems. Hardware and software on a Mac just work. Period. Since the same company makes the OS and decides what hardware it will run on, they can easily fix any bugs. Remember Microsoft's sixteen possible hardware variables? Mac OS X has none. Plus, my parents only need Word and Excel, and the Internet. So why give them a problematic PC, when a Mac will work just as well?

Linux. I seriously believe that Linux is ready for prime time. I would be comfortable giving my parents a Linux machine. Because, once again, all they need is office and the internet. OpenOffice works well enough. And Firefox is arguably the best browser out there today. Linux is definitely a possibility for within IT. Using virtual machines or terminals, Linux or UNIX could replace rooms full of PCs.

Google. Yes, they are on the internet, so why mention them? They (along with other companies) are developing more apps for the internet that work on any OS. Google will soon have a full office suite online. I have already used their word processor and their spreadsheet programs. Google apps will continue to grow. This means that, again, general users could use Mac OS or Linux or UNIX or any new OS, as long as it can get to the internet. Think about that for a moment. Some Joe Shmoe could write a brand new Operating System today. Maybe it is all pink and has ponies on it, so it would appeal to tween and teenage girls. I'm grossly generalizing, but bear with me. IF ShmoeOS connects to the internet, every single tween and teen girl in the world could buy pink PCs with ShmoeOS on it. That could happen today. It might already be happening. Hopefully not pink, and hopefully not called ShmoeOS. But you get the idea. With Google (and other companies) and the internet, we don't need Microsoft.

That's the bottom line. We don't need Microsoft anymore. They played their cards and made us use their OS from Windows 3.0 to Windows 95 and 98, to ME and 2000 and XP. From 1990 to 2007, Microsoft was the name in computers. You could not (easily) do business or run a computer without having that name. Through the good and the bad, Microsoft was what you had to use. Now, Microsoft's new OS has fallen short. There are four big names that can easily pick up the slack in the office or at home. The question is not if, the question is when.