The Windows era is over announces Joe Wilcox at Betanews. Is it?
He certainly makes a compelling argument. Like other tech behemoths before it, Microsoft’s products are simply being rendered irrelevant by new technologies, new ideas, and new products that have come out of the blue and swept them aside.
Largely thanks to Apple’s innovation and success in the consumer space, mobile computing is no longer a niche product. It’s mass market, and the iPad is going to spawn so many copycat products that the stores will be swimming with them. Apple showed the way, and everyone else in the tech business saw instantly that they should follow along, as fast as possible.
Or as Joe puts it: “A new era dawns.”
What’s more, Joe says Microsoft no longer has the loyalty of its partners. Intel sells chips to Apple now. HP has purchased Palm and is working furiously to make new tablet devices. It’s as if the industry has seen Microsoft’s future, and wants to distance itself from it, to break the connections.
So as Apple breezes past Microsoft in the market cap stakes, where next for Windows? Are the improvements made in Windows 7 enough to turn things around, and slow the momentum? Is Joe right to say the Windows era is over?
