This is why Microsoft is panicing with the iPad-focused Windows 8 and it's Surface pad. While these moves seem radical, they are in fact not radical enough. Microsoft's monopolistic control over the pixels in front of your eyes is at an end. It's now Apple and Android who are in control of the future. Microsoft has no hope of dominating the future of mobile devices like they did with the desktop. Their best hope is to be among the top three, and there is a good chance they won't even reach that.It's not that there is anything wrong with Windows 8. I'd even call it a "great" system according to many metrics. It's problem is that it's too late. It doesn't have the app support of Apple or Android, so it doesn't get penetration in the market. And, because it doesn't have market penetration, few write apps for it.
What I find funny is that Microsoft knows this. Steve Balmer (and Bill Gates) acutely remember how they took the computing crown away from IBM in the 1980s, nearly bankrupting IBM in the process. Back then, IBM failed to appreciate how the microprocessor was an existential threat to its entire business. This time around, Microsoft's leaders know it's in deep trouble, but knowing still doesn't help.
By the way, the thing that Microsoft failed at (and what Apple succeeded at) was predicting Moore's Law. Moore's Law meant that at some point, handheld devices would be able to run a full operating system -- the full versions of Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. According to Moore's Law, Vista should've been running on ARM processors as Windows 8 RT does today on Surface. That way, when Apple announced a handheld device running Mac OS X, Microsoft could've pivoted as fast as Google did with their handheld Linux (Android). Instead, Microsoft was caught with WindowsCE/WindowsMobile -- a completely separate operating system that shared only a few APIs with the full Windows. This cut-down operating system optimized for handhelds was created a decade early, and was great in many ways, but it couldn't do basic tasks like surf the web with a real browser.
Microsoft has responded well. They may only be a year late. But a year is forever in technological revolutions. Once the market leaders become established, it becomes nearly impossible to enter the market. The only real option is to change the market. There are ways Microsoft can still do this. Maybe "cloud" is the way. Maybe the XBox home connection is the way. Maybe corporate BYOB security integration is the way. I doubt, however, that college students dancing and clicking to dubstep is the way. I kid, because Microsoft is going to have to invest in a lot of risky things that in retrospect will turn out to be stupid in simply to stay alive in the mobile future.
So here's my prediction: the share of Windows (on all platforms) and Internet Explorer in my logs will continue to decline. Next year I'll probably blog showing stats confirming this. I like Microsoft. I spend most of my time using Microsoft. VisualStudio and Word are awesome. It's just that I don't see a rosy future for them.
Update: another path to victory is if Intel succeeds in bailing them out. Intel's Atom processor is excellent competition with the ARM, and Haswell/Broadwell may eventually become even better competition. The wealth of x86 apps can then compensate for the lack of ARM apps.
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