Microsoft’s shares fell by 11% on Friday, and according to Stan Beer from IT Wire, it indicates that Microsoft no longer has confidence in itself.
Every day we’re coming closer and closer to the reality of a big change at Microsoft. Soon enough, open source – cleverly backed by Google – will come through and trample Microsoft like it hasn’t done before. Sure, the take up is slow, but as market penetration of Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice increases, Microsoft’s share in each of these markets decreases. The majority of IT pros and computer nerds now use Firefox/Thunderbird, many of them use OpenOffice, and as they have influence on friends and family around them, changes are slowly being made. When Microsoft’s Vista and Office 2007 is released later this year, the takeup – of Office especially because it isn’t often bundled with new computers – will be lower than ever before.
Long live Microsoft, I say. By the time Vista comes out, I’m not going to need to purchase it because I would have fully switched over to open source software. Many others will be in the same position.
