Gartner: Windows collapsing under own weight

This recent article from ZDnet discusses a Gartner report purporting the end of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

“Microsoft's Windows juggernaut is collapsing under its own weight, as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute, according to analyst firm Gartner.”

“Speaking at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas…, Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald asked the audience whether Microsoft needed to radically change its approach to Windows; around half of the managers and executives gathered in the room raised their hands. "Windows is too monolithic," said Silver.”

There is no doubt that in the OS world, MS Windows is a dinosaur.

The Gartner analysts raise an interesting point by highlighting the fact that Windows is saddled by 20 years of legacy code and interoperability standards that may no longer be relevant in a world quickly adopting the cloud computing model.

When does Microsoft reach the tipping point, where they benefit more from starting over then they do by maintaining and updating outdated code?

Now that Google is overtly targeting MS Office for extermination by offering free, web-based apps such as Google docs, Microsoft may be faced with the reality of a need for a serious self-reinvention.

Perhaps Microsoft should look in the direction of the Salesforce.com “Platform as a Service” model, as their next sortie in the software wars. Or maybe, just maybe, the gang up in Redmond has a little more up its sleeve with the proposed Yahoo purchase, than everybody has thus far imagined.

Stay tuned…

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39384073,00.htm?r=2

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