Dominant companies: Microsoft (2024)

One of the defining features of desktop/laptop computing (but not other markets)is Microsoft's dominance of the OS market.

Many people ask:Why is Microsoft Windows dominant on the desktop?How did it get that way?

The Microsoft dominance of the desktop OS market began in the 1980s with the command-line OS DOSfor the original IBM-compatible PC.
Apple from 1984 popularised the new mouse-and-windows graphical UI,with what is now called "classic" Mac OS
It took some time for Microsoft to compete in the GUI market.
From Windows 3 onwards(especiallyWindows 3.1, 1992) Microsoft pulled ahead and became the dominant PC GUI OS.
Microsoft is still dominant in that market today.

• Microsoft Windows family (1985 to date)
• Software wars

The docudramaPirates of Silicon Valley(1999).
About the OS war between Apple and Microsoft, 1980s-90s.
Seeclips.
It ends in 1999 with Microsoft triumphant over Apple.
But this was before the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad.
10 years later, and Apple would overtake Microsoft again.

• Apple is now thelargest company in the worldby market capitalization,and has hit twice as big as Microsoft.
• Films about computing
• Films about Steve Jobs

So Apple has beaten Microsoft in many new markets.But why did it lose the desktop?

Most people would agree that DOS and Windows (before Windows 95) were harder to use, for most users, than the Apple Mac at the same time.So why did Microsoft Windows still win the OS war?

Some ideas:

1. Apple OS was always tied to Apple hardware.Microsoft just made software - OS allowed you choice of hardware.
2. As a consequence of the above: Windows PCs tended to be much cheaper than Apples. This is probably the no.1 reason.
3. Apple seemed more for fun/graphics than for business in 1980s-90s.Graphic designers liked Apple machines.But most of business preferred DOS and Windows.
4. Possible cause of the above:Apple had no command-line before OS X.You had to point and click.
   • Mac OS X (2001 on, now macOS)is based on UNIX.
   • Has Terminal (proper UNIX command line).
5. The above is in fact why I preferred DOS/Windows to the Mac. Because I liked to use the DOS command-line.Techies and programmers in general preferred DOS/Windows to the classic Mac.You could customise, program and script things in DOS/Windows.The Mac seemed more restrictive.
6. That is, Apple was too extremist in having (until OS X) no command-line at all,and forcing you to use windows and menusinstead of just having it as an option.The Mac had an extremist philosophy,whereas DOS/Windows was tolerant of multiple different styles of interface.
7. Once Windows pulled ahead, it was self-sustaining. OS X introduced a command-line in 2001, but by then the competition was over,and people wanted Windows for compatibility with everyone else.
8. Microsoft understood business better by being fanatic about backward compatibility?See Chicken and Egg Problems by Joel Spolsky,on backward compatibility,and how Microsoft won the OS wars.

These are only ideas and suggestions.They may not all be true / important.

David Gelernterhas an interesting theory inThe Aesthetics of Computing, 1998(Ch.2, "The Paradox of Beauty").

He suggests that Windows won because the Mac was too easy to use,at a time when computers were meant to behard to use. It was seen as a "toy" system.And so it lost the business market.

An alternative theory is that the Mac was not easy to use!

This is how I felt about it. I didn't find the Mac easy to use, since it didn't allow me write command-line scripts.As a programmer, I preferred UNIX and DOS/Windows.

So maybe the Mac lost because it lost the techies (programmers, sysadmins),who preferred UNIX and DOS/Windows throughout the 1980s-90s.Not because they were being backward, but because no-command-line reallyisn't a good interface for power users.

Microsoft has always been more tolerant of multiple styles of interaction with the computer(including all sorts of "ugly" backward compatibility).Whereas Apple has always had more of a "vision" that you either buy into or not.

In 2007, Steve Jobs introduces the iPhoneand declares (largely rightly) that physical keyboards in smartphones are now obsoletebecause of multi-touch.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard,from the satire site The Onion(January 5, 2009), pokes fun at Apple's enthusiasm for radical new solutions.
Apple (rightly) has got very excited about its innovations such as desktop GUI and phone multi-touch.They are fond of declaring that the way you like to interact with a computer is now "obsolete".
In The Onion's satire they go too far. I love the Steve Jobs quotethat people who use keyboards are"standing in the way of human progress".

Once Microsoft Windows got a monopoly, it was self-sustaining.

Because the OS is so fundamental to all applications,there may be a tendency to standardise on an agreed OS.This can be done 2 ways:

1. An openly agreed, open-source standard developed by co-operationamong many organisations, like most of the protocols on the Internet.

   or:

2. One organisation gaining a monopoly, e.g.Microsoft Windows, and everyone agreeing to use their products.This will normally be closed-source.

In both cases, all applications run on a common platform.

The disadvantage of the 2nd case is that you are at the mercy of whateverthe monopolist decides to give you.

Free enterprise works because competition leads to better productsand better choice.

Sometimes this doesn't work,and, for whatever reason, the market turns into a monopolyin which there is seemingly no competition.

For example, many have disputed thatWord, Excel and IE gained dominance in the word processor,spreadsheet and browser markets respectivelyby simply being the best products.A common complaint was that they gained it because they came fromthe company that made the Operating System.No one else had a chance. The latecomer Internet Explorer's rapid and total defeat of the pioneer Netscape is perhaps the most spectacular example of this.

For many years, people argued about whether the state (in particular the US and EU)should do anything about the Microsoft monopoly.Whether government should intervene to restore competition in the industry.In the end, little was done, but other factors caused the monopoly to ease (though not end).

• Criticism of Microsoft
• Microsoft litigation
  • US case
  • EU case

Microsoft (it is argued) at one point used OS monopoly to destroy competition inbrowser market.At one point IE was completely dominant.

IE dominance has massively declined though. Easy to switch browser. Not so easy to switch OS.

• History of browser market:
  1. Mosaic dominant.
  2. Netscape dominant.
  3. IE bundled with Windows.Netscape defeated.IE dominant.
  4. But later, people realise it is easy to try other browsers.Rise of Firefox and Chrome.
• The browser wars
• Usage share of Web browsers

Usage share of Web browsers up to 2014.

Usage share of desktop Web browsers up to 2015.
From StatCounter.com(and see their main site).

The state might consider the following options.

1. The OS monopoly cannot be ended easily.The market is probably a natural monopoly anyway.One could in theory force Microsoft to make the OS open-source,but that would be fairly extreme.
2. Another solution: Allow Microsoft keep their OS monopoly,but open up the application markets to competition.
   This could be done two ways:
   1. Break up the company into the OS, and the rest.
      This sounds extreme, but was done before withAT&T.
   2. A less extreme solution:Open up the file formats, so others can build apps to read Word and Excel files.
      This is a far less drastic solution.
      This in fact has happened.

The "open file formats" option above has happened.Microsoft has been pressured to open its formatsdue to anti-trust cases,and governments (and companies) being increasingly unwilling to store their official documentsin a secret format.

• Office secret format
• Microsoft offering open (readable) XML file formats inMicrosoft Office 2007 on.Also made the binary file format specification public.
• The end of Office secret format

Consequences of open file format

• Open file formats mean others can write Office apps:
  • StarOffice - discontinued
  • OpenOffice - discontinued
  • Apache OpenOffice
  • Word and Excel compatible apps for Mac, Linux, UNIX.Can read both old binary and new XML file formats.
  • The OpenDocument formats
• Don't need to buy Microsoft Office any more.
• Don't even need to install.Can useGoogle Docsonline.
• Microsoft 365- online versions of latest Word, Excel, PowerPoint.

Microsoft is facing huge challenges.But it is easy to forget that it is still one of the biggest companies in the world.

Microsoft still has a near-monopoly in PCs.
But PCs have declined in importance (as smartphones and tablets have emerged).

• Smartphones have long outsold PCs.
• Tablet sales compete with PC sales now.
• Many products are now developing apps first, PC later (or never).
• 2015 articlesums it up:"A decade ago more than 90% of devices on the internet ran Windows. With the rise of smartphones, and tablets running smartphone operating systems like iOS and Android, that number is down to 15 percent. Developers had to develop for Windows if they wanted to make money. Now, it's one of many choices, and in mobile it's an afterthought."
• The PC is still hugely important at work,and that is a massive market, and will remain so.

Windows 8marked a new UI for Windows, trying to have a similar interface on PCs, tablets and phones.
Microsoft had a lot of trouble getting people to buy into this.

Recent Windows versionsin order: XP - Vista - 7 - 8 - 10.

Usage as at 2016 is dominated by 7.

• Vistahad a mixed reception, and many XP users waited for Win 7 before upgrading.
• Win 7was a big success.
• Win 8was a dramatic break with all past Windows,in an attempt to have the same OS on PCs and tablets.
• It seems clear that many PC users do not want this, and rather want an upgraded version of Win 7.
• Jakob Nielsen criticises Win 8 usability on PCs, Nov 2012.
• Win 8 has desktop mode, so you can use it somewhat like Win 7.
• Windows 8 designer(also here)says that workers / power users / content creators are expected to use desktop mode,not Metro.
• It is hard toentirely disable Metrothough.

Windows 8.
From here.Creative Commons.
I think there are two issues for people (like me, I admit) who don't like Windows 8:

1. The aesthetics.This is entirely subjective, of course.I personally find the UI extremely ugly, so ugly that I would never buy a machine with this UI. I wouldn't use a tablet or smartphone with this UI either.Not everyone agrees, of course. Many think it is beautiful.
2. The idea that my desktop should have a similar UI to my tablet and my smartphone.I personally don't want this, and would avoid any desktop that was like my tablet and smartphone.Not everyone agrees, of course. Many think it's a great idea.

Some discussion:

• Egan Orion, 11 Oct 2013,argues that having a similar UI on PCs and tablets sounds like a good idea,but is actually a really bad idea.
• Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, 13 Jan 2014:"Microsoft ... set out to solve the problem of different devices (PCs, phones, tablets) having different interfaces. But outside of design circles, that's not a problem anyone cared about."

• Windows 10
• Features new to Windows 10
  • It brings Start Menu back.
  • It has Cortanaintelligent assistant.
  • Best of all: It has a proper Linux system.
• It still has some Metro aesthetics. Can I totally remove Metro from my life?
  • I can remove Start Menu live tiles.
  • But will other things like "Settings" force Metro on me?
  • See Classic Shell.

Windows 10 screenshot.
From The Verge.

A popular meme (origin unknown) compares Metro to 1990s AOLdesign.
Is this unfair?
Metro on Win 8 and Win 10 looks like this to me.
Instead of convincing me I'm wrong, Microsoft should go down the Unix route of allowing multiple GUIs.