http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1399254,00.asp
While short-term issues tend to get short shrift in this blog, I am consistent in making exceptions, so here is a prediction on Linux for 2004. The reason why it is included is the emphasis on the fact that Microsoft is pricing itself out of the market, which is certainly true, and something to consider. But I also wonder if Microsoft is not also shutting itself out of the market with its DRM and other forms of overzealous intellectual property schemes.
As the article states, grandma really may not care about all of this, but I would think the sorts of issues repeatedly raised in this blog by someone who is in no way an anti-Microsoft zealot probably give pause to others higher up the corporate food chain. As for the home market, a turnkey Linux installation which supported e-mail, Web browsing, multimedia, and a simple office suite, while hiding the gory details, certainly would bid fair to supplant XP Home.
The revelation in the article that the single most expensive component in a low-end PC is the operating system certainly represents a change in the way things are done [and if nothing else, something of a vindication of the theories George Guilder championed over a decade ago], and perhaps one the implications of which Microsoft [and indeed everyone else] has not truly read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested.
Posted by jho at December 3, 2003 08:07 AM