| justinian said: PC Makers unfortunately have all their eggs in one basket. Until they break off the MS monopoly and find alternative OSes to promote and hype up to consumers MS holds the upper hand. I really hoped that google would have built a decent desktop OS and progress from the big success that is Android. Samsung are well in the google camp but more manufacturers need to sign up. This Windows monopoly has been going on too long. Of course you won't think that if you are a ... I don't blame MS, they are only doing what they should, it's not their fault they hold this monopoly. It's up to the others to step up and I think now more than ever is a good time in this fast changing world where buying power is shifting from the west to the east. |
We should also consider that MS and Intel are giants compared to most traditional PC makers, they have far more cash available and MS also hugely greater profit margin, so in the past they could grab them by the throat, also helped by the slow US antitrust, that still stuck to the past, when IBM was the market leader, paralysed the only company powerful enough in the '90s and the 2000s to compete with the new SW-HW duopoly, that instead was repeatedly allowed to break every rule about fair play against smaller competitors being at most fined by laughably low sums. But now, trying to merge PC with smartphones and tablets, MS made a terrible mistake, as it finds itself facing new HW partners that enjoy far larger revenues and profit margins than old PC makers, and that have been used to install different OS on their current best-selling devices for years, so they didn't allow MS to build its legacy power on their market, and that don't need to concede Intel the exclusivity to receive some marketing help, nor they have to give it to MS on OS to obtain a better price on it.
Long story short: in the very moment the line between PC and other devices will be completely erased, MS and Intel will lose their power on the market, MS will lose also most of the power of its SW legacy, and they will be forced to compete exclusively on price and quality. Still with the big help of the brute force granted them by their size and cash, so they won't disappear and they'll remain two of the biggest players in the market, but they won't be anymore two giants amogst dwarfs.
