What Will We Use on June 30, 2011?

"Give Mac" says the tree at the Apple store

There happens to be an Apple store in South Hills Village Mall. I checked it out after photographing the Droid booth. For those who have never been to an Apple store, it is a place were one can go and buy all sorts of Apple computers, iPods, iPhones, MacOSX software. There you will find little kids (about 8 and below) playing games on Apple desktop.  For the big kids there are desktops and ipods you can actually use to see if you like it. If you buy an Apple computer, there is a “Genius Bar” full of Apple-trained experts who will sit with you and help you through your issue. They also have free in-store classes on how to use their software and hardware. This is why customers love Apple computers instead Windows… customer service. This particular Apple store was packed, presumably following the store tree’s directions “Give Mac.” With 48 cents of every dollar being spent on Apple in the desktop market, it makes me wonder, does Nick already owe me twenty dollars? If Apple gets 48 cents, then surely PC vendors who ship Linux could be getting at least two cents of the action. With Linux offerings from HP, Dell, and Lenovo, the big names are covered. Heck, it is not hard to find a eeePC running Linux if you really want one. How about Penguin Computing, Linux Certified, System 76, Zareason, and other countless Linux specialty or Linux friendly white box vendors? All of these companies would not be in business if there was no money to be made by competing with Microsoft. Once ChromeOS kicks in, it will be all over for Microsoft Windows.

No matter how you look at it, the gap on Microsoft’s market share is shrinking. What do you think readers? Does Nick already owe me $20?

Yesterday when I got home from the office supply store, my husband asked, “Do you want to go to the mall?” This time we went to South Hills Village Mall which is not the same mall where I picked up my Droid. Just three weeks ago, my Droid was purchased one day after its release. My husband lovingly realizes that I am thrilled by gadgets as some girls would be thrilled by jewellery and agreed to make it my birthday present. I am still wowed by the Droid. My husband suggested that we go to the Verizon store to see if there were any Droid accessories available. They were sold out. Within line of site to the Verizon store there is a Droid display which will be staffed every holiday weekend. Yes. A whole display just for one telephone product. There were many people who stopped by to play with the many Droids on display but all but one booth employee were too shy to pose as I excitedly took a photo with my Droid. The picture you see in this post was immediately uploaded to facebook and flickr.com. No need to sync the phone with my desktop at home. This is when I realized that I was already living in the cloud.
Cloud computing that is. Google stores my calendar and contacts so I do not need to worry about backing that up to my PC. Flickr.com, a Yahoo! site, stores my photos. Facebook makes it crazy easy to share my picture that I just took on my phone with all my friends… all of this without leaving the mall. The Droid is not exactly forthcoming about being a product built on Linux and to some, this is a good idea. Still, if they would mention Linux in even a quarter of their advertising and posters, they would be by far the single marketing campaign of Linux product: far beyond the tux500. Google, Motorola, and Verizon have marketed the Droid phone as the anti-iPhone. In one TV commercial they pointed out that Google encourages open development for its “market” of apps. This is important because it allows and even encourages individuals and even competitors like Yahoo! to make applications for the Android platform. Why not go on to boast that they are built on the stability of an 18-year old operating system called Linux? The power of the Android Linux open platform is the whole power behind DroidDoes. Think that this open source mobo-jumbo can not effect the consumer, why in the world won’t Apple let Google implement voice search? Anyhow, Android Linux phones will be holiday gift giving favourite. Want your own Droid? Get it dropped straight to your back yard. My mother has already bought a phone, the Android-based Moment because she is a loyal Sprint customer. I played with it for 5 minutes and it had many of the Droid features but it was slow in comparison. Mom still intends on buying two more Moments for her sister and her brother-in-law.

At least in one corner of the South Hills Village Mall, Microsoft lacks majority market share on November 28, 2009.

Like I promised, I did not go out to the stores on Friday November 27 but today I felt the urge to hit the market. There are not too many choices in town for electronics since Circuit City and CompUSA closed their brick-and-mortar stores. Today I visited Office Max, a office supply chain that sells computers and accessories too. My mother badly needs an all in one printer because her fax machine, her scanner, and her printer take up most of her desk space. I also must add that her Lexmark printer lacks Linux drivers. It’s too bad because anything that can do basic postscript works with CUPS now-a-days. CUPS is the printer driver mechanism in MacOSX, Linux, and any other modern UNIX based system – basically anything but Microsoft Windows. While comparing two printers out for sale, I overhead a conversation between the store manager and a customer who was a father with a ~10 year old son.

the conversation went something like this…

customer: I upgraded from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate. When I did, Microsoft Mail program disappeared. I called Microsoft who told me to do this and that to bring it back but it still is not there. Do you have any suggestions for me?

manager: That’s Microsoft for you.

customer: Is there a separate Microsoft product I can buy to bring back Microsoft Mail?

manger: No. Sorry. I don’t carry anything like that. Sorry I can not help.

ble: Mind if I make a suggestion?

(exit stage left store manager)

customer: Sure.

ble: I am writing down a website were you can get a free mail program called “Thunderbird.”

customer: Yes! I have heard of that. I use Firefox too. I do not know why I never thought to use Thunderbird for my mail.

ble: Who is your internet service provider?

customer: $telco

ble: Then $telco should be able to help you setup Thunderbird to check your mail. While I am writing things down, I am going to suggest go to openoffice.org too. It is a free office suite.

customer: Good because I do not like using Microsoft Office. It is too complicated.

ble: Open Office is not complicated and it is free too. Free software is great!

customer: Yes. Thank you very much! And Merry Christmas to you!

ble: Merry Christmas to you too sir.

The ten year old child got to watch his father not buy more Microsoft software which may mean a better Christmas for him. The father looked so thankful that there was a non-Microsoft answer to his Microsoft woes that did not involve opening his wallet any farther. I ended up buying this brother printer for my mother for Christmas on sale for $65. With the help of the Droid, I was able to that Brother supports Linux.

Ubuntu Karmic Open Week

On November 6, 2009, I participated in an online-chat conference called Open Week. This is when the Ubuntu community discusses and celebrates their most recent release Karmic Kola. It is a no-cost version of Linux that a company called Canonical will support until April 2011. After then, you qualify for a free upgrade! Rinse and Repeat. I spoke on the topic of “Resolve Bug One” since the Ubuntu community sees Microsoft’s hold on the majority of the market as a bug.

Full chat log here.

The rest of this post is the answers to some questions I was asked during the session… Continue reading…

Thanksgiving, as an American, means

1. Being Thankful for what you have.
2. Eating way too much food with family.
3. Planning what you are going to buy on Black Friday where all of the retailers sell loss-leader electronics in the hopes of you buying other stuff in their stores.

The truth of the matter folks, I have been gluttonous too much electronic. There is a backlog of unused the hardware I have in my basement. When everyone runs out to the stores tomorrow, I am going to hold my own Linux installfest at home. Here I will make functional systems that could not run Vista or Windows 7. If you live around Western PA and you would like to help deploy these systems, please express interest in the comments. Also, if anyone has any creative ideas for using recycling a series 2 Tivo, I would be very thankful since I have one of those in my basement too.

Whatever you do tomorrow, please read Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols’ advice regarding Black Friday deals before hitting the stores. Better yet, stay at home and shop the Linux Journal store.

Recycling is one way that Microsoft will lose majority market share by June 30, 2011.

Yesterday Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell called it quits. The new CFO will be Peter Klein. I think it is interesting that there was no mention of the change last week at the November 19, 2009 shareholders’ meeting.

Maybe he had enough of the job of delivering bad news?

God Bless you Mr. Liddell, where ever your greener pasture may be. If I had but one question for you it would be, “Where do you see Microsoft’s market share in June 30, 2011?”

A "Demotivational Poster" for Microsoft: "Regrets Those were the droids you were looking for"

So what do you have to say for yourself Microsoft?

As Chairman, Bill Gates stayed pretty silent on the Android issue at the November 19, 2009 stockholders meeting. Steve Ballmer, the current CEO of Microsoft, decided to discuss the issue instead.

“We have greater market share to Google Android. Our objective is to have a leading position among these competitors,” Mr. Ballmer said.

Well, when we have the 4th quarter numbers for SmartPhone market-share, I believe that the Linux-based phone share will be above Microsoft. I do not even think that Nick would bet me another $20. Oh, by the way, Nick has an Android phone. He has been using it since June 2009.

Mr. Ballmer also boldly made another ten year prediction on November 19, 2009.

“When we meet back here in 10 more years, we will look back and say, ‘Wow, wasn’t technology really primitive in 2009? Computers didn’t recognize our speech, they didn’t recognize our gestures .. we didn’t have instantaneous access to the world’s information, we still used pen and paper.’ … Microsoft is investing to be at the forefront of these changes.”

Sorry, Microsoft, you blew it. The Droid already does all that thanks to Google. These were the droids we were looking for.

You had all of the resources to make it happen in 1999:

• You had three of your founders as the richest men in the world. The MSFT stock had peaked at $119 (US $60.928 adjusting for splits) that year. If the 3 billion in research was not enough, you could have found the money somewhere. Now you are only about half of the company value you were ten years go. Where did all the money go? You still do not have a competitive product to show for it. Pink will not pan out. Vaporware is the kindest way to put it. Your own employee put it much more harshly. Success can not be bought.
• You had over ten years between Mr. Gates’ June 15, 1999 testimony and November 6, 2009 Droid release date. Time was on your side as you were already a giant name in computing when Google was a start-up under your radar.
• You had just secured over a hundred licensing agreements for all sorts of “intelligent devices” like personal digital assistants.
• Your company head-count has doubled over the past ten years yet suffers from a brain drain of engineering talent according to this another anonymous Microsoft employee.

How did you let a couple of kids from Stanford who just announced their little search company start-up in the summer of June 1999 beat you to your own Congressional promise?

You a great excuse: you were in court the entire time.

First you had to convince the Unitied States Department of Justice that you were not being monopolistic when it comes to the desktop operating system and web browser. You sited Apple, Linux, and Netscape as competitors in this space. You lost but later you settled with the United States while litigating Netscape to death. Your 750 million settlement with AOL/Netscape bought you browser market share. Even though you supposedly out of court by 2003, you were funding SCO in hopes of killing Linux. Now that SCO is bankrupt, you are busy defending your office suite in court with the Word patent suit and Novell is still suing you over Word Perfect. Do you still find it profitable to sue smaller companies that use Linux in their talking-devices based on the Linux kernel like the TomTom?

You have failed in court.

You fail to profit.

You fail to buy your competitor, Yahoo!

Your corporate ally, Best Buy, is tanking too.

The ultimate problem for you, Microsoft, is that you can not buy and/or sue open source out of business. Sourceforge does not even scratch the surface at 32 million visitors monthly.That’s right are are millions of us who passionately support non-proprietary software that we use. Is that why you have sponsored the open source census? Face it: you can not innovate faster than open source either. With 2 million of user/developer accounts on Sourceforge alone, your 93,000 person company seems really small. PCWorld asks: Has Microsoft Lost the War against Open Soruce? The answer is yes. Some say you died in 2005.

No matter how you look at it, the facts remain. You lost…

• The kernel behind Google Android phones like the Droid is Linux.
• Netscape is now the open source browser Firefox. There have been over 400 million downloads since I made the bet with Nick in June 2009.
• Sun Microsystems, one your targets via SCO suits, is still sponsoring Open Office. In a few short months, you will have lost majority market share to the Open Office suite.
• The Google/Ubuntu hybrid web-optimized Linux system called ChromeOS will hit your operating system, browser, and office suite market share hard.

Think your cloud computing product, “Azure”, can help you? Your lack of attention to high performance computing has sunk your top500.org market share down to an embarrasing 1%. Why should the world trust your ability to perform under a cycle renting paradigm?

It is all over. You failed your users, your government, and your former CEO’s vision. Your market share is tanking and will be less than half by June 30, 2011. Nick will pay me $20. This personal wager made at the South East LinuxFest in June 2009 has enough interest to attract over 12,000 readers in just a few months. A world with significantly less Microsoft is afoot and this website gives people a forum to talk about it.

This is the beginning of the end for you Microsoft.

“On June 30, 2011, Microsoft will lack majority market share,” says Beth Lynn Eicher.

For a few months I have considered what my next phone will be. I knew that it had to be either Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint since other carriers do not have a good reputation for quality coverage in my area.

I also knew I wanted a SmartPhone which gave me several operating systems options (in order of 2qtr market share):
A. Nokia which runs a platform which is striving to be open source: Symbian OS, AT&T was the only carrier for them but I did not see any for sale at the store I visited.
B. Blackberry which runs the closed-source platform: RIM, was available in many models and carriers but the lack of availability of 3rd party applications kept me away.
C. iPhone which runs the BSD-based platform produced by Apple has a significant amount of popularity due to the App Store. I passed because I did not want something that was defective by design.
D. Microsoft Mobile based phones are around but decreasing in relevance. The reviews totally tank it.
E. Android is an Linux-based operating system from Google which is the most open Linux-based commercially available phone on the market is the one I picked because it seemed to have the most welcoming developer community.
F. Palm is currently in transition to the Linux-based OS called “Palm PRE.” I doubt that the developer community will keep up with the Android and iPhone communities.

On Saturday November 7, I went to the poshest shopping mall around town to make sure that my options were the best that money could buy. Let’s face it, I am a Linux enthusiast and the idea of buying a Linux phone had me thrilled. Decked out in my Google Open Source Programs Office t-shirt, I knew I was going Droid. The Motorola “Droid” model is the newest Android phone for the Verizon 3G Network. None the less, I had intended to go to all three stores: Verizon, AT&T and Sprint but there was not a Sprint store in that mall. At the AT&T store I observed no Microsoft phones but several iPhones for sale. There were not any customers there beside me at the AT&T store yet nobody tried to sell me an iPhone. It is like nobody cares about the iPhone anymore. Then I quickly moved onto Verizon store where there was a line of people just to touch one of the two Android phones they had on display. There was one Windows phone on display but everybody ignored it despite it being right next to the Droid. Since I already have a contract with Verizon, the process was simple. I gave my phone number and account PIN to the sales clerk and the Droid was mine. As an added bonus, the clerk explained that I would pay less than I was paying for my monthly service because I wanted to use gmail instead of a Microsoft Exchange email account. While my Droid was configured for my account, I continued to browse the store and ended up buying a mifi too which is a portable access point that does not care what operating system I use.

The Droid itself is amazing. What really knocks my socks off is the phone is tied in with Google Voice so I can make all of the calls I want for free without going into my calling minutes. It also ties in well with all sorts of software-as-a-service websites, not just Google’s cloud.

As I was using the Droid, it reminded me of Bill Gates’ Congressional testimony ten years ago….

I’ve waited for ten years for Bill Gates and Microsoft to deliver the innovation that was promised in the “not too distant future.” Ten years and 3 billion dollars later you have no product to show for it, Microsoft. I bought a product produced by Google, a company that will destroy Microsoft’s market share now through June 30, 2011. Should I wait for Microsoft to catch up? I am sorry Mr. Gates, I am afraid I can’t do that. I’ve already gone for the 2010 Linux Odyssey.

A little over 3 months ago, I blogged about how Yahoo! and how the continue to compete and do well where Microsoft falters. When other bloggers speculated that Microsoft was going to acquire Yahoo!, I assured you all that Microsoft was in no position to buy Yahoo! The next day, when the 10 year Microsoft-Yahoo! deal came down. I did not call doom to Yahoo! Instead I said, “In this deal, Microsoft will do the expensive work of maintaining a search engine and Yahoo will monetise.” on my July 30, 2009 post.

Yodel Anecdotal of Flickr

I recently heard new facts from Yahoo insiders about what the Microsoft
deal is really about.

• The deal only pertains to searches executed on http://www.yahoo.com Other Yahoo! web properties such as shine, games, mail, video, finance, or flickr are unaffected.
• Yahoo! will still execute the search.
• When Yahoo! searches, it will pass the query to Bing who will return a targeted ad on http://www.yahoo.com
• Yahoo! takes Microsoft’s money for 10 years.
• With the making money off of search problem out of the way, Yahoo! can focus on monetising it’s other web properties.
• Yahoo! will get back to the business of integrating on-line communities and selling advertising.

Microsoft desperately asked Yahoo! to let Microsoft be a contractually committed Yahoo!’s loyal customer for 10 years.  I don’t blame Yahoo! for accepting this deal. Instead, I applaud them for taking Microsoft’s money while the checks still clear. Also, I predict that Yahoo!’s search results will be better quality since they will not worry about keeping the advertisers happy. It sounds like a sweet deal for Yahoo!

What does that mean for Yahoo! users? Yahoo! will succeed because they listen: Yahoo! will focus customizing your internet experience at http://you.yahoo.com

Microsoft will continue to mock their own users and deny their own failures with expensive marketing campaigns like “Windows 7, that’s my idea”

Yahoo! listens to bloggers too. CEO Carol Bartz just said so. Ms Bartz believes consumers look to blogs when making up their minds about a product.

Could this blog be making a difference?  We have been writing about the downfall of Microsoft only five months and we now have 12,000 readers, more than half of which do not use Microsoft products for their operating system or web browser. This is evidence of a real market trend that internet giant and software-as-a-service pioneer Yahoo! needs to watch.

Guess what folks, Yahoo! has asked me if I would like to come work for them. They happen to be looking sysadmins who can handle working with open source technologies in large scale deployments. While I feel flattered by the invitation to apply, but I am quite happy where I am.

Yahoo! happens to have 23 positions currently for top-notch system engineers who can work with monumental scale. They particularly need perl/python systems programmers who can engineer solutions for the unique level of complexity the user communities demands. If you would like to help Carol Bartz build awesome technology and communities that will keep Yahoo! a fierce Microsoft competitor, I urge you to apply for a Yahoo! job as a Senior Production Engineer, Service Engineer, Grid/Haddoop Engineer, and Cloud Service Storage Engineer. Serious and intelligent individuals can contact Mr. Long Phung, a Yahoo! technical recruiter. His user name on the yahoo-inc dot com domain is his first initial and last name without any punctuation. Additional openings are available at http://careers.yahoo.com.

This is an unpaid endorsement opinion of Beth Lynn Eicher.

Just to clarify, if execute a search on any other Yahoo! website besides www.yahoo.com, it was not brought to you by Bing. Furthermore, if you see a Microsoft ad on any Yahoo! site, it is because Microsoft opened their pockets independent of the deal at hand. Go ahead Yahoo! and soak Microsoft dry on all fronts.

The Grand Finale to the “Road to Going Droid” story will be postponed for some exciting breaking news. Stay tuned.