The time was ripe for Linux and free software in the late 1990′s. Netscape formed mozilla.org in February 1998 to fight the Microsoft in the browse war. Oracle, the proprietary database, supported Linux as a platform in October 1998. Sun Microsystems released Star Office in November 1998, the previous name of the Microsoft-crushing Oracle Open Office suite. Red Hat went public in August 1999 and quickly acquired Cygnus, the makers of the Cygwin – a bash shell with GNU tools for Windows. Meanwhile Apache gained and maintained at least 50% market share in the web server market, an achievement which Microsoft has never been able to do.

Indeed it was history in the making and the world was starting to pay attention. O’Reilly Media published Eric S. Raymond’s “Cathedral and  the Bazaar.” PBS filmed a documentary called “Code Rush” about Netscape’s race to open its browser code.  HP sponsored a theatre documentary Revolution OS captured the relationship between free software, open source, the Linux kernel, and the American business sector during the dot-com boom.

With all of the excitement going on, Western PA Linux Users Group was experiencing growing pains. I started showing up in the Fall of 1999 after buying my first Linux desktop. Jeremy had moved to the West Coast and Jennifer and Alex were soon to follow. This is what technology people did during the boom: California gold rush 2.0! Jonathan Billings, a Carnegie Mellon employee at the time, volunteered to reserve the room so all was good.

Also, in 1999, there was a considerable amount of Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt concerning if legacy codes would bankrupt world economies and cripple technology-dependent infrastructure. Being a technology leader, the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon made the prudent decision to improve off-business hours security. This meant that free passage into the building was not possible for those attending WPLUG meetings in late 1999. It was labor intensive since we to escort late comers into the room. Still, we made it work from 1999-2007.

Meanwhile Microsoft at the turn of the Millennium, they were starting to get scared. Here Microsoft states NT is a threat to Linux in 1998. Then in 1999 Bill Gates claims the impact is “fairly limited” from Linux. Why all of the double-talk out of Microsoft? Answer: US vs Microsoft.

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I am a shareholder of your company. The world is still waiting for your Q4 FY2010 report so that we will know how much money you made as of June 30, 2010. We are all on Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein’s schedule. Mr. Klein, you rival Red Hat posted their FY 2010 report, what is the hold up?

Since I have yet to receive a personal invitation to your shareholders meeting on July 29, 2010. I have several more questions for Microsoft which I will ask from here. I welcome any answers from leadership or the floor.

What is your mobile strategy in a post-PC world? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may try to deny it. The fact is that PC desktop sales have been on a decline, 23% down as of last year. Bill Gates has nothing to do with the day-to-day anymore and it shows.

Your attempt to reach the youth via smart phones was an epic failure. KIN has been pulled by Verizon in a matter of weeks. Anonymous purported employees claimed that the IP you bought acquiring Danger are now wasted and call it as embarrassing as Microsoft Bob. Joe Wilcox correctly predicted Kin’s failure as you fired the leadership of the Entertainment and Devices division just before the Kin product launch. I too predicted in November 2009 that Kin, then code-named “Pink,” would not live up to Mr. Ballmer’s nor Mr. Gates’ vision. How could releasing the Kin under the circumstances be profitable? Why would anybody buy a Kin? Android and the iPhone have cameras, Facebook, Twitter, and more… how could you proceed into the market with less?!? Sure you can say I don’t get it because I am not a teenager but still how can you make a social phone without a calendar? Sorry, the Microsoft brand does not equal cool with whatever crowd you expected to buy Kin.

You bought the wrong smartphone IP. Last year bloggers advised you to buy Palm for their Linux-based WebOS, but you let that HP beat you to it. Now HP plans to ditch Microsoft for WebOS on tablets netting a double loss for you. There goes Mr. Ballmer’s iPad killer. Your excuses come from Mr. Klein who complains that tech mergers are hard to do. Is this fiscal leadership?

With all of the Kin ads you bought, did you once stop to notice that Windows Mobile lost market share to Google Android Linux? Developers are not chomping at the bit to write apps for Windows 7 Mobile but they were so eager to do so for Apple that WWDC2010 sold out. Developers favor Android over Apple’s iPhone OS which makes any platform you put together a third class even before product launch.

What is next, Microsoft, yet another round of layoffs? No wonder Business Insider is saying “Microsoft’s Business Could Collapse in 2010.” First Google ditches Windows on security concerns. Next, IBM names Firefox its web browser standard. Microsoft apologist, Ina Fried reports that Microsoft is now forced to offer no-cost Office options in order to compete with OpenOffice.Org and Google Docs. How does firing people now help you make products that actually sell?

Microsoft, I can not say I did not warn you as I have been warning you of your demise here at whatwillweuse.com. I do not stand alone as Computer World is ready to admit: Linux could become the world’s most popular operating system. Come June 30, 2011, Microsoft, you will lack majority market share. What are you going to do about it?

Sincerely,

Beth Lynn Eicher

I started this blog to keep personal notes of what exactly is Microsoft’s market share. Never did I ever expect a crowd of 28,460 unique visitors to care about what will we use when Microsoft has a minority market share. Thank you all for making me the tribal user of What Will We Use where we watch Microsoft’s market share until FY 2011 close.

First I defined where Microsoft claimed to have a majority market share.Then Nick and I agreed to watch w3counter’s market share reports.

There were only 3 which held any merit as of June 2009: Desktops, Browsers, and Office Suites.

How are we doing one year into it?

1. Desktop Operating Systems

In the past twelve months Windows market share went from 88.09% to 83.11%. The Windows XP product, which continues to hold the largest market share went from 69.74% to 49.95% of the total desktop operating system market share. The trend is showing as people divest from older Microsoft technologies, they do not “upgrade” to Windows Vista or Windows 7.

The next 12 months will bring a new breed of tablets and notebooks which will run  Ubuntu on ARM. These will sell like hot cakes so that people can watch Google’s youtube and play games of Facebook. The desktop is over, even in the corporate sector.

Here’s the dirty secret behind this mind-boggling growth — and the two words that will put an end to the party

IT consulting firm IDC reports that every dollar a company spends on a Microsoft product results in an additional $8 of IT expenses.

And one IT expert admits, “Trillions of dollars that companies have invested into information technology have gone to waste.”

Yet, companies have had no choice but to run these obscenely expensive and highly inefficient networks.

But that’s all about to change…

And that’s precisely why the two words “cloud computing” scare the hell out of Bill Gates.

…

And Nicholas Carr, former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, has even written an entire book on the subject, entitled The Big Switch. In it, he asserts: “The PC age is giving way to a new era: the utility age.”

He goes on to make this prediction: “Rendered obsolete, the traditional PC is replaced by a simple terminal — a ‘thin client’ that’s little more than a monitor hooked up to the Internet.”

While that may sound far-fetched, in the corporate market, sales of these “thin clients” have been growing at over 20 percent per year — far outpacing the sales of PCs.

According to market-research firm IDC, the U.S. is now home to more than 7,000 data centers just like the one constructed on the banks of the Columbia River in 2005.

And the number of servers operating within these massive data centers is expected to grow to nearly 16 million by 2010 — that’s three times as many as a decade ago.

quote courtesy of Motely Fool Newsletter called

The Two Words Bill Gates Doesn’t Want You to Hear…

Plus, the 2 companies poised to rule the post-Microsoft world

“

2. Web Browsers

In the past twelve months Internet Explorer went from 57.6% to 45.7%. As far as Nick and I are concerned, this one is won in my favor. It is still fun to watch low low can Microsoft go? Google’s decision to turn off youtube.com support for older browsers was a fatal blow for IE6. All market share browser counters show Microsoft hemorrhaging market share. In June 30, 2011. IE9 will not save Microsoft since they have decided to not support it on Windows XP. Since Microsoft’s key operating system user demographic is XP, turning their back on their legacy customers will be the last straw. Seriously, how many people are going to buy a new PC just to run a proprietary web browser when Firefox and Chrome are free?

3. Office Suites

It is very possible I have this one won too. Last month I proposed to Nick that we use Oracle’s OpenOffice.Org download figures to count as missed profit opportunity. As of the time of this post OpenOffice.Org 3.x has 159,894,085 downloads which represents $55,962,929,750 loss. That’s Almost 56 MILLION dollars that Microsoft coulda-shoulda-woulda had. Will Microsoft make that level of profits in their business software division come FY2011 market share reports?

Meanwhile, Google Apps continues to pick up market share with their Microsoft Exchange migration tool…

Over 500,000 companies — including GE [NYSE: GE] and Procter & Gamble [NYSE: PG] — have already signed up for Google Apps.

This grab bag of business applications can be purchased and run over the Web for just $50 per year and is just one of many Google products now giving Microsoft a run for its money.

Considering that Google Apps costs just one-tenth of what a traditional business software suite does, it’s no surprise that more than 2,000 businesses are signing up per day.

quote courtesy of Motely Fool Newsletter called

The Two Words Bill Gates Doesn’t Want You to Hear…

Plus, the 2 companies poised to rule the post-Microsoft world

Microsoft’s Sharepoint product which is heavily tied to Microsoft Office 2007 is not for long either. Customers seeking to use free software to manage their intra-net content can do so with Alfresco. They’ll even help you migrate.

I am as confident as ever in my assertion.

Yes indeed Bug One will be RESOLVED.

Nick will pay me $20.

GandhiCon4 is afoot.

We will win the war. We are at war with Microsoft. We have always been at war with Microsoft. Come June 30, 2011 Microsoft will lose majority market share.

That is when I realized, open source users are a little more close-knit than a community, we share a way of life with those around us. Even those we have never met, we care about each other and we care about the rest of the world too, even Microsoft Windows users. The Bill and Melinda Foundation has incredible monetary wealth but they do not have the ability to be there in the time of need to every Microsoft customer who caused their wealth. On the other hand, those who contribute to open source have a neighbors who care no matter where you live. We will be there when it comes to free software help and we will be there when the real trials of life get tough.

Why would people be so giving? The foundation of open source is belonging. Everyone to the hardest working contributor to the new user is equally entitled to their license. You do not need to pay thousands of dollars, go to a certain school, work for the right employer, or live in the right country. Open source is a free gift to all. Like grace, those who receive it want to share it. We stand together as neighbors living everywhere changing the world where we live.

We have spread out globally. Our seeds have been planted. The harvest is June 30, 2011. Just in time for Jon maddog Hall’s 5-10 year world domination prediction to come true.

One such neighbor is Ken Starks who founded the HeliOS Project. Out of Austin Texas while Micheal Dell has made a fortune from selling Windows and Linux systems, Mr. Starks changes lives by giving away Linux desktops to over a thousand families in his community. Since this is someone who is giving all he can to his non-profit efforts, he did not have enough for medical bills when he collapsed this summer. As good neighbors, we did provide. Here is the outcome in the words of Mr. Starks…

“There is no Linux Community. The best we’ve achieved is in forming warring factions that use the vast real estate of the Internet to wage bloody war against each other.”

Recent events, prior to my illness have changed my mind and I publicly apologized for such foolish thoughts.

But this…this outpouring of Love and Concern and Compassion. It has driven me both to tears and to my knees in thanks…in gratitude and in humility. As much as I profess to being a writer, there are no words, no means of expression to convey my thanks to the hundreds of people that helped me. And trust me…it was needed.

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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.

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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.

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To me, the Zaurus was just a toy that was tiding me over to that always connected voice-activated pocket computer Bill Gates promised to sink three billion dollars into producing. Sure, Microsoft had Windows Mobile 5 phones in 2005 but they really were more for corporate people who use Exchange email. Going with a glorified WindowsCE on a phone was not appealing as I had already experienced what that platform had to offer back in 1998. Back in those days, BlackBerry phones were eating up the corporate emailing phone market share keeping Microsoft uncompetitive.

There was only one pocket-internet device in the mid-2000′s that attempted to appeal to the gadget-geek in me: the PalmOS-based Treos. In January 2007, I bought a Treo 650 since I had heard horror stories on the just released iPhone. By and large, I was happy with the Blazer web browser, Google Maps for PalmOS, and an mp3 player. Sadly in January 2008, I dropped my phone cracking the screen. Wanting to stick my carrier, Verizon, I upgraded to a Treo 700p.

Until ten days ago, I was a faithful PalmOS-based Treo user. Recently, I got in the mood for something shinny and new. Google had just launched the Droid with Verizon and I was there day two on the market to pick mine up. I thought it was just another phone upgrade, instead I found that pocket voice activated information system that Bill Gates, the United States Congress, and I have been waiting for ten years now.

Microsoft had failed to implement their former CEO’s Congressional promise. Nor could Microsoft hold significant smartphone market share. In fact, Microsoft’s market share is less than 10% and on the decline. Only one brilliant visionary present at the 1999 Tech Summit who correctly predicted where all this was going and profited heavily from it: Vice President Al Gore invested in Google shortly afterward.

Mr. Gore, if you read this blog, would you kindly tell us what will we use on June 30, 2011?

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Two years later, I went back to full time work. Then I decided to buy the best solution that I could afford: a Samsung SCH 3500. This thing had a “microbrowser.” Microbrowser did not even begin to describe the experience of trying to experience the world wide web via a 1″ monochrome LCD. Most websites, were downright painful to use but Yahoo! had made their search, maps, and email usable: as long as you could tolerate numberpad word-bubblesort text entry.  The data was crazy expensive too with no monthly quota. The cool thing is that you could tether it with a Handspring Visor with PalmOS. When the Samsung and the Handspring were connected, you could use the phone as a serial modem to dial out to any dialup isp. On the wonderful 3 inch monochrome Handspring screen, I could browse the web and even IRC with with the sudo-handwriting PalmOS Graffiti. Sure it was ugly but it was bleeding edge. Microsoft was no where to be found in this market space in 2002. Yahoo! was doing software as a service on the mobile platform long before Google was even dreaming about it.

I really loved this hardware. Sadly the Samsung died in 2004 and I moved on to other phones, continuing to covet the dream of voice-activated computing which would give me access to all of my information in my pocket.

Five years after Bill Gates’ fateful promise, Microsoft still lacked any market in software-as-a-service voice-activated pocket computing area. Likewise, on June 30, 2011, Microsoft will lack majority market share.

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Ten years later I find something particularly insightful that Mr.
Gates predicted…

“Wherever you are, you’ll be able to access your own digital
dashboard — the set of information that you care about on any screen,
from a PC to that small pocket device. Microsoft and thousands of other
companies are advancing the software that makes this possible. We’ll
spend next year about $3 billion on research and development. One day
in the not-too-distant future that software will allow computers to
see, to listen, and to speak. At home or in the office, you’ll be able
to talk to your PC, to dictate a document or to simply ask for the
information that you care about.”

On November 7, 2009, I purchased that very device that finally lives up to the promise of true hand-held voice-activated computing which delivers all of the information I care about: I bought a Verizon Google Android Motorola phone.

Twelve years after Bill Gates’ fateful testimony at the High-Tech Summit, Microsoft will lack majority market share.

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