What Will We Use on June 30, 2011?

Thanks for hanging in there folks for the What Will We Use Browser and Operating Systems reports. In February, we had 1,691 unique readers. This is amazing considering that I have not had time to post much.

Nonetheless, Microsoft continues to creatively self-destruct. While Microsoft fails to sell Windows 7 to XP users, Apple’s market share picks up. How can Steve Ballmer justify his raise? I’m sorry but patent extortion of I-O Data’s Linux devices and Amazon’s Kindle are not work product. Meanwhile, Google’s Linux-based products grow market share exponentially. Google has not been sued because Google would not be the type to pay out of court. Is Microsoft turning into a litigation company? How did that strategy work out for the bankrupt SCO? As I already pointed out, being in court all of the time distracts Microsoft from making real technology that people actually want to use. If Microsoft could sell software on the open market profitably, why are they on the patent lawsuit FUD warpath?

Since Microsoft lost their own patent battle to the tune of $290 million to I4i over Word 2007, maybe they find it safer to sue other companies than make browsers, office suites, and operating systems. Go ahead Microsoft and mock Firefox’s success, you only look like jealous crybabies babies.

The writing is on the wall, Microsoft has lost in the long term. Gartner’s 2008 prediction of open source having majority market share in 2012 is really growing roots. Come June 30, 2011, Microsoft’s fate will be clear, until then, I will bring your my market share reports and other commentary.

This month I decided to compare my percentages to W3Counter, a no-cost analytic service that shares their global market share figures on a monthly basis.

We are worlds apart on the browser market share, but as far as the operating systems go, there are areas where we agree save Windows XP and Linux…

And now for the browsers…

What do you think world? What will March of 2010 hold in store for us on our journey to understand what will we use come June 30, 2011?

I have never met Mr. Starks, better known as Helios. Nor visited his educational charity, the HeliOS Project in Austin Texas. Yet, I was glad to be able to help. My job as a Linux system administrator, a debt-free life style, and great friends that I would have never met had I stayed loyal to Microsoft products have given me a life that is better that I deserve. Helios is an easy choice to invest in because he gives +1000% of himself to make free software available. When Helios gives away a computer because he believes it is a human right for a child to have such essential educational tool, more open source contributors are born. The census of non-Microsoft users will exponentially grow at a pace that tips the scale. On June 30, 2011 the change will be apparent.

Had Helios retired this summer, no one would blame him since he had already given back plenty.  Yet he steps it up a notch by giving back to his mentor., on his blog he writes…

I told them about how a global community came together and helped me heal from an illness that could have easily killed me.  I told them about a global effort to bring computing freedom to people who before now, had no idea they had a choice.

Open source is not just a methodology for releasing software for people like Helios and I. It is a way of life that we pay for by giving back in abundance with the resources we have to our avail. So, when Helios posted that the founder of the website that him understand Linux was dying, I was happy to help again. This way the website: brunolinux.com and the “Bruno Knaapen Technology Learning Center” will leave a legacy.

With open source, we all own the product of all of the contributions since the founding of UNIX in 1969. With Microsoft, one corporation owns the products such as Windows 7, Internet Explorer, or Office 2007. Quality software, when the code is freely available, lasts generations. Inferior software, when the code is proprietary, dies when the company who owns it no longer thinks it is profitable.

Many Microsoft products have died because they were no longer profitable to Microsoft. Here are some examples…

Microsoft Money was a household financial package. It has been replaced by online services such as mint.com, personal banking accounts with web access, Intuit products, Moneydance, and gnucash. All but Microsoft Money had options for MacOS and Linux users. Everyone is balancing their checkbooks without Microsoft. The world goes on.

Microsoft Encarta in its hay-day was the ultimate in hyper-linked encyclopedias. I even owned editions from the mid-nineties on CD. The release yearly paradigm is no longer useful in the information age. Going online, however, did not save Encarta, due to the popular community-contributed no-cost Wikipedia. One company could not hire enough writers and editors to compete with the Wikipedia’s massive almost 15 million article collection contributed by unpaid volunteers. The world is better served with over 200 languages without help from Microsoft.

Microsoft Works was Microsoft’s first office suite product combining a word processor, spreadsheet, and database. While Microsoft Office components such as Powerpoint can be purchased outside the suite bundle, Works was an all-or-nothing deal. While it came at a small enough price that computer manufactures could ship Works with a new computer, it could not compete with other office suites. While Works suffered from lacking a MacOSX version, Microsoft Office supports the modern Apple operating system. By favoring the more expensive product, Office, Microsoft customers will be looking elsewhere. In fact, Microsoft admits that OpenOffice.org is more powerful than Works.

As Microsoft product offerings decrease, the neighborhood of open source users increases. Each citizen of open source is doing their part when they they share with their friends, coworkers, and family the tools that have enriched their lives. Every contribution, no matter how small is an investment in a better world.

We will win. I promise.

Come June 30, 2011, the world will understand they do not need Microsoft.

Giant Eagle has been giving Apple computers to schools because it is the right thing to do.  The business of selling groceries has nothing to do with computers or educating children but they do it for the good will of the community.

The woman I met in the waiting room mentioned to me that Windows 7 lacks DOS support. She also claimed that Windows XP-backward support is only provided with a those with a license for XP for use with virtualization. More Microsoft products to buy! Microsoft confirms it all here.

While Microsoft wants you to stop using all of your applications and games written for DOS or Windows XP, Windows system programmers are supposed to port all of their BAT scripts to “PowerShell.” I borrowed a Windows 7 machine to verify this for myself. Here is a screenshot.

As a professional system administrator, I hereby tell Microsoft that the PowerShell innovation is too little too late. Why would I leave Linux for Windows 7? Bash, Perl, Python, GCC… these are all open source are basic part of Linux to customize my environment and script my operating system.  Ever since 1995, an open source program called Cygwin has been bringing all of these programming tools to Windows users.  Open Source has been compensating for the inadequacies of the Microsoft-provided environment because it is the right thing to do. Fifteen years later Microsoft thinks I will be satisfied with PowerScript: a closed-source .Net-based development environment that is not even backwards-compatible with DOS BAT. No thanks Microsoft.

The good news for Microsoft users who need DOS compatibility brought to you by Open Source, not Microsoft. If this is you, check out DOSBox, FreeDOS, and VirtualBox.

Thank you to open source contributors doing the right thing and helping Windows users where Microsoft fails their own customers. You are doing the right thing.

When Microsoft’s market share is less than 50% come June 30, 2011, open source will continue to be here to support Microsoft’s legacy applications.

Update: I assumed that Powershell was a closed source Microsoft-only shell-based scripting language. I stand corrected. Again, with the power of open source AND bash, Linux, MacOSX, legacy Windows, and mobile Windows users can use Powershell on their systems with pash: http://pash.sourceforge.net/

Microsoft can no longer hold a monopoly over even their own proprietary environments.

This website and associated services has cost me over $350 for the full 2 years of service. I admit that it is a little silly

Some cold days ahead for Microsoft, thanks to radix999 on flickr

over a $20 bet. When some people make predictions, they say something without ever expecting any accountability. By being as public as possible, I have the opportunity to document the process. I celebrate both the journey and the eventual victory. Some people fly to Las Vegas for March Madness to place a wager on their favorite teams where the wager itself costs more than the trip. No matter how this goes, Nick and I are having a blast along the way.

Discussing the fate of Microsoft been so much fun, one commenter we only know as darryl wants in on the action. My hesitation is not about the money I will not bet you, darryl, 1000 United States dollars because I do not know you. Moreover, your IP address suggests you are from Australia so I don’t know how we could set up such an arrangement. By the way, you never answered my question regarding if you are a Microsoft employee.

In any case, this is my counter offer. I buy 33 shares of Red Hat. You buy 66 shares of Microsoft. Since both companies stock prices are about $30/share, we will accomplish the same idea as your proposal without ever having to meet.

For the record, I never said that Microsoft is evil. It is actually a little said says I, a Microsoft user since 1992 and a Linux user since 1999. Microsoft used to make products which made customers happy. That all changed with Vista. Without Bill Gates, Microsoft has been sinking in turbulent seas. So what is Microsoft doing about it? They’re hiring a “Competitive Marketing Manager.” and strangely, I meet the qualifications. Should I apply?

Nah… I will just stick to my wacky prediction:

Come June 30, 2011, Microsoft will no longer have majority market share.

Since I am footing the hosting bill of whatwillweuse.com, I invite you, the reader, to make your own technology prediction for 2010-2011 on my hosting dime by leaving a comment in this post. I promise to continue to host this post until at least January 4, 2012 to see what happens just for fun.

Here are some examples to get you started…

What will happen with the mobile market?

Will MySQL fork?

What will the clouds look like a year from now?

Will Steve Ballmer be fired?

How far will Apple’s market share grow?

I predicted last month that W3Counter would deliver a less-than-50% IE use on the February 2010 report thus winning 1/3 of the bet.

As I close this post, I wish to toast Microsoft itself, as your Windows have seen better days but bravo for shipping Windows 7 before calendar 2010….

Gorilla

Originally uploaded by just4u2009

In addition to my quest to reach out to the general public, I desire to have discussion with the 800 pound Gorilla in the room.

So far I have been using the wwwuse twitter account to try to engage in discussion. No replies but it is still early yet. I am interested in a real honest to goodness fair and public debate.

We may not agree, Microsoft. Some may fear you due to your size and reputation. Many have ignored you with disgust for years. I do not. Instead I respectfully challenge your ability to be relevant for very much longer.

Jim Zemlin of Linux Foundation has said, “IDC already restated their growth forecast upwards for Linux due to the recession and I would expect analyst research to surface an even greater growth spurt for Linux over the last couple years as they get better at accounting for unpaid Linux and open source use. Linux provides better value than Windows, and in tough times this difference makes all the difference.”

Yet Steve Ballmer said “And because Windows 7 improves productivity, it offers the potential to increase billable time for mobile workers at a rate of nearly $600 per PC. This could return the equivalent of one-half of one percent of the company’s current gross annual revenue to the bottom line.”

Can you please explain how you believe that Microsoft Windows saves the customer money when you charge hundreds in licensing fees? Please contrast this “savings” with the cost of deploying a Linux desktop at no licensing fees.

Thank you very much.

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.

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.

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.

I continued to use PalmOS internet-less but was quickly bored. Then I moved onto the Sharp Zaurus, a Linux based PDA. With a $100 CF 802.11b card, the Zaurus could browse the web on a color screen as long as I was somewhere with a hotspot. But, in circa 2005, quality open wireless networks were few and far between.

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?

Congratulations to Mackenzie Morgan, who is one of Ubuntu’s newest members of the “Masters of the Universe” MOTU team.

For those who do not know, Mackenzie is a co-editor of this blog. Even though she has not been writing lately, she has faithfully approved comments and made sure there were not any typos in the other authors’ articles. Also, Mackenzie has been with the “What Will We Use” mission from the very beginning because she witnessed the bet behind this blog.

Mackenzie’s new status as a MOTU is important because she will be formally responsible to screening and packaging software and other free content for the Ubuntu Universe archive. The content within “the universe” is available under the Ubuntu Software Center. Within the Ubuntu Software Center, a user can search for free applications by keyword, download, unpack, and install the software with any applicable dependencies and libraries, and setup the icons in the launcher all with a few clicks of the mouse. It is really a very simple user experience. Don’t take my word for it though, see it for yourself.

With the software provided within Ubuntu’s main, universe, and multiverse via Ubuntu Software Center, Ubuntu users receive high quality and virus-free software which is optimized for Ubuntu without any cost to the user. It makes the current paradigm of going to the computer software store to purchase a shrink-wrapped proprietary piece of software outdated, slow, expensive, and risky.

If you are a Microsoft or Apple user who still thinks Linux is not going to gain significant market share because you do not see shrink-wrapped boxes on the store shelves, consider the possibility that the reason why the software is not there is that the Linux community has found a better way of software delivery via the work of talented programmers such as Mackenzie Morgan. Still think shrink wrapped store bought software is more trustworthy? I challenge you to get a refund from either the store or the software vendor if you are dissatisfied by the quality standards of their product.