That's true fortunately. Right now it seems that Windows 8 is also teaching them a big lesson: that they can't force their stuff down people's throats any more like they used to. Windows 8 was a huge piece of impudence on their side for non-touchscreen users, and it seems they found that out in the meantime, because they have done a lot in Win 8.1 and Win 8.1 upgrade 1 that makes it more palpable for desktop users.Muirium wrote: Used to be that Windows was mandatory. But anyone who uses Windows a few years from now, does so by choice. We're in that painful bit in between where Microsoft's mistakes hurt people who can't control what tools they use. It won't last long, though.
We'll see how this goes down. I think they can still survive in a world of choice, because all the alternatives have their own challenges. Apple only caters to a small part of the population with their overpriced and walled-garden approach. Android will continue to be a malware and a privacy nightmare, because it still has no security patch system (a problem MS solved many years ago in spite of a similarly diverse hardware base) and Google's "pay with your data" approach isn't for everyone either.
I think MS's main problem might be the abysmal karma they collected in the last 30 years. People just hate them. Or at least find them uncool.
