If you believe recent studies by Dataquest and International Data Corp., somewhere between 81 and 93 percent of all desktop PCs in corporate America run a version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system. If you oversaw operating systems for Microsoft Corp., you might be very happy.
But if you read leaked internal memos and testimony of Redmond brass in the Department of Justice’s antitrust trial against the monolithic software giant, it appears that Microsoft isn’t happy-it’s scared.
It’s no surprise the top dog is running scared-part of what makes Microsoft one of the most imposing companies of our time is its speedy, agile responses to unforeseen shifts in the market. The surprising thing is what has company officials so alarmed.
Microsoft knows it will survive the pending antitrust suits and copyright infringement cases. It can deal with criticism about delays in releasing its Windows 2000 operating system. It can deflect questions about its software “bugs” that apparently compromise the privacy of its customers.
What scares Microsoft is the possibility of other operating systems denting its monstrous market share. Bill Gates himself is fond of warning that Microsoft is “always two years away from failure.”
Could that really be true?
When Microsoft Windows gained desktop dominance, its associated application programs were able to displace long-entrenched leaders from competing companies. This happened in part because the Microsoft programmers have had access to other Microsoft developers and to the nuts and bolts of the Windows OS that competitors never had.
There never will be a level playing field as long as Microsoft’s Windows environment is the de facto standard, but if enough alternative operating environments are able to gain strong footholds in the OS marketplace, Microsoft will have to work much harder-and smarter-to stay on top.
There are a host of alternative operating systems competing for jobs on industry-standard Intel microprocessors. Linux, BeOS, JavaOS, NetWare and OS/2 are the best-known examples, and there are reasons for using each of them. Some users, frankly, despise Microsoft for whatever reason and would rather do their computing on an abacus than bow down to what they consider Big Brother. Of course there are legitimate reasons, too.
For some users it’s a matter of cost, as many alternatives can be less expensive to license than a Windows solution. The cost to license Linux, for example, is absolutely nothing. The server version of Windows NT, on the other hand, can run upwards of $400.
In other instances, Microsoft’s products just don’t fit the bill, such as when users need a highly customizable OS or one that works across a range of platforms. Sometimes, of course, users stick with alternatives because they do everything they need them to, so there’s no reason to change.
The biggest challenges to Windows are coming from the open source community, where constructing a formidable Microsoft alternative has progressed with nearly religious fervor. Linux and part of Java are open source, which means programmers can examine and customize the source code of the operating system. This also allows a worldwide network of volunteer developers to work on solutions for common problems and distribute them quickly, sometimes in a matter of minutes.
While no company is going to unseat Microsoft anytime soon, it’s clear that there are opportunities for other companies to take business away from it. The less of an operating system monopoly Microsoft enjoys, the easier it becomes for other companies to take still more business away.
“The operating system for the general-purpose desktop computer with which a person directly interacts belongs to Microsoft for eternity,” said Ezra Gottheil, a former executive at Lotus Development Corp. “But for boxes that do things in your network, something like Linux may have a rich future. The last thing a company wants to do is buy an expensive Microsoft NT license for a single-purpose machine.”
John Burger, a lead scientist for the Mitre Corporation, a defense and aviation contractor, agrees that there are legitimate reasons to deny Microsoft your business. “Linux is more robust than NT. If you want a high-performance Web site and never want it to crash, you’re better off going with Linux. That’s a solid, non-religious reason for your non-geek to want to run one of the alternatives.”
Indeed, some alternative-OS products have succeeded as tiny Linux islands in the midst of vast NT networks. Consider Samba, an open source program written by a group of 20 people spread across the globe. Led by Andrew Tridgell, a computer science researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, the Samba Team has constructed a program that lets computers running Linux act as file servers or print servers inside NT networks. It’s catching on among programmers who want to run Linux on Intel boxes inside NT networks.
Right now Linux (see sidebar, Page 28) is the alternative-OS flavor of choice, but there are niche markets in which other systems are gaining a toehold and nibbling away at market pie that might otherwise belong to Microsoft.
As Windows wanders down from Intel platforms and seeks a home in omnipresent embedded systems and increasingly popular palm computers, competition will be heavy from companies such as Sun Microsystems, which is trying to mix its JavaOS and Jini technologies into a one-size-fits-all connector for sub-PC machines. It’s a market worth fighting for, too: Forrester Research estimates it will increase from 3.5 million units this year to 10.4 million units in 2002.
In another specialized market, Be, Inc., founded by former Apple Products Division president Jean-Louis Gasse, is focused on providing its BeOS operating system as a rich alternative for multimedia developers. “When you need to run Office, by all means use Windows,” the company’s Web site announces. “But when you need to manipulate 16 tracks of CD-quality digital audio, you may want to choose the tool better suited for the task.” What’s more, BeOS is a true cross-platform operating system; it works on both Intel and Motorola PowerPC machines.
Although BeOS missed out on a huge opportunity when it lost to Steve Jobs’ NeXT operating system as the basis for Apple’s next-generation OS, Be Inc. is making inroads elsewhere.
In addition to expanding Windows’ reach into emerging areas, Microsoft must protect its base in the desktop and server markets. It is here, especially in the important server market, where Linux has found an opening, and if a large chunk of tomorrow’s new machines are running it instead of Windows, Microsoft will notice the pinch.
It doesn’t help matters that recent headlines about Microsoft have focused more on its courtroom dramas than its software, while Linux has been getting the lion’s share of the good press and goodwill that goes along with it. This forces even more competitive pressure as Redmond prepares Windows 2000, a unified product intended to join the Windows NT and 95/98 lines.
“In the next version of Windows, Microsoft is catching up to the things UNIX was doing years ago,” said Joe Berkovitz, senior software architect of Boston-based e-commerce outfit Art Technology Group. “It will be doing some things with graphics that X Windows (a UNIX windowing system) did from the start. They’re just catching up.”
Waiting on Microsoft is nothing new to developers. They clamored for Universal Serial Bus support in Windows for more than two years before they got it. If viable competitors had been present and threatening to beat Microsoft to the punch on USB, industry implementation might have progressed faster.
Naturally Microsoft is spending a lot of time, money and effort to ensure that Windows 2000 is worthy of retaining its inherited position atop the world’s server and desktop operating system market. Further, the company is hedging that bet with the development of a souped-up version of its simpler, less expensive Windows CE operating system, originally intended for small sub-computers and embedded devices.
Sega’s next-generation game system, due for a fall release, will feature Windows CE. On the other hand, Sony has told developers that Linux will be at heart of its next system.
While Linux and others attempt to chip away at the Redmond fortress, Microsoft remains solidly seated on top for a good reason-its products rule the desktop. The competition, no matter how strong, will have a difficult time shifting the paradigm that Microsoft has built around itself. Even Berkovitz, who says it’s easier to develop software under the UNIX model, acknowledges this.
“Windows will be dominant on the desktop for good reasons. It’s easier to use, regardless of gripes,” Berkovitz said. “Desktop environments are successful because they are user oriented. I don’t really enjoy working under Windows, but I accept that I have to until there’s some grand unified system to go up against it. And I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”
“The argument for Linux on the desktop is like the argument for electric cars,” said Jon Oltsik, senior analyst of computing strategies for Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research. “Everyone knows why it makes sense, especially when it comes to price, but it’s not a good market-driven product. An alternative operating system like Linux has more of a future as a server OS than as a desktop OS. Linux on the desktop is interesting and may come to play in technical applications, but the average consumer doesn’t know what Linux is, let alone demand it,” he said.
“The primary thing Microsoft has to do is get Windows 2000 out the door,” Oltsik said of the oft-postponed upgrade. “You can’t get a complex software product out the door and enhance it at same time. You get it out, then improve it.”
Whatever happens in the operating system wars, it is clear that the winners will be those that make their operating systems more productive and, hence, invisible to the user.
“The operating system doesn’t make a difference to most people,” said Jared M. Spool, founding principal of the North Andover, Mass.-based consulting firm User Interface Engineering. “What’s important to a new OS is what it does, which is run applications. No one thinks about Windows 95. They think about Word or Excel or QuickBooks. They only think about the operating system when they’re forced to fix something that isn’t working. Linux is getting popular not because it’s Linux but because it runs Apache-because you can have 100 Web servers and not pay a license fee. … What’s the OS in a Nintendo 64? In a nuclear power plant? In the computers in your car? You don’t care. You just want them to work.”
