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Microsoft’s Windows monopoly beginning to erode

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 · 1:33 pm · 29 Comments

“Lost in the market panic last week were some critical details on Microsoft’s conference call. In our opinion, these offered tangible evidence that the Windows monopoly that has carried the company since its inception is beginning to erode,” Henry Blodget writes for Silicon Alley Insider.

“Of the top 10 bestselling laptops on Amazon today, 7 are netbooks (70%). The other three are Apple Macs, which also don’t ship with Windows. None of the 7 net books costs more than $500. Of the 7, only 1 (one) runs Windows Vista. Another runs Windows XP Home (a cheaper, simpler operating system). And one runs Linux,” Blodget writes.

Top 10 Laptops (Amazon)
3 Apple Macs (No Windows license)
5 Windows XP Home
1 has Linux (No Vista)
1 Vista

Blodget writes,” Desktops, obviously, are a different story. But most of the growth in the PC market is now coming from cheaper, lower-end computers that are mostly used to go online. And those ‘net books’ just don’t need to run fully featured versions of Windows.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "Opportun" and "james W." for the heads up.]

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Comment Feed

29 Comments

1 2 Next »

ericdano

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 1:42 pm · Reply

This doesn’t mean anything at all. Windows is still there, it is just not Vista.
Powder

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 1:48 pm · Reply

Windows is just software,if people compare apple products and windows products,apple wins.Why?Because a software and hardware company with cool products always wins if the products are cool enougth to buy.
Gabriel

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 1:56 pm · Reply

Chip, chip, chip away…
disposableidentity

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 1:58 pm · Reply

Sure Windows is there, but only on 60% of the top-selling notebooks at Amazon. 60% is a number we haven’t seen associated in any way with Windows before.

Plus, most of those machines are basically running a 6/7 year old version of Windows.

That’s significant.

Even more importantly, the only full-featured notebooks on the list are from Apple.
jean

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:00 pm · Reply

ericdano is right. have to look at total sales figures, not just the top 10 list from one consumer retailer.

Apple won’t topple Windows anytime soon in most markets, even though it is a superior OS. It needs a stronger foothold in corporate markets. Key corporate software remains windows-centric. When it comes to replacing hardware, corporations are notoriously short-sighted, buying the same stuff they always used. They are cost sensitive on purchase price but ignore long term support costs. Note too that Linux is becoming a reasonable option for an increasing number of corporate users. Apple will remain the best of the pack by most measures, but even a lackluster Ford outsells Porsche.

And what does it matter anyway? Better to be high quality than high volume.
January 24, 1984

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:17 pm · Reply

I’ll take the Porsche.
Another IT Guy...

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:25 pm · Reply

So based on a temporal snapshot of Amazon sales, M$ will be filing Chapter 11 soon? Hope springs eternal I guess. Pour me another glass, Steve.

“When it comes to replacing hardware, corporations are notoriously short-sighted, buying the same stuff they always used. They are cost sensitive on purchase price but ignore long term support costs. Note too that Linux is becoming a reasonable option for an increasing number of corporate users.”

You’re really demonstrating your ignorance about how corporate IT works. If they were short-sighted, they wouldn’t ask for specific technology roadmaps from vendors–you know, those things Apple would never provide to a purchasing agent lest they give away some secret about a backlit keyboard or something. If they were ignoring long-term support costs, they’d not bother with automated image deployment systems or support/user ratio analysis. And if you think Linux is making a big play at the corporate level outside of appliance servers, you’re forgetting that with Linux, it’s free only if your time has no value.

Apple doesn’t care about the enterprise, and it shows in their product and support offerings.
Demon

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:26 pm · Reply

Cheap, High Volume, low profit Netbooks perinstalled with Google’s Andriod, That would give Ballmer a artery busting Broomstick up the arse. I’d love to be the one to give him a Google Android powered Netbook.
viktor

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:27 pm · Reply

Does any body knows some one who actually pays for a copy of Windows (any version)… I don’t mean that it came pre loaded OEM. I mean that you brought a computer or assembly it and they you went to the store and buy Windows for it, or you requested it with windows.

Any Body?

I did actually went to apple at Fashion Valley in San Diego and get evry copy of Mac OS I have.
spyinthesky

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:32 pm · Reply

‘,,,even a lackluster Ford outsells Porsche’ and of course that is a very good comparison and perhaps more insightful than was intended. Ford is slowly wilting on the vine despite more make overs than I have had hot dinners. Porsche on the other hand is not only successful and extremely profitable, despite a small market share (sound familiar) it is precisely these factors which are now enabling it to progressively take control of VW a company that is far from wilting on the vine. Inevitably at some point in the future the significance of Porsche will be rather more relevant in the real world than that of Ford in the great scheme of things, and it may not be that far off.
ElderNorm

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:49 pm · Reply

@ericdano,

“This doesn’t mean anything at all. Windows is still there, it is just not Vista”

Yea who will not see….

Microsoft is already pushing Windows 7 since Vista will be still born. But Windows 7 will be “like Vista only bigger,,,, er better”

If net books do not run Vista, they will not run Windows 7…..

Get it….. ????

Just a thought.
en
Jeremy

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:52 pm · Reply

This is the key phrase here:

“… those ‘net books’ just don’t need to run fully featured versions of Windows.”

That’s the whole point. Windows is only profitable and workable as a monopoly.

Windows is not needed, nor is it even useful to use in the next generation of computers and computerised devices like Netbooks, Phones, Tablets, and Kiosks. Ergo, the monopoly is broken.

Also, guess which company is offering the best OS for the next generation of portable devices? Apple.

Windows will soon be like IBM was in the 1990′s, selling software for platforms that no one even uses anymore.
@ The Great Apple Fanboy Massacre

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:53 pm · Reply

Congrats!

That has got to be the most dumbass comment ever posted on MDN!
spyinthesky

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:54 pm · Reply

Of course Apple doesn’t want to replace Windows in your run of the Mill Corporation, only a fool would. What it needs and indeed is doing quite nicely is bypass that quagmire of increasing big outlay/low return business. Mobile computing, cloud computing and telephony is the future and the place to make big money for the forseeable future. Own that and other developing technologies and you increasingly reduce Microsoft to IBM, important but hardly bleeding edge.

It can keep the Corp. desktop, for the desktop will increasingly be a corporate millstone around its neck as its development costs increase while income in real terms will decline as mobile technologies eat into it. Even Balmer knows that for MS to remain dominant it needs to ‘own’ areas in which is presently a minnow and it is totally incapable of exploiting innovative future developments, thus its expensive inefficient blunderbuss policy. Unless it finds someone as stupid as IBM were, or can buy its way into those markets it needs its decline will be slow but ultimately inevitable.
Buster

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:56 pm · Reply

Netbooks are gonna hurt Apple bigtime if Steve is not careful.
qka

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:58 pm · Reply

MDN – if you haven’t already, grab the picture of Ballmer from the linked article. No his most grotesque, but definitely up there.
ElderNorm

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 2:59 pm · Reply

@Jean,

“Apple won’t topple Windows anytime soon in most markets, even though it is a superior OS. “

Steve Jobs said, “for Apple to improve, Microsoft does not have to lose.” Apple is getting more and more people that use it, and those people are NOT going back to windows. PERIOD.

Microsoft still has plenty of people to sell to. Netbooks can use XP or MS mobile (LOL) but the key here is that Apple grows. Many people will always buy the cheap computer….. just cause. Apple is not trying to sell to that lower price and profit point.

nuff said.

Just a thought.
en
x

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 3:05 pm · Reply

Apple has the best netbook, too. Its called iPhone.
doubletrouble

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 3:21 pm · Reply

7 out of 10 pretty much says it all.

That’s an estimate of the users who don’t need an advanced operating system.

This measure may apply just about equally to the future of Apple’s OS X.

There seems to be a shift occurring toward the cloud, like toward Azure and toward MobileMe, and toward a greater degree of ‘net dependency.

Cut off the ‘net and there goes our way of life. Maybe we should task the Defense Department to proactively protect the ‘net.

In the meantime, how’s Apple coming along with MobileMe’s development?
Spudly

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 3:23 pm · Reply

@ Another IT Guy…

“So based on a temporal snapshot of Amazon sales, M$ will be filing Chapter 11 soon? ”

Congratulations! You just failed your SATs! Go back and read it again. I’ll wait… … … OK, now you can explain how “beginning to erode” could be interpreted as declaring bankruptcy!?!