Joe Wilcox: ‘The Windows era is over, a new era dawns’

“About five years ago, when blogging as an analyst, I asserted that computing and informational relevance had started shifting from the Windows desktop to cloud services delivered anytime, anywhere and on anything,” Joe Wilcox wtites for Betanews. “The day of Windows’ reckoning is come: 2010 will mark dramatic shifts away from Microsoft’s monopoly to something else. Change is inevitable, and like IBM in the 1980s, Microsoft can’t hold back its destiny during this decade. The Windows era is over.”

“What’s surprising: New competition encroaching on Microsoft’s Windows territory. Mobile device-to-cloud competition’s shifting relevance bears striking similarities to the move from mainframes to PCs, and it is a long, ongoing trend. Microsoft’s newer problem is sudden and unexpected: Competing operating systems moving up from smartphones to PCs or PC-like device,” Wilcox writes. “Apple’s iPhone OS on iPad is one example.”

Sure, “Windows is a cash machine. But so was the IBM mainframe monopoly before the dawn of the PC era and for many years afterwards. The DOS/Windows PC didn’t destroy IBM or its mainframe monopoly, but simply diminish its computing and informational relevance. Windows is on the same track,” Wilcox writes. “The mobile device-to-cloud applications stack will merely displace Windows’ relevance. It’s inevitable.”

Wilcox writes, “Still, it might not be obvious to many people that the Windows cash machine could run out. That’s because change can be dramatic and sudden, although the causes and progression tend to be long-time coming. The Berlin Wall fell suddenly in 1989, but not without Perestroika and a warming of the Cold War preceding it. Similarly, Windows’ dominance will seemingly change suddenly and, I predict, during the first half of this decade. A new era dawns.”

“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer should have listened to me. In December, I gave 10 reasons why Microsoft should buy Palm. Had he bought Palm, Microsoft’s future phone strategy would be stronger and Windows wouldn’t be weakened by a major partner adopting an alternative-OS strategy,” Wilcox writes. “HP already has announced a WebOS-based tablet. HP’s next, logical step is to release a laptop running WebOS. Losing HP is bad, but there may be more trouble coming. Sony is yet another traitor in the making.”

Full article, in which Wilcox mistakenly thinks far too highly of Google’s derivative Android’s future, here.