Microsoft is going to die. Riiight.

Heh. Read this and then come running back here to read what I have to say about the professors who write this sort of stuff:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/index.php?p=635#comments

First off, Microsoft is here to stay. Like IBM has re-invented itself as a consulting firm, Microsoft has enough assets to re-invent the company 20 times over and still not go bankrupt and could enter any industry they choose to own. Linuxheads can rant and rave about how great Linux is (see my post yesterday), but that doesn't make the 90% market share suddenly go away - and even if it did go away overnight, Microsoft still has that money. Anyone who says Microsoft is going to die in the next two years is mistaken.

Second, educational institutions are generally big, whiny, mooching organizations that throw their weight around just because the general notion is that the budgets there are too small to buy the software. Wrong. Those organizations have millions pouring in every year and they pour a lot of it into high-gloss ads and magazines to their incoming students and their alumni. I throw out my high-gloss magazine the moment I get it from my alma mater because I know exactly what they want - money - and know they could have saved a bunch of it by cutting out the junk and just sending a form letter for me to throw away instead. I know they waste anywhere from $75,000 to $100,000 on each semi-annual high-gloss mailing alone. That's $150,000 to $200,000 that could have been put toward buying both yours and my software for the entire campus to use. So, don't bend to their wishes for price reductions on your software. They have the money and now you know it.

Third, handheld computing is not going to take off. Not enough screen real-estate as a desktop. The Tablet PC should be dominating the market, but it isn't. Mostly because it is still in its geek infancy and each one I've seen seems to start having problems after 6-8 months (and hard drives start failing after a year of use), but foregoing those two issues, I still don't see it overtaking the laptop market any time soon and certainly will never take over the desktop market. I value my eyes too much and don't think I'll be carrying around a 21" Tablet PC any time soon. Lots of other people have the same sentiment.

Fourth, Linux is not usable. I don't think I need to repeat myself from yesterday. Therefore, Linux isn't going to take more than 10% of the market share. Ever. Well, not until the usability issues are fixed anyway.

Finally, educational institutions have this concept of the "real world." "When you get out into the real world..." seems to be a common phrase exiting professors mouths in classes these days, or so I'm told. This means that classes don't correctly reflect reality. So...Harvard is living in some other dimension. Microsoft generally ignores individuals because we are not MVPs. If Clayton wants to get through to Microsoft, he will have to go through the existing MVPs and I don't think they will take too kindly to him for the same reasons I've stated.

So, basically, Microsoft is sticking around and the article is bogus. Feel free to flood ZDNet's blog with references to balloons, pretty colors, and monkeys.