My expectation: nothing. At least, nothing on the OS side. I don’t think windows is very important to microsoft strategically.
Nowadays, the way to capture audiences is not so much via a proprietary OS, but via proprietary apps.
And in that sense, microsoft is proceeding exactly as expected: more and more of the windows ecosystem either exists on the web, or is available on linux and macos too.
I can see a future where windows only exists for backwards compatibility, but otherwise:
dotnet apps run on linux (via dotnet core)
edge runs on linux
powershell runs on linux
visual studio code runs on linux
most of the rest of microsoft’s suite runs in the web
So what does microsoft need to do once windows collapses in the desktop space? Imo not much, really. Those people and companies that are tied to microsoft products will still be. Only, they might be running them on linux.
Edit to add: I am gonna place a bet that we’re gonna see an official microsoft linux distribution by the end of 2035
it never ceases to be mind boggling that IT in most institutions are still so closely married to windows when it’s clear that the landscape has changed and it makes me suspect that they will be the last bastions of windows dominance.
My expectation: nothing. At least, nothing on the OS side. I don’t think windows is very important to microsoft strategically.
Nowadays, the way to capture audiences is not so much via a proprietary OS, but via proprietary apps.
And in that sense, microsoft is proceeding exactly as expected: more and more of the windows ecosystem either exists on the web, or is available on linux and macos too.
I can see a future where windows only exists for backwards compatibility, but otherwise:
So what does microsoft need to do once windows collapses in the desktop space? Imo not much, really. Those people and companies that are tied to microsoft products will still be. Only, they might be running them on linux.
Edit to add: I am gonna place a bet that we’re gonna see an official microsoft linux distribution by the end of 2035
An official Microsoft Linux distro has existed for a while now: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure_Linux
There’s more Linux than Windwoes VMs in Azure, I hear.
Fair, a desktop-oriented distro is what I meant :)
it never ceases to be mind boggling that IT in most institutions are still so closely married to windows when it’s clear that the landscape has changed and it makes me suspect that they will be the last bastions of windows dominance.
Businesses live and die by if it broke don’t fix it.
They’re still a non insignificant number of businesses using Cobol applications.
Mostly die.
Active Directory is a hell of a drug, as is Group Policy
… and unfortunately so is Share Point.
Oof, yeah, sharepoint is horrible