Microsoft has been standing still for the whole 21st century. As much work as they put into not shipping Windows 2004, into shipping but not selling Windows Vista, and into shipping Windows 7, today over 80% of Windows users are running Windows XP from 2001. Third parties have not built on 2004 or Vista or 7, just on XP. The whole Windows PC as a platform has been standing still at a 2001 level of technology. Not only that, their platform has been a constant tire fire of viruses and malware.

Since Microsoft has a monopoly position in PC operating systems, instead of the PC market adapting to their failures by going to other operating systems, what’s been happening is that general purpose Windows PC’s are gradually being replaced with slightly more specialized computing devices for every use case. Users who used to have 1 Windows PC are transitioning to having 3-4 computers, but none of them running Windows.

For example:

- Macs are specialized PC’s optimized for content creation, software development, and other high-end advanced computing tasks, and the high-end PC market ($1000 and up) has been almost entirely replaced by the Intel Mac since 2006, with 9 out of 10 high-end PC buyers choosing a Mac

- the smartphone and media players like iPod touch are specialized PC’s optimized for communications and media consumption and the low-end PC market (up to $299) has been replaced with iPhones, iPod touch, Blackberry, and various other mobile devices

- the mid-range PC (around $500) is the only PC that is still selling today, but this part of the market is all about Web and basic productivity, and that is what both Chrome OS devices and larger iPhone OS devices are expected to specialize in, and we already see the Chrome browser on Sony and Dell $500 PC’s, we already see Hackintoshes, these are examples of the pent-up demand for a $500 modern Internet access computer that works

So the idea that this market is good for Microsoft? Ridiculous. It had no effect at all. They were doing badly for years before the recession and will do badly for years after, solely on the outrageous weakness of their technology and their lack of being able to ship products. Their stock price is flat for a decade, there is no developer enthusiasm, and no user enthusiasm behind any of their products with the possible exception of XBox, which loses money.

Microsoft has been squeezed on the PC into the part of the market where the Web browser is king, the part where they are least able to compete, because:

- the Microsoft browser is 5 years behind all others
- the Microsoft browser cannot run HTML5 Web apps, which run on all smartphones, Macs, and are going to be the only apps that run on Google Chrome (developer enthusiasm for HTML5 is enormous, it saves time, saves money, makes better web content)
- the Microsoft browser is 2x slower than all others, which is especially significant when running on smaller devices with limited CPU and other resources
- the mobile version of the Microsoft browser is a further 5 years behind their desktop version, unlike competitors who are running a modern browser on all systems
- the Microsoft operating system costs $400 and requires $100/year in anti-malware anti-virus software, which equals the whole cost of the $500 PC it runs on
- the Microsoft operating system is the only one that gets viruses, the only one with a commercial malware platform, the only one which is not safe for online banking or investing

Finally, one funny thing that is set to happen over the next few years that is really emblematic of what’s going on is that iPhone OS will catch up and pass Windows in version numbers, even though iPhone started in 2007 at version 1.0 and NT started 13 years earlier in 1994, and at version 3.1! Right now it is Windows NT 6.1 (called “7″) and iPhone OS 3.1. In 2013 it will be Windows NT 7.0 (called “8″) and iPhone OS 7.0. If trends hold, in 2020 we will have iPhone OS 14.0 and Windows NT 8.0, which will be called “Windows 9″. Think about the fact that between now and 2020, Microsoft has only 3 Windows releases scheduled, and that’s if they can keep to their own schedule, something they have never been able to do. So we may only see 2 Windows releases between now and 2020. Good luck keeping up with Apple, Google, and the Web at that pace!