Robert Pogson

For decades M$ has had the world of IT locked in the illusion of a cooperative business venture. In fact it has been all about M$ and Intel making tons of money while OEMs, retailers and IT people were slaves to a tyrant, Wintel. It was a scam that people fell for and that governments did not try nearly hard enough to break.

It has fallen to advances in technology and competition from */Linux on ARM to break the monopoly but it is cracked in several places now:

• on the small cheap computers that */Linux on ARM enables, the monopoly-prices and bloated inefficiency that Wintel used to pressure people to buy still more products because the old ones were broken cannot be hidden or don’t work at all,
• malware is a multi-$billion a year industry growing like mold in the refrigerator living off the excesses of Wintel, and
• M$ greedily has diversified and competes with its “partners” in many areas, now the PC itself.

All these things and more will sooner or later kill Wintel. The world does not need PCs that double as hair-driers. The world does not need artificially high priced IT. The world does not need to be ruled by M$.

Over the years M$ has been the drug dealer or pimp of IT locking in everyone to their product and from the monopoly initially granted by IBM in the early days through illegal means have bullied the world of IT to depend on M$’s product to the exclusion of all else. Along came ARM and Google and non-”partners” of M$ making good money selling something else that worked for hardware makers, software makers, retailers and consumers without any involvement by M$ and the message is clear. There is a way to escape Wintel and earn your rightful place in IT. Use */Linux on ARM.

There have been several takes on M$ building its own PCs, a complete stack, but I think this is the right one. M$ seems destined to become a “normal” business taking risks and working for a living. OEMs seemed destined to have choice in the hardware and software they use. Retailers seem destined to have shelf-space for all kinds of IT. Consumers, finally, have choice in retail products. It’s all good. M$ has earned the right to fail and with all the well-deserved enmity they have created, now is the time for OEMs to bring out their knives and install GNU/Linux and Android/Linux and whatever else OS is the best tool for the job on all kinds of PCs.

see Microsoft to PC and tablet makers: You're not our future | Technology business – InfoWorld.