Technics: Internet Software: MicroSoft promises truckload of upgrades and new products, said to produce a 'Big Bang,' but when?

From Mike Vizard's email newsletter on internet tech (IT), What's Hot Now (Apr27,2k7), where the lead note is "Big Bang Theory suggests that MicroSoft is about to explode," I found my way to Joe Wilcox writing on "Microsoft's 'Big Bang' Is When?" (Apr26,2k7) in eWeek's MicroSoft Watch. Wilcox:

Last night's release of Windows Server Longhorn Beta 3 is a monumental event for Microsoft, much bigger than the launch [earlier] of Windows Vista [MS's new operating system]. How big may depend on when Microsoft releases Vista Service Pack 1.

Windows Server is the nucleus of Microsoft's enterprise strategy, around which all other products—-even Windows Client—-revolve. Longhorn's eventual release, which Microsoft claims will be later this year, will likely set off major software upgrades, including Office 2007 and Windows Vista.

And thus challenge MS's wannabe competitors as never before, especially to the extent the new products are hack-proof. Hmmmm.

Laura DiDio, a Yankee Group research fellow, described the expected phenomenon as the "Big Bang." Other analyst firms' projections of Windows Vista upgrades, including Gartner, synch well with the Big Bang theory.

Technics > IT > Microsoft, by Technowlb

Since few of these prodcuts and their brandnames suggest anything directly familiar to me (I'm quite Apple / Macintosh / iMac OSX 3.9 (Panther) oriented in regard to my PC IT preferences), I have to remind myself that MS products still command about 80% of the software market for personal computers, while my own favourites are rah-rah-ed by Mac fans for achieving a mere 6% of PC market penetration--with the radical exceptions of iTunes Music Store and iPod which MS failed to displace from their ballooning dominance. And not just MS has been bested on this terrain: so has Sony fallen by the wayside, as far as I can tell. Now, Amazon has announced it will have a go at the digital-music IT retail market in direct competition with iTunes Music Store. I also noticed somewhere today (try this instead) that the non-digital recorded-music sales are quite stagnant; there's a downside to that as far as the musical experience is concerned.

But back to MicroSoft's banging its own big drum, skipping all too many beats these days.

Gartner expects a first major round of Vista deployments to start [Oct-Dec 2k7], with most businesses waiting until [May-Jun 2k8]. The timing is also right for Windows Server Longhorn's release and potential pull on Windows client upgrades. Many IT organizations are willing to wait for Longhorn Server as to coordinate multiple infrastructure upgrades around the same time, DiDio said.

When isn't When

But there is a wrinkle—-uncertainty which Microsoft has created. Back in November, Bob Muglia, Microsoft's senior vice president for server and tools, told eWeek that Windows Server Longhorn and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 would ship "simultaneously." Such a plan would be quite sensible, as, according to Muglia, "it is one source-code base" for both products. Since then, Microsoft has backed away from this coordinated release commitment.

So much ink has been spilled and keys tapped on the subject of MS's hegemony in the personal computer market that I couldn't add anything really new here. But I can say something from the standpoint of the h+ value I place on a pluralist market, where there are at least a handful of truly competing major corporations. And, where the trend toward open-source and interoperablity is much stronger than now. I'd like to see MicroSoft give way in its near-control of IT software generally, and also see Apple give way in its almost-monopoly in music IT. Of course, by "give way" I don't mean to suggest that either give anything. I'm just fantasizing how I'd like to see the market tumble things out in this cultural zone of life, to everyone's betterment hopefully.