Yesterday, Microsoft announced DreamSpark – an ironic name, since it actually lays bare Microsoft's worst nightmare: that more and more of tomorrow's programmers are growing up using free software for their studies, which means that as they move out into the world, there will be less and less demand for Microsoft's tools, and even fewer programs written for its platforms.
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motters
16 years 10 weeks 1 hour 37 min ago
Microsoft's fate hangs in the balance
This provides a good summary of the kind of trouble MS is in. It's business model was well tuned to the 1990s, but times have changed and now this way of doing things looks increasingly outdated.
For quite a long time Microsoft could simply pour scorn upon free software alternatives to its core products (Windows and Office), saying that they were basically "not as good" or "too complicated for the average user", but now this strategy is no longer working. Clearly Microsoft's traditional cash cows will no longer remain so lucrative in future, and if it doesn't change its strategy it could easily lose its dominant position. People tend to think of large corporations such as MS as indestructible, but the world of technology moves quickly and users only loyalty is to software which does what they want it to.