I’ve agreed to start writing an occasional entry for the What Will We Use? web log. It’s run by Beth Lynn Eicher (my sister) and a couple of other people, and it basically focuses on the issues in the technology market related to Microsoft Market Share. Essentially, Beth made a bet with someone that Microsoft would no longer dominate the market for office suites by June 30, 2011.
I’m not confident about that specific deadline, but I do agree that the general trend in the software market is away from the kind of commanding lead by a single company that Microsoft has enjoyed for a long time. Fortunately, Beth is open to other perspectives, even when they don’t agree with her on everything, which is one of the great things about her.
In the longer term, I think that users tend to get a better experience when they’re dealing with several large companies that are competing for control of a market, rather than just one company. So, all possible gripes anyone might have about Microsoft aside, I think that it would serve a larger good if we found ourselves in a world where the competition to Microsoft Office was more significant than it currently is.
Monoculture — no matter who created it — really leaves the door open to problems like viruses. To paraphrase Matt Mullenweg, as long as there is code there will be bugs. Our job is to figure out how to deal with the fact that we live in a world where software bugs are just part of the deal. Having everyone run exactly the same software is not a good approach.
Of course, I’m actually an odd duck who has computers handy at this particular moment that could be booted into Ubuntu (10.04), Windows XP, Windows 7, or OS X, so if I were to be telling you that everyone running the same thing is good, I’d have a lot of explaining to do!
Anyway, the first post I’ve written for it is about what the tablet market could mean for Microsoft.
