Office applications Toolkit
Story: Microsoft has lost its grip on the ecosystem
We've moved on
I think the unavoidable truth here is that we have paid for the "Operating System Layer" enough times over now. Back in the day there was a BIOS layer that came with the hardware we bought, but it didn't really help us use the device properly. It took OS vendors to create the next layer up, the front end that let us massage files and load and run the next layer up, the applications themselves. Microsoft managed to corner that market and make themselves the default, if not always the best choice. However, their business model means we would have to keep paying over and over again for the same stuff. Sure it has got prettier and more functional, but not by so much as to be revolutionary and even then, that pace has slowed to a crawl, while the cost keeps going up.
While they were doing this, a body of code was being created that could do all these things, with all the pretty and all the wizz-bang that was the final refuge for the sales folks at Bill's place. In the last few years it has finally closed that last gap between the geeky background and the user friendly foreground. The only way MS can keep their market is to actually compete despite the fact that their "Unique Selling Proposition" is now looking a bit, well frankly, un-unique.
When you boil away all the religious fervour from both "sides" it comes down to an inevitability. The Operating System has been done and is now available for zero license cost. It is mature, it looks good and runs quickly on a vast array of hardware. About the only reason left for vast swathes of the market to pay license fees for their OS is that they are unaware of the alternatives or are unwilling to try them. The longer vendors hold out against this "truth" the bigger the snap-back will be when they eventually let go.
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