Is this how Windows will become obsolete?
This article I found made some interesting suggestions on how Windows might lose its spot in the PC market. Mainly, it speculates it might happen by virtue of Android phones becoming powerful enough, and integrated with useful enough devices to replace a PC in the workplace.
Unfortunately, while there is nothing technically impossible about the claims, there is a lot wrong with them nonetheless.
Firstly, even in such a paradigm shift there would still be a need for productivity tools. And Microsoft was actually very smart to get Office on Android and iOS and try and keep users tied into their ecosystem even if they aren't running their platform. Office makes money, even from non-Windows users now. Should this fantasized world come to pass, at the moment, Office and Office 365 are the only viable enterprise quality productivity suite that runs on both mobile and desktop PCs. Google Docs would be the defense of the Anti-Microsoft, but the fact is, it isn't actually viable, and the reasons aren't purely usability concerns. Google's privacy policy actually makes many of Google's services (like Docs and Gmail) illegal in certain industries and undesirable (to the point of being contractually obligated by clients to not avoid using) in others. And yeah, at the moment, Office is still the better product as well.
Next is media. Many companies like to license media differently based on device form factor. This is why consoles can't watch certain YouTube clips that you can watch on the desktop. The above may present a barrier for businesses replacing Windows services and Windows PCs with Android phones, but much more important is that the latter argument actually diminishes the value of using a phone OS to replace a desktop.
The next major hurdle is hardware theft and data security. Imagine a Windows Server being replaced by Android phone. Not going to happen any time soon. The company I work for doesn't allow BYOD computers for reasons around being able to control ownership of the hardware IP is stored on. Once again... imagine the typical office replacing employee workstations with phones. Again, isn't going to happen any time soon. Sure, when the tech gets there, there will be some outliers. But, on the whole, at the moment, Android doesn't pose a threat (nor do Chromebooks) to the Windows ecosystem. Macs have a lot more going for them on that front.
Which leads us to the final problem. With there not really being a potential for this to happen any time in the near future, why focus on Android? In the timeframes we're looking at there is no guarantee that Android will be the dominant phone OS when tech gets to this point and acceptance of this tech is had. Essentially, this speculation requires too many things to fall into a perfect place at the right time to pan out as speculated.
MS will likely lose their dominance at some point in the PC market, or some new category of device that isn't a tablet or phone might come along that can replace a PC and will supplant the market entirely. But, the same goes for Android. And for iOS. And Google and Apple. And Microsoft.
And it is interesting because we are starting to get to the tipping point. iOS and Android have now been around a long time, and in their dominance of the market have also become shackled to their pasts. I argued before that Apple abandoned planned obsolescence for software pretty much the second the iPhone became popular. And while they drop support for older devices, they continue to need to support a familiar enough OS UX to appease customers and not deprecate APIs too slowly to appease developers and what is happening is that no matter how many times they change the façade, it is becoming apparent that both OSs are aging. In other words, they are passed their Windows XP days and only have their Vista and Windows 7 days left ahead of them before people first start complaining about a lack of innovation and then tear them a new one and leave in droves when they actually try to change anything.
This was why Windows 8 was both the best and worst move Microsoft ever made. It was the right thing to do. They needed to try and kill Win32 and the old paradigms. But users rebelled against UX changes and developers rebelled against API changes. Some stuff was just bad decisions. The APIs and system were locked down too tight. But, ultimately, I think they did what they had to do. If Windows 8 had just been Windows 7 with a slight default color change and some minor tweaks people would have continued to damn them for not releasing anything truly new and they would have started to slip in the market over time anyway. It was a much wiser move to try and shake things up while they were still the biggest player in the market. And that is what they did. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think the decisions for Windows 8 were not as poorly thought out as people like claim.
But the point there is, the same thing with happen to Android and iOS. They will either die the slow death caused by stagnation or they will need to take a risk on a huge change that could in the short run cost them a lot of developer and consumer support.
Unfortunately, while there is nothing technically impossible about the claims, there is a lot wrong with them nonetheless.
Firstly, even in such a paradigm shift there would still be a need for productivity tools. And Microsoft was actually very smart to get Office on Android and iOS and try and keep users tied into their ecosystem even if they aren't running their platform. Office makes money, even from non-Windows users now. Should this fantasized world come to pass, at the moment, Office and Office 365 are the only viable enterprise quality productivity suite that runs on both mobile and desktop PCs. Google Docs would be the defense of the Anti-Microsoft, but the fact is, it isn't actually viable, and the reasons aren't purely usability concerns. Google's privacy policy actually makes many of Google's services (like Docs and Gmail) illegal in certain industries and undesirable (to the point of being contractually obligated by clients to not avoid using) in others. And yeah, at the moment, Office is still the better product as well.
Next is media. Many companies like to license media differently based on device form factor. This is why consoles can't watch certain YouTube clips that you can watch on the desktop. The above may present a barrier for businesses replacing Windows services and Windows PCs with Android phones, but much more important is that the latter argument actually diminishes the value of using a phone OS to replace a desktop.
The next major hurdle is hardware theft and data security. Imagine a Windows Server being replaced by Android phone. Not going to happen any time soon. The company I work for doesn't allow BYOD computers for reasons around being able to control ownership of the hardware IP is stored on. Once again... imagine the typical office replacing employee workstations with phones. Again, isn't going to happen any time soon. Sure, when the tech gets there, there will be some outliers. But, on the whole, at the moment, Android doesn't pose a threat (nor do Chromebooks) to the Windows ecosystem. Macs have a lot more going for them on that front.
Which leads us to the final problem. With there not really being a potential for this to happen any time in the near future, why focus on Android? In the timeframes we're looking at there is no guarantee that Android will be the dominant phone OS when tech gets to this point and acceptance of this tech is had. Essentially, this speculation requires too many things to fall into a perfect place at the right time to pan out as speculated.
MS will likely lose their dominance at some point in the PC market, or some new category of device that isn't a tablet or phone might come along that can replace a PC and will supplant the market entirely. But, the same goes for Android. And for iOS. And Google and Apple. And Microsoft.
And it is interesting because we are starting to get to the tipping point. iOS and Android have now been around a long time, and in their dominance of the market have also become shackled to their pasts. I argued before that Apple abandoned planned obsolescence for software pretty much the second the iPhone became popular. And while they drop support for older devices, they continue to need to support a familiar enough OS UX to appease customers and not deprecate APIs too slowly to appease developers and what is happening is that no matter how many times they change the façade, it is becoming apparent that both OSs are aging. In other words, they are passed their Windows XP days and only have their Vista and Windows 7 days left ahead of them before people first start complaining about a lack of innovation and then tear them a new one and leave in droves when they actually try to change anything.
This was why Windows 8 was both the best and worst move Microsoft ever made. It was the right thing to do. They needed to try and kill Win32 and the old paradigms. But users rebelled against UX changes and developers rebelled against API changes. Some stuff was just bad decisions. The APIs and system were locked down too tight. But, ultimately, I think they did what they had to do. If Windows 8 had just been Windows 7 with a slight default color change and some minor tweaks people would have continued to damn them for not releasing anything truly new and they would have started to slip in the market over time anyway. It was a much wiser move to try and shake things up while they were still the biggest player in the market. And that is what they did. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think the decisions for Windows 8 were not as poorly thought out as people like claim.
But the point there is, the same thing with happen to Android and iOS. They will either die the slow death caused by stagnation or they will need to take a risk on a huge change that could in the short run cost them a lot of developer and consumer support.
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