Interesting Business-side Perspective of Windows 8

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Thought this was interesting and well written. It really makes you realize why Microsoft dominates the business demographics, and why removing one piece (arguably the key piece) of the puzzle can really call into question the whole ecosystem.

From what I've seen on various IT communities like Spiceworks, Windows 8 has caused a few smaller shops to move to Linux or Mac, which I find interesting. I was expecting people to hold on to Windows 7 for this generation in the hopes that Microsoft might straighten out and release a "business class" version of Windows. It seems like not many think this is going to be the case.

Furthermore, with more and more applications moving to a browser-based implementation, the need for Windows (or any specific platform, for that matter) is shrinking rather rapidly. The cost of the Microsoft ecosystem is looking less and less valuable.

The small company I work for (around 60 employees) won't be upgrading to Windows 8, at least not right away. The software we sell relies on Windows Server, so we may not ever be able to get away from the Windows demographic unless the developer allows the use of something other than Microsoft SQL Server and IIS (the rest of the application is actually cross-platform running on JBOSS). That transition might be so easy that we may end up seeing the move away from Microsoft happen after all. If that were to happen, I don't think we'll have a very good reason to be using Windows any longer. My boss is a pretty big Apple fan, but I think the cost of the hardware would keep us from going that direction. Linux could be in our future.

Interesting times ahead, to say the least. Food for thought.

Sure, I don't think Linux is going to be taking over right away in the strict sense, but I do think that this release of Windows probably does make people think about what they really need Windows for. I guess I just find it interesting that Microsoft didn't release a business edition as to not alienate their biggest demographic.

Hell, at a company I used to consult for, we were moving every computer we could to Linux. Not just because it was free, but because it also lowered hardware requirements and was still able to RDP to the terminal server we had set up for the Windows-only application we had to use. It really extended the life of the hardware we had out there significantly. Of course, not every computer could be converted, but it was well over half of them which saved them a lot of money in upgrades.

I personally think Microsoft has to be pretty careful with their next moves. Apple has been nipping at their heels in the personal computer market, and Linux gets easier to use with every release; they don't have the "monopoly" in the market that they used to have.
Edited by SectorNine50 - 11/9/12 at 9:45am