Microsoft, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

We are witnessing something truly remarkable, the end of Microsoft and Intel’s Wintel strangle hold on consumer computing.

Take a moment and consider that.

Yeah we are so busy doing day-to-day things that you sometimes miss the huge sea changes, because they are incremental, and not at all obvious from ground level.

But zoom out to 40,000 feet and… Wow just wow.

ReadWrite

The PC market is tanking. Windows 8 is proving to be a disaster. Dell is hoping to go private. HP is flailing. But not every “personal computing” company is suffering. In the past few years, Apple has sold more than 500 million iOS devices – not licenses, devices – and is selling an additional 75 million iOS devices (iPhones and iPads, mostly), each quarter. At this rate it could be only a few years before the iOS installed base surpasses the global Windows installed base.

A Theory about the Office on iPad Schedule

Office for iPad, launched at the same time as Windows 8/RT, would most likely have killed the market for Windows 8 and RT devices. As it was, that market was already severely diminished and below expectations. But with a viable alternative tablet, it could have been game over. And the ramifications of that decision would have impacted far more than just Windows 8/RT: The PC market could have literally collapsed, much as the videogame market did in 1983. The fallout would have included PC makers going out of business/being sold, a serious and potentially permanent hit to Microsoft’s bottom line and the ouster of Steve Ballmer. I’m talking tech Armageddon here.

It’s actually happening, we all wondered and speculated on, if, and when, and how…

Well people here it is! Microsoft THE END.

Too weird.

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Notes:

The Churchill Society London.

This battle was not fought for the sake of gaining positions or so many square miles of desert territory. General Alexander and General Montgomery fought it with one single idea. they meant to destroy the armed force of the enemy and to destroy it at the place where the disaster would be most far-reaching and irrecoverable….

There Are 1.25 Billion Windows PCs Worldwide Matt Rosoff|December 06, 2011

The race to a billion—2012 Update

A Post Windows Era: The Portents

Microsoft’s monopoly power over the Computer industry has never weakened since its introduction of Windows 3.11 and was cemented with Windows 95.

But.

With Mary Jo Foley buying an iPad we can certainly say “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”.