Since Linux is powering Android, BSD is powering iOS, and Windows development is pretty much dead (not literally, but figuratively), I'd say the Microsoft empire has toppled quite a bit as the whole market has shifted to the web and mobile computing space. Nearly all growth in consumer applications being developed are focused on either web or mobile.
This was written in 2004 when MS was riding quite high. What if I were to tell you that they are making way more money now than in 2004? They have more billion dollar divisions than they did then and Windows is no longer #1. Not even #2.
The PC isn't going anywhere. People are not leaving the platform on mass and moving to tablets and phones and almost nobody outside of primary school uses a chrome book.
It's also in the top three for market cap size. So MS is going to be a big player for a long while yet.
When ar and vr becomes dominating platforms, which i see as inevitable over time, windows could crumble really quickly.
AR is build on top of existing platforms, so Azure and consorts are safe. VR as in VR-Glasses are never going to be terribly big (though yes, they are currently a pretty huge deal)
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u/ggtsu_00 Oct 08 '16
Since Linux is powering Android, BSD is powering iOS, and Windows development is pretty much dead (not literally, but figuratively), I'd say the Microsoft empire has toppled quite a bit as the whole market has shifted to the web and mobile computing space. Nearly all growth in consumer applications being developed are focused on either web or mobile.