Windows 8, the post-PC world, and Linux: Microsoft will prevail

Since the very first reveal of Windows 8, some critics have called the operating system a fatal move for Microsoft. They call it a blunder so large in its abandonment of Windows' heritage that it has created an opportunity for other operating systems to rise up and seize large portions of Windows' customer base in the consumer and enterprise markets. Others see Windows 8 as a sign that Microsoft is grasping for relevance in a world where Windows and the PC itself are waning. In this view, the once-mighty "Wintel" platform is already dead—it just doesn’t know it yet.

Both sets of critics are wrong—or, at best, only half right. Windows 8 does create a huge opportunity for another desktop operating system to finally achieve total domination of the desktop and laptop markets, but that operating system is Windows 7. Sure, Windows 8 won't take the crown itself. But it has a slew of features that at least make its next major revision the heir apparent, not just to the desktop world but to a much more complicated computing kingdom. Even if one argues that Windows 8 is a hot mess of a user experience, it's still breaking the trail for what comes next.

But it is Windows 7 that will see the biggest effect from Windows 8, and not just because some may find Windows 8 jarring. It's common in IT planning to run a generation behind, particularly on Microsoft products with long support lifecycles. Windows 7 will have extended support until January of 2020. Consumer sales can and will adjust accordingly. If Windows 8 becomes an impediment to consumer purchases, retailers and OEMs will opt for Windows 7.

I am not a Windows fanboy. I'm a realist. And the reality is that as much as people talk about the future of "bring your own device" and always-connected tablets, the PC is not dead—it's just changing shape, size, and location. It's an attractive idea: we'll all soon be working on Android 12 powered 64-core compute sticks connected to Google Glass in an office that looks like something out of Minority Report. But I'm betting Windows will still be here, and copies of Windows XP will still be running on 10 percent of all computers on the planet for the next several years.

Of course, there are many other points of contention over the future of Windows. I'm only addressing two of the most common arguments for Microsoft's impending demise here. But many of the flaws in these two points of view apply more broadly to dispelling prophesies of Windows' doom.

The case for/against Linux on the desktop

First, let's address the idea that the Linux desktop's time is now. It's an easy kill, honestly—despite the ever-improving functionality of distributions such as Ubuntu, they hardly show up as a blip in global operating system market share statistics. Linux accounts for just 1.1 percent of the desktop operating systems in the world, based on statistics from NetMarketshare. By comparison, Windows systems own 91 percent of the market worldwide; OS X has 7 percent.

Now, a big chunk of that Windows market share—anywhere from a third to almost half—is Windows XP. And, the reasoning goes, with XP now at the end of its support life, those XP users have to go somewhere. Why not to Linux?

The main reason Linux-on-the-desktop supporters believe that Linux is a better migration path for Windows XP users than Windows 8 boils down to this argument:

• Windows 8 changes the whole user interface
• The changes will upset lots of users
• Linux is good enough, costs less to acquire, and is possibly slightly less upsetting to move to than Windows 8
• Ergo, Linux is a better migration path than Windows 8

Naturally, there's more to it. Canonical in particular is pressing the case for Ubuntu as an alternative to Windows 8 based on its usability (similar to Windows in terms of a basic user experience, sort of), its less complex licensing scheme (free, with paid support—or no support at all), the reduced need to refresh desktop hardware, and the maturity of open-source desktop applications like LibreOffice. And Canonical offers a commercial provisioning and administration tool, Landscape, that can do things sort of like what Microsoft's administrative tools do.

All of that sounds pretty reasonable—but it's premised on the wrong set of assumptions. In my view:

• Yes, Windows 8 is quite different, but Linux is still more different
• No matter how painful moving to Windows 8 may be, it still runs Windows software and admin tools; changing those will hurt most people (and most IT shops) more than dealing with the new Start screen
• Windows 8 isn't really the competition anyway—Windows 7 is

That last point is key. Honestly, those individuals and businesses on Windows XP are not exactly the types to jump into an X.0 release of anything, let alone move to Linux. Several US government agencies are now in the middle of massive migrations to Windows 7, finally moving off their well-worn images of XP. They're at least five years from moving to anything newer.

Others still running XP on PCs and PC-based devices at home or in a business likely haven't upgraded by now for one of the following reasons: they're supporting a very specific application that hasn't been certified for Windows 7; they have been very carefully planning a migration to Windows 7; they have no interest in upgrading the operating system until they absolutely, positively are forced to at gunpoint; or they are running pirated copies of Windows XP and don't really care.

These are not the kinds of people who are going to download and install Ubuntu in significant numbers. They're more likely to buy a $70 Android tablet... which brings me to the other popular reason some people say Windows is doomed.

The "post-PC" straw man

This second argument, most recently voiced by Robert Cringely, is that the whole Windows ecosystem is doomed by the decline of the desktop. Because people are buying fewer desktop PCs and more mobile devices, he argued, the desktop is in decline. And that is Microsoft's star. "Six years from now, Windows will be dead," Cringely declared. Also, Office will be dead, too; by putting Office on Windows RT for free (but not really), Cringely saw a Microsoft admission that Office has no long-term value in itself. The future belongs to tablets. Something like that.

Yes, a lot can happen in six years. But arguing that we are entering a post-PC world misses the fact that the PC isn't dying—it's just changing shape. While the Surface and Windows 8 may be a less-than-perfect first effort, there are a number of things about Windows 8 that suggest Windows has a lot more life in it.

PC sales have indeed slowed. In 2012, they're projected by IHS iSuppli to be down by 1.2 percent, reaching 348.7 million PCs shipped (down from 352.8 million in 2011). Smartphone sales passed PCs in 2010, and sales of tablets such as the iPad, Nexus 7, and others are expected to reach 124 million for the year.

You might say that's a sign tablets are on the rise and PCs are on the decline. But the truth is more complicated. The PC upgrade cycle in IT and at home has slowed. That's due in part to the recession, but also due to the end of the megahertz myth. PCs that are six years old are actually still quite capable these days for business and basic computing tasks. At the same time, however, tablets are making year-over-year performance gains that are highly valued by users, and that drives sales. All the while, PCs and tablets are converging, and the likely future is that the two form factors will meet in the middle and become one and the same. Microsoft is betting the “smart-phonification” of Windows in Windows 8 will put it in a position to rule that merged market.

This same trend happened with desktop PCs and notebooks—a decade ago they were considered separate market segments. In the time since, notebook computers have become as powerful as most desktops, and in many cases have supplanted them—but they are still PCs. Tablets are another step down the same path, and Microsoft is counting on tablets needing to have the same power as notebooks (and desktops) even as the model for deploying and using applications changes.

Windows 8 might be a half-step toward a tablet-driven world. It might be less elegant than iOS and less trim than Android. But it is also a more effective bridging of the universes of fat client and thin client, of PC and cloud. Office 365 and Office 2013 layer upon that blending, blurring the distinction between what’s running locally and what runs in the cloud while still giving users the choice of working offline.

Microsoft isn’t the only one making this bet. Apple keeps making its Mac OS X interface look more like iOS—as evidenced by the Launchpad interface, full-screen applications, and multi-touch gesture support in Lion and Mountain Lion. Google Apps and Google Drive, as well as Apple’s iCloud services, are increasingly about not abandoning the thick client metaphor but providing tighter integration between thick client power and cloud-connected services.

As much as the iPad has found a home in the business world, Microsoft still has a big advantage over Google and Apple in the business market. To paraphrase James Carville, “It’s the server, stupid.” Microsoft’s backend infrastructure support, in the form of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Server 2012, gives Windows 8 and the versions that will follow it a leg-up on the thinner tablet alternatives. Windows 8's DirectAccess secure remote access, RemoteFX virtual desktop support, and Windows to Go capability builds on that advantage—leveraging Microsoft’s servers to allow users to boot and connect to server resources back in the office or somewhere in a hosted (or public Azure) cloud. And Microsoft’s vision of what the cloud is hews closer to what most companies are comfortable with—something they can control directly, run inside their own data center, and manage just like Windows everywhere else.

And that’s why Windows 8 is far from being a swan song; it's actually going to be a winner. It’s not revolutionary, it’s not entirely original, and it’s not exactly pretty. But it does give Microsoft a way to keep the PC in the game while playing to Windows’ biggest strength: the conservative nature of its installed base. Mark these words: in six years, Windows will still be dominating the personal computing world (Windows XP included).

Listing image by Aurich Lawson