In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Ezekiel
<f@xxxxx>
wrote
on Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:21:55 -0400
<68c68$48677e63$19410@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:36815140.VOKYZz8mGc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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>> Adios, Windows XP!
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Ladies and gentleman, Windows XP is dead.
>> |
>> | Say goodbye to annoying pop up balloons, and say hello to Ubuntu!
>
> Another clueless idiot is predicting the death of Windows and that linux is
> going to takeover the desktop. Where have I heard this nonsense before?
>
>
> ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
Death of Windows? Eventually. But here's some perspective on that.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT
Microsoft's current market cap (as of today) is 256B. Its
revenue is 58B, cash is 24B, operating cash flow 22B, levered
free cash flow 17.6B.
If one totally shuts off revenue one might get an operating
cash flow of -36B, and only if one doesn't factor in
layoffs, cost of sales or other such. They'd burn through
their cash in 8 months at that rate...hardly a sudden
death, and extremely unlikely anyway, especially since
part of that revenue is from XBox.
Contrast that to IBM, which would last only 52 days given
the same admittedly simplistic assumptions, or Sun Microsystems
(JAVA), which would last 91 days.
Compare this also, however, to RedHat (RHT), which could
last more than 3 years. But they're no longer in the
desktop market.
(Canonical Ltd is private, last I looked. Debian and Gentoo
are non-profits.)
I could see Microsoft lasting for more than a hundred
years. Certainly IBM has (they were founded in the 1880s,
filed as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in
1911, and incorporated in 1924 under their current name),
and Microsoft is in a better position.
No, I don't see Linux taking over the desktop anytime soon.
Windows won't allow it. Microsoft won't allow it. *WE*
won't allow it -- the average person dislikes change just
for change's sake. The best Linux can do is offer a more
hassle-free computing experience, especially in the malware
sector, but that's just not enough to want to change; Windows
is the default.
Maybe in 3 years, if we're lucky (equipment turnover)...and
since Linux has been around for more than 3 years in a
generally usable form, I'm not all that hopeful.
Vista might give some a slight added push, and that's probably
the best we can hope for.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Linux. The choice of a GNU generation.
Windows. The choice of a bunch of people who like very weird behavior on
a regular basis, random crashes, and "extend, embrace, and extinguish".
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
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