From: mike 


http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/04/10/microsoft.doubts/


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Microsoft may be at a turning point in its future, according to actions
taken by key figures today and over the weekend. Goldman Sachs financial
analyst Sarah Friar today removed Microsoft from its conviction list,
noting that while the stock was still worth buying it no longer had the
same allure as before. A fundamental shift in the market towards the web
and the resulting independence from Microsoft's software were cited as the
primary reasons, as users no longer needed Windows or desktop utilities for
an increasing number of tasks.

"Vista may be the last big operating system developed by the
company," Friar said. Microsoft still plans a revision to Vista
codenamed "Vienna" for 2009.

This freedom may have helped play into the analyst's observations about
rival operating systems from Apple and various Linux distributors, which
Friar said were likely to draw business and home users away from Windows
over the next ten years. Google, however, is the primary threat, Friar
said. Their "dominance in search, deep pockets, and “cool” factor make
it a serious competitor to Microsoft," she wrote, "as it strives
to obsolete the desktop operating system." The California-based search
engine developer has developed or refined a series of web tools that
potentially replace Microsoft's well-established desktop software, such as
Gmail (which supplants both Hotmail and Outlook) and Writely (a web-based
text editor). Although strictly professional, the advice reflects an
opinion which gathered momentum in the blogging community this weekend.
Influential author and venture capitalist Paul Graham has controversially
declared Microsoft "dead," pointing to Google as far more
"dangerous" thanks to its relentless web expansion. Microsoft no
longer posed an immediate threat to Silicon Valley firms by threatening to
buy them out or release a direct competitor. "We [don't] worry about
Microsoft as competition for the startups we funded. In fact, we've never
even invited them to the demo days we organize for startups to present to
investors," Graham said. "We invite Yahoo and Google and some
other Internet companies, but we've never bothered to invite
Microsoft." Microsoft has also lost mindshare among the most
computer-literate developers, many of whom explicitly prefer Apple systems.
Windows has traded positions with Macs as the safe choice for beginners.
"I'm now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows.
Nearly all the people we fund at [our company] Y Combinator use Apple
laptops," Graham added.
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 /m

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