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Recap

Microsoft was fortunate enough to realize the importance of operating systems in the computing industry two decades back. It realized that personal computers would be completely controlled by the operating system installed in it. It was something that IBM could not realize and committed the biggest mistake in its history.
In 1980s, companies believed that operating system is pure commodity product, but Microsoft understood that it holds the keys to its monopoly.

It's because of the dominance of the Windows Operating System that Microsoft has been able to become so strong. The dominance of Windows means that for development of any major software application, it needs to be compatible with Windows. This means software developers must use the programming capabilities provided by Windows - its application programming interface, or API. That's a most suitable example of perfect monopoly.

As Internet has changed things drastically, it seems that the core platform will move to higher level - most probably - a web-based platform that runs in the browser and is written in the language of the browser rather than the language of the operating system.

Operating System - A Commodity Product?

As newer and newer applications are developed, which will mainly be web-based, it becomes immaterial which operating system user deploys. They will work equally well on Windows, Mac or Linux. The operating system will loose its importance in this whole process and Microsoft will loose its strategic competitive advantage. It will be a further threat to Microsoft's business model.

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* Contributed by -
Nipun Jain & Manvendra Singh,
Class of 2006,
Amity Business School, Noida.