> "their products are no longer required" is a bold statement to say about a company pulling billions in profits.
No, it isn't. Toyota's products are not required, since they have many competitors for each. That doesn't mean that they can't make money, only that they're not a(n effective) monopoly.
Microsoft has a pretty solid monopoly in the institutional space through sheer inertia. It would take monumental will power to switch away from MS Office, let alone Windows. Startups: "Yeah fuck Microsoft, who needs em." 10,000+ employee gov't agency: "Microsoft = Computer."
I disagree. There's a large number of microsoft products that I would gladly use over the alternatives.
C#? I'd much rather use C# over java.
Office? What's the alternative there?
Open Office? Come on Open Office is far buggier, less user friendly, less productive, and has far less features.
Google Docs? Missing tons of features, not to mention it's utterly useless when I don't have a network connection.
Visual Studio? Again nothing comes close to the features, speed, and stability. Eclipse is the nearest competitor imo - and it's still trailing behind a long ways.
If gravity wasn't forcing me onto the ground I could fly.
I'm sure there are plenty of organizations that would love to move away from Microsoft, but its just reality that they can't. They are too invested in it. It would take too much money, too much time and too much political will to make a change. It's not their fault, its not even Microsoft's doing, other than being in the right place (on commodity PCs) at the right time (the '90s.) It's just the way it is.
The problem is that many of Microsoft products are very nice. Things like Office have no competitors, unless you take massive cuts in usability and features.
There is no "hard" reason most companies that use Microsoft product need to continue to do so, they do it, as they do most things, out of habit.
Conversely there are practical, real gains to be had by using anything other that Microsoft products, but getting a large company to make any change before it is absolutely necessary is almost impossible, as current events demonstrate.
What is missing is a catalyst, something of an "energy crisis" of software, which will put this to rest.
No, it isn't. Toyota's products are not required, since they have many competitors for each. That doesn't mean that they can't make money, only that they're not a(n effective) monopoly.