Have Windows 7 and the 2010 server series redeemed Microsoft?
| Find out what will happen to IT should Microsoft fail to adapt to the Web era. ] That rival, of course, is Google, and the search leader’s relentless expansion is battering Microsoft on virtually every front. Google’s emphasis on the Web as an application platform challenges the primacy of PC software and operating systems, Microsoft’s traditional cash cows. Its forays into mobile devices call into question the very concept of desktop computing. Its Web-based services and open source software fly in the face of Microsoft’s core business model. Philosophically speaking, Google is the anti-Microsoft — and it’s making a killing at it. By comparison, the world’s largest software vendor has adapted poorly to the changing market landscape. On the Web, Internet Explorer is dead last in standards compliance, and its critical security flaws sometimes go unpatched for months. Windows Mobile claims just 7.9 percent of the smartphone market, and according to Gartner, sales are slowing. Microsof
