I came across this article via Digg this afternoon: Microsoft is Dead.
It presents and interesting view point and one, I think I am inclined to agree with. It comes down to, I think, realizing that the desktop era is over. I have had this discussion with a couple of friends the other week. By this I do not mean that we can all get rid of all of our desktop applications - at least not just yet - but it is coming. The real innovations and development work is not around desktop applications, but around web applications and what is generally referred to as Web 2.0.
Take it from my personal perspective. I have been using Gmail for over two years ago. I initially dual forwarded my email to Gmail and my own email server. I had built my own email server so I could use IMAP, so I would not have to worry about local desktop email, as I frequently rebuilt my desktop OS. 
After a power outage and a failed disk on the email server, I defaulted to Gmail…and sort of never came back. I have come to love the way Gmail handles email via threads and getting rid of the cumbersome folder structure that all other email clients have. …but I am about to digress. Do you remember when Outlook first came out back in the 90’s, it was a wondrous application, all my email, calendar, contacts - everything all in one place. Now, people have more than one computer and are mobile. 
They do not want to locked down to a local desktop application on that one computer. Now we have multiple webmail offerings (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) Oh, and do not forget to thank Google to forcing Yahoo, Hotmail and the rest to up the storage space from the MBs to GBs. Now, Yahoo Mail has built in Calendar and contacts. Google has Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. Personally, I use Gmail, Google Calendar and Plaxo for contacts. The point is, anywhere in the world, as long as I have Internet access I can get my email, schedule and contacts. No matter the desktop computer, OS or browser.
What about Microsoft Office? Have you not seen Microsoft fighting tooth and nail to stop Open Document Format? See the article: Microsoft opposes proposed California support for Open Document Format. Microsoft just released Office 2007. There are two significant changes, the Office document format and the new ribbon. Microsoft on the one hand talks about interoperability to its corporate customers. Isn’t that what the agreement with Novell was all about? So how does abandoning a decade old document standard, invented by Microsoft, and adopted by everyone else due to Microsoft Office being the de facto standard, promote interoperability. Well, if you have a monopoly on the Office productivity application market and you are starting to get some competition from OpenOffice and now web-based productivity apps; it make perfect sense. Change the format to break everyone else. But this time not everyone is drinking to koolaid, or looking for a long and expensive upgrade. 
The US Department of Transportation said no to the expensive upgrade, siting no business justification. The other change is the new ribbon. According to Microsoft, they have abandon the standard File, Edit menu system that they invented and everyone has adopted for interoperability reasons, for increased productivity reasons and user feedback. Just something else to create user confusion and undermine interoperability. Why these drastic changes in there most popular and cash cow application? 
Several, OpenOffice, Google Apps, Zoho and others popping up all over the place. I just bought a new laptop, actually a Macbook Pro. Part of the reason for the purchase was the desire to have the ability to be mobile. Therefore I have been trying to see if I can get by without MS Office and use Google Apps (Documents & Spreadsheets) instead. Three weeks and so far so good.
On the OS side of things, I have more friends than every that use either Linux or a Mac with OS X. In fact, I have moved to a Mac as you can see from my blog posts, i am enjoying it - ‘it just works’. However, I have noticed that I spend most of my time in Firefox. The main reason I have a Windows system is for gaming, and in this area Microsoft does have a strong hold over the other OS competitors. Direct X only works on Windows, and is what all gaming software developers write to. However, even this is changing, with the release of the XBox 360, the PS3 and the Wii, the gaming console could start to eat into the PC gaming market.
The traditional Microsoft is dead.
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