Shalin Jain’s Little Red Couch

Time and again Microsoft has managed to make big and small companies go out of business. So who is going to take the beating when Vista is released? Could it be Google or Apple or Small Developers who came up with creative utilities -now a part of the OS-?

Let me just re-phrase it: Who is going to be most affected?

• Google
  - What are you chances of downloading google desktop when a spotlight replica would be part of Vista?
  - If MSN is the default search in IE, how many people are going to make an attempt to switch to Google. Techy, Geeky like to play with tools and modify the default but not the typical-user.

• Apple:
  - Would not be able to retain it’s superiority, which is quite remarkable if you compare Tiger and XP.

• FireFox:
  - With Blake Ross of Firefox saying “IE7 is a solid product.”. I am sure FireFox has a little to worry about. FireFox had it’s major gain when IE did not bother to improve IE 6 but was busy preparing for IE7+Vista.

• Macromedia/Adobe Flash:
  - Will sparkle take away Flash’s monopoly. My peek into sparkle says it’s lot more better and more geared for application development rather than just animation.

• Small Sharware Author:
  - Did you write a nifty utility that made windows a lot better OS? Maybe, if it was a very good and must have, MS might have already made it part of the OS. I am also guessing that MS would bring together a iLife like suite to keep OS X away. Maybe, an acquisition would do the trick.

Microsoft shouldn’t be underestimated and I am sure there would be a lot shake happening when Vista’s out. While it might bring down profits for many companies, hopefully it will open lot more new opportunities for shareware authors.

Let Vista roll out!