14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since Windows 8 was officially released to the market, I've heard quite a lot of people saying that Microsoft is collapsing and the new strategy of the company does more harm than good to the software empire started by Bill Gates during the '80s.
While it's pretty hard to believe that the world's number one software company could disappear overnight just because it launches a product that fails to excite, let's put our imagination to work and think for a few minutes what the world would be like without Microsoft.
The Redmond-based software giant brought us the world's number one operating system, so without Microsoft, everyone would probably use Apple computers and Linux would have a bigger market share. However, given the fact that Linux has emerged as a Windows alternative in the last few years, Apple would clearly dominate the desktop OS market, since it was one of the companies that competed with Microsoft from the very beginning.
Of course, without Microsoft, products such as Surface, Windows Phones, Skype, Windows Server, Outlook, Office, and even Solitaire would no longer be available. Truth is, alternatives for many of them already exist, so in one way or another, we could still do the same things on our (Apple) computers using such apps.
But no matter if we want to accept this or not, it's impossible to imagine the PC world without Microsoft. Bill Gates' company was the main catalyst of the PC industry and thanks to his dream of bringing a PC on every desk out there, the IT industry has evolved so much that it became an important part of our lives.
There is absolutely no doubt that some industries out there can no longer exist without a PC, no matter if it runs Microsoft software or not. And even if it runs Linux or any other operating system out there, Microsoft is one of the companies that you should thank.
I'm not going to talk about the financial consequences that would obviously emerge if Microsoft disappeared overnight, but I guess at least a handful of people would be happy about it. The truth, even though some people would never admit it, is that many would actually be sad and disappointed to live in a world without Microsoft, partially because Redmond is the one and only company that's not afraid of competition.
Let's take the search engine market as an example. Google is undoubtedly the leading company and nobody can deny that Google Search was, is, and will continue to be the most-used search engine worldwide. Bing, on the other hand, has barely reached a 17 percent market share in the United States, but Microsoft continues to pour in millions of dollars just because it feels that consumers need to be provided with something else besides Google.
Former CEO Steve Ballmer himself admitted that Bing didn't stand a chance against Google. You know what? We're the only ones competing with Google right now, so you should thank us, Ballmer suggested in one of his latest appearances as Microsoft CEO.
A world without Microsoft would become a world dominated by companies whose financial power means everything. Let's be honest, no other company beside Microsoft would ever have the guts to compete with Google in the search engine market. And even if they don't have any chance to beat Google, they're trying over and over again to show you that Google isn't your only option.
A world without Microsoft would pretty much be a world without Windows. You're now complaining that you don't like Windows because it doesn't have a Start menu? Some would pay to see you doing your daily activities on a Linux distribution where plug and play is still an unexplored world. Just try to set up your webcam in Ubuntu 14, which by the way is said to be the most advanced Ubuntu version ever, and you'll get my point.
In its turn, a world without Windows would be a world without gaming. In the last few months, I'm hearing that Linux is becoming a much more attractive product for gamers because Steam is launching more titles on the open-source platform. Sure, Linux barely has a 1.5 percent market share right now, but it's already thinking about stealing the world's number one OS title that belongs to Windows since... forever.
Linux users claim that their own operating system, be it Ubuntu, Linux Mint, or Puppy Linux, is much better than Windows. Ironically, some Windows users say the same thing. And still, everybody is using it. Windows remains the king of the desktop OS world and will remain so for many years from now. And Microsoft is already trying to make sure of this by tweaking the OS in such a way that it would better tackle the desktop.
A world without Microsoft would be a world you wouldn't want to be part of. No matter how much you hate Microsoft or not, the Redmond-based giant is responsible for so many things surrounding you that you would probably be very sad without it.
Nobody says that Microsoft is the leader of everything, but there's no doubt that it did and still does quite a lot of great things to each and every one of us.
So before posting any other hateful comments all over the web, just take a minute, look at your computer, and think: what would the world be like without Microsoft?