You Can't Say We Didn't Tell You

A small uproar has erupted in the IT community over Microsoft's decision that it will no longer support new hardware on anything other than Windows 10.

In a rare occurrence, I'm actually going to back Microsoft on this one. They've had that stance for 15 months. It was January 2016 that they posted that they wouldn't continue software fixes for Windows 7 and 8.1 (having already ditched 8 as the bad job that it was) to the newest generation of processors.

The new processors are literally new. AMD's Ryzen was announced 5 months ago, Intel's 7th Generation of Core processors came out in January. Only the hardcore "must have" people will be running these right now.

Microsoft have a habit of ditching old tech - if not old operating systems - to drive PC sales and, subsequently, their licence sales. Their switch to "Windows as a Service" with an app store in the Apple mould is the recognition that - as Apple found - the basic software that drives the machine should essentially be free, with everything else a paid-for add-on.

The main issue Microsoft will find now is that their eco-system is overgrown with other products. Don't want to pay for Word? Here's Open Office. The Windows system has, for the last 25 years, nurtured a stream of bedroom programmers to bring a deluge of software to the platform that Apple can't even come close to matching.

It's all a bit Frankenstein's Monster, but the drive for new tech has gone from the desktop to the mobile screen. Something Microsoft doesn't have dominance of.

Microsoft accidentally built the beast they are now hopeful of containing. It's not likely, at least in the short term, but they are hopeful. Revenues at the Gates-inspired conglomo-fest are struggling, with the switch of Office to a subscription model probably the only thing keeping the Microsoft executives from not being in a full-on panic.

Windows is now such a throwaway item, anyone is able to get it for free in exchange for a single 'white lie' click on a particular Microsoft website. It's the unpublished loophole in the licencing agreements that Microsoft sign with equipment manufacturers in a bid to keep Windows as the dominant player in the increasingly irrelevant desktop game.

Google's Android operating system is now so big, thanks to mobiles and tablets, that Microsoft is genuinely under threat as the supplier to the world. Google are to make major plays into the Business sector, from the traditional home market they are now dominating, and there are plenty of companies now reliant on Google services to find an Android or Chrome infrastructure an acceptable one.

We are all going to be assimilated. Microsoft still hope it will be with them.