cross pond high tech

“It’s definitely possible,” Russinovich says. “It’s a new Microsoft.”

Russinovich is sitting in front of several hundred people who spend their days running thousands of computers. He helped build Windows, and he carries one of the most respected titles at the world’s largest software company: Microsoft Technical Fellow. But here, on stage at a conference in Silicon Valley, he’s perched in front of an audience whose relationship with Microsoft is, at best, complicated.

So many Microsoft customers now rely on open source code. That means Microsoft must embrace it too.

The conference is called ChefConf. Chef is a tool that helps tech geeks setup and operate the many machines needed to drive a website, smartphone app, or some other piece of business software. It’s an open source tool, which means it’s typically used alongside other open source software. When Russinovich asks how many in the audience use nothing but Windows to run their machines, one guy raises his hand—one guy out of several hundred. Mostly, they run the open source Linux operating system.

But this is what Russinovich expects. “That’s the reality we live in today,” he says. The tech world has changed in enormous ways. So many companies—so many Microsoft customers—are now relying on open source code. And that means Microsoft must embrace it too. As Russinovich points out, the company now allows Linux on its Azure cloud computing service, a way of renting computers over the internet, and today, Linux is running on at least 20 percent of those computers.

It’s quite a change for Microsoft, so long the bete noir of the open source community. But as Russinovich explains, it’s a necessary change. And given how popular Linux has become, Microsoft could go even further, not only allowing open source software on its cloud services, but actually turning Windows into open source software. “Every conversation you can imagine about what should we do with our software—open versus not-open versus services—has happened,” he says.

Apple basically invented the personal computer, only to see Microsoft end up the victor of the PC wars, with ~90% of the market. Therefore, this chart from Horace Dediu must be pretty sweet for Apple. Since the iPad was introduced, the Windows PC market has started shrinking. If Apple's not careful, though, it could end up suffering a similar fate, this time at the hands of Google and Android. 

For the three months ended in February, Apple had 38.9 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, up from 35 percent for the same period ending in November. Android fell to 51.7 percent over the same period, down from 53.7 percent.

The United States is not the world, but it is a leading market for smartphones. So, it's worth paying attention to these trends.

Apple has been able to eat into Android's lead thanks to increased distribution and lowered pricing. The iPhone wasn't available from Verizon until February 2011, four years after it debuted on AT&T. It later joined Sprint, then some regional carriers, and this year it's going to T-Mobile.

Apple offers the iPhone at a variety of prices on Verizon and AT&T, from $0 to over $400. A free-on-contract iPhone has made it an option for more people.

Android is a great operating system available on a number of excellent phones, some with gigantic screens. It's odd that it's gone flat. It's not just a U.S. phenomenon for Android, either.

This chart from Morgan Stanley illustrates how Apple has invaded people's lives. 

There was time when Microsoft had 95% of the computing market, and Apple was fighting for its life. (That time is quickly turning into old history, but for some of us it feels like yesterday.) 

At that point, only a sliver of people had Apple products in their lives. Households were pretty much either Apple houses or Microsoft houses.  

Today, everything's different. You can own a Windows-based PC and an iPhone or iPad. 

This chart shows that 70% of people with Windows products have an Apple product in their homes.  

Apple couldn't win the PC game, so it changed the game, introducing the iPod, then the iPhone, and then the iPad.  

Today, Apple is the world's most valuable company, and Microsoft is trying to catch up in personal computing.  

This chart from BI Intelligence shows that Android now has 60% of all computing platforms. Microsoft's Windows, on the other hand, is at 24%. Apple is at 14%.