| Version | Improvements | Recommended Hardware | Copies Sold |
| Windows 3.11 1992 |
Basic windows-and-mouse interface, easy computer networking |
16 Mhz Intel 386 chip 2 MB of memory |
50 million |
| Windows 95 1995 |
Full graphical user interface, built in web browser |
66 Mhz Intel 486 8 MB of memory |
164 million |
| Windows XP 2001 |
Most stable OS kernel built-in photo management software |
300 Mhz Intel Pentium 128 MB |
500 million by end of 2006 |
| Windows Vista 2006-2007 |
Built-in Media Center 3-D Aero interface and video-editing software |
1.9 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1 GB of memory |
500 million by end of 2010 |
Above you see a chart of how the Microsoft operating Windows system has evolved over the past 15 years. It has come a long way since Windows 3.11, which I remember working with when I first entered the work force. as a support analyst at a financial firm.
Today Microsoft has Windows Vista, and so far I have not heard a lot of good things about it in terms of user experience from people. Many people whom I have talked to really do not like it, and this includes me, you can read about my rants about it here.
Microsoft Vista was just released back in October, November of last year, so Microsoft still has a work to do to iron out the kinks. A lot of techies and non-techies alike that I have talked to have told me that they will stay with the rock Windows XP SP2 for now.
Quite a few non-techies have mentioned that they are looking at Apple’s stable BSD Linux based Mac OS X operating system, because they’ve tried it, and heard much better things about it than Windows Vista.
This is where I see will be the biggest competition for Microsoft going forward. Apple has been slowly but surely eating away at Microsoft on the home desktop front, and also somewhat in the enterprise as more home and business applications move to the web or as java applets. When application becomes webified, the only program you require to run it is a web browser, or java virtual machine which can run on any computer. That is why recently, Apple has been really pushing their Safari browser.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the next decade. Who will stay in the lead, Microsoft, Apple or Linux?
However, Microsoft is not sitting still. This may be old news to those who’ve heard about it already, but those that have not Microsoft has started displaying their Microsoft Surface technology or table top computer. I think this is where Microsoft might possibly extend their lead in the desktop market. The Microsoft surface table top computer will revolutionize the way you use a computer. Everything is based on touch, very tactile and interactive more so than a mouse and keyboard. Microsoft plans to launch the table top computer by 2010 or 2011, the biggest obstacle for Microsoft is keeping the price down.
Watch the video below:
Unless Apple is working on a similar technology, Microsoft might continue to win the ongoing desktop war. Oh and by the way, that is why I am seriously looking at Microsoft’s stocks right here at $28-29 for the mid to long term investing.
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