Diversity

This is so bizarre, I was a staunch supporter of all things Microsoft for many years. Since 1992 when I first got an MSDN subscription. Now, through no particular effort on my part, Microsoft, the Windows platform, the whole ecosystem is becoming less and less important to me.

Why is this? Well, I think to be honest that I am an early adopter and I tend to chase what is around other people's corners well in advance. I realised a little while back that I have not watched main-stream channel based TV for more than ten years. All my watching and home entertainment is delivered via the internet.

For more than two years I have not had an internet connection at my house! I have perfectly capable unlimited mobile internet and can do all the normal internet stuff such as stream Netflix, watch YouTube, download, browse and do mail to such an extent that I feel no other need. Yep.. Over my phone!

For computing I have not had a functioning Windows system in the house for more than eight months. I have a Mac mini as a media centre, a Macbook Air as a portable but most of my day to day needs are serviced by an iPad and a Chromebook with Ubuntu installed on it or an Android phone.

I have not entirely given up on Windows. In my work I am writing the coolest application I have ever been involved with. It is a totally modular application using Prism and MEF. It interfaces with hardware AND has a full Python scripting system built in so that users can write scripts that modify the behaviour of the application. Seriously, I go to work in the morning with this huge stupid grin on my face and create cool cool stuff!

I write kick-ass multi-threaded hardware enabled WPF all day long and I'm just plain LOVING IT!.

Evenings and weekends are techno-centric too. My daughter wants to design a robot so we're learning Scratch, Arduino, programming Raspberry Pi, hacking into Minecraft and building circuits on prototype breadboards.

Oddly, I have introduced Windows and WPF to the work because they were all C, GTK, MINGW and Linux before but I think i have convinced them that WPF makes a kick-ass GUI for their systems. Apart from that however, my programming interests have moved well away from Microsoft centrism.

Is this a sign of the times to come? Will the Windows platform take a step to the side and allow other operating systems to take over some of the load? I think that the answer is a resounding YES! but this isn't a bad thing. Diversity is competition and so if Microsoft is falling behind then it is a wake-up call to get better or die.

I've been a great fan of Microsoft for a long time, just as I was a fan of Mohammed Ali and Richard Burton and Lilian Gish. For some of those, the time is gone. Over forever. Can Microsoft remake its business? Can it answer the needs of the mobile masses?

For me I am convinced that competition is not only there but has real alternatives and real values that overshadow the solid and sometimes immutable Windows. Its all about evolution. All about the fittest.