I don't have a crystal ball, but I'm quite capable of choosing one thing and rejecting another. It is the exercise of this consumer choice that prompts the conclusion found in the title of this post.

I won't talk about the many problems with Microsoft's operating systems and "office" products. The less said about these dysfunctional products the better. I'll focus purely on browser issues. The way Microsoft develops its browser can be reasonably taken as a proxy for everything else it does.

Ultimately, this is a cultural thing. Microsoft's culture is centralised and secretive. Fearful of change. And this is precisely what will destroy Microsoft.

After many frustrating experiences with earlier versions of Internet Explorer (IE) I switched to Chrome some years ago despite its initial instability. Chrome has, in the meanwhile become better and better, till finally I simply can't imagine working productively without it (although its synchronisation for home and office doesn't work well).

Upon purchasing a new computer recently with Windows 7 (my other computer, still functional, uses XP), the first thing I did is to install Chrome. But Chrome has crashed and I can't either unistall it or install a fresh version. The only choice is to reformat the disk and install Windows 7 again. That can wait. In the meanwhile I've been forced to use IE9 (this blog post is being published through IE).

I find IE9 to be an outdated piece of junk. It can only accept 8 home pages at a time, whereas I use many more in Chrome, and with enormous flexibility. But this technical backwardness is not why I predict the rapidly approaching obsolescence of Microsoft.

The give away about what's going on in Microsoft is the fact that IE9 has only a handful of extensions, while Chrome has more than 2200! Cleraly, Microsoft doesn't let add-ins be developed by thousands of bored IT nerds. Google, on the other hand, lets nerds develop add-ons/ extensions – at no cost to itself. It can therefore offer a fantastic menu of choices to its customers - without having spent a single cent!

Google is using crowd-sourcing like none other. Microsoft, on the other hand, is like a company we knew (in our youth: decades ago) as Encyclopedia Britannica. Anyone remember that dinosour?!! Ha! We collectively know far more - and more accurately – than the editors of Britannica could possibly have known.

Or Norton anti-virus, for that matter?

Microsoft is BLOCKING people – MANKIND! - from contributing FREELY to the company. It refuses to let its shareholders be served FREELY by the smartest youth in the world.

Goodbye Microsoft. Goodbye Britannica. 

The world has CHANGED. There is no place for third raters any longer.

The message for Microsoft is clear: Use the crowd. Be a wikipedia. Be a google. Open up. Or become history.

The age of the Goliath is over. It is now the age of David. Even IPCC has been trounced – by ordinary pesky bloggers scattered across the world, asking small but basic questions.

Addendum 

The following chart says it all [Source].

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