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posted by chromas on Tuesday October 09 2018, @03:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the why-improve-when-you-can-reinvent? dept.

Glyn Moody over at the Linux Journal brings attention to the idea that Android's days are probably numbered and that it is time to consider viable exit strategies and file them for when they are needed later. Android is currently on over 2-billion devices around the world but the EU, goaded by Microsoft partners and proxies, has decided to fine Google 4.34 billion euros over Android for breaching EU antitrust rules weakening its usefulness. With an obvious replacement, Fuchsia, nearing completion at Google, and with the smartphone manufacturers also exploring alternative plans, such as Tizen and eelo, Android is starting to get alternatives. Just as the ages of CP/M, MS-DOS, and MS Windows have ended, so too will the current age of Android draw to a close. Eventually. Someday.

Google Fuchsia

Previously on SN, Google Hopes to Replace Android with Fuschia[sic] in Five Years


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday October 09 2018, @06:27PM (4 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 09 2018, @06:27PM (#746540) Journal

    So, 88%+ market share is considered "ended"?

    That's cherry picking. If you count what most people actually use, which includes smartphones, tablets, and netbooks, then Microsoft’s share of the consumer market had dropped to 20% by 2012 already [extremetech.com]. They've been a no-show in the phone market where they peaked at 1.5% despite the overwhelming persistent hype and astroturfing. Now they are at 0% in the phone market.

    Same for supercomputing [networkworld.com]. There were some hybrid OSX+Linux or UNIX+Linux until the last few years but Windows disappeared long ago from the Top500 [top500.org]. In the server market, their Chernobyl-like presence is felt severely where they have a poor ratio for machines to services and worse mainenance record. Yes, they are still a problem, but, no, they do not have 80%

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    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Tuesday October 09 2018, @09:01PM (2 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday October 09 2018, @09:01PM (#746614) Journal

    If you count what most people actually use, which includes smartphones, tablets, and netbooks

    The smartphone, tablet, even netbook markets do not even distantly equate to the desktop market. Trying to compare market shares across those markets against the desktop is outright absurd, irrelevant, and incorrect.

    Windows is out there kicking butt in the exact market it's aimed at. I wish it were OS X or Linux I could say that about, but no. And frankly, there are no other comparisons worth making at this point in time, nor are there likely to be in the 5-year time frame mentioned in TFS (the assertion in the TFS was so ridiculous I couldn't be bothered to read TFA.)

    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday October 09 2018, @10:55PM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday October 09 2018, @10:55PM (#746686) Journal

      Apart from a Federal Government department back in the 1990's, I have yet to see any company in Australia running anything but Windows and MS Office on desktops.
      Servers are Microsoft of some sort, or, rarely, some places have Cisco stuff running.

      Microsoft isn't going away any time soon.

      As for phones, ther may be some fragmentation, but people like Google Play Store and Apple's store.
      F-droid is "too hard" for most people.
      So whatever comes along will have to be compatible with Play Store, until a competitior comes along (don't hold your breath)

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Wednesday October 10 2018, @03:52AM

      by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 10 2018, @03:52AM (#746803) Journal

      Maybe people will grow out of them but I doubt it. Again, if you look at what people are actually using and spending (wasting ineffectually) time on, it includes a lot of smartphones, tablets, and netbooks. For many, those are what they spend almost all of their screen time with even if they also own a laptop or desktop. I fully agree phones, tablets, and some netbooks are not up to the task for many activities but they are what people are using. I'll also agree that Windows is still a major problem on the destktop. M$ haven't backed off. Until that mob is broken, the office furniture auctioned off, and the many individuals who where part of it sent off to "correctional facillities", there is always the problem they are just regrouping.

      I have heard that them dropping to somewhere under 85% will pop the bubble. Below that, monopoly rents are not possible and historically that is where they have been making their money not software or services. There is no time to be complacent until some years have passed with them holding 0% market share in any submarket, especially the desktop. However, the days of "WIndows Everywhere" is long over.

      --
      Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
  • (Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday October 10 2018, @12:18PM

    by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Wednesday October 10 2018, @12:18PM (#746914)

    I'm a dues-paying Free Software Foundation member. But you have some wishful thinking there. Windows is being replaced by Chromebooks and iPads in school. Windows use is being replaced by Samsung Galaxy S-whatevers and Pixels and iPhone Xs in homes. Windows Server is losing market share to Linux server like crazy and has been for over ten years. But Windows is still wildly popular on corporate and government computers, it's still sold on hundreds of millions of laptops per year, and it's still the most popular dedicated gaming platform. It's not the computing monopoly it was 15 years ago, but it's many decades from being genuinely dead. It doesn't matter how much I wish otherwise.