Microsoft's future

[Luc-Etienne Brachotte <Luc-Etienne.Brachotte@art.alcatel.fr>]

  In "Microsoft Secrets", p434, the authors about Microsoft's future :
  
      First, history is against Microsoft. Companies with 70-80 per-
      cent market shares (which Microsoft has for PC operating systems
      and the Office applications suite) usually have only one way to go,
      and that is down. For a variety of reasons, few firms that dominate
      one generation of a product continue to dominate the next genera-
      tion, depending on how radical the change is. Dominant compa-
      nies often become so complacent, arrogant, or attached to their
      existing investments that they become vulnerable to major shifts in
      customer needs or technologies, or to threats from more nimble
      competitors. In particular, market positions based on de facto
      technical standards seem unlikely to endure in a fast-moving in-
      dustry for more than a few years.
  
  Then they explain it has been the case for IBM, DEC, Wang, Ford, General
  Motors, Xerox, Kodak, ...
  
  NB : through the book, the authors seem to like Microsoft very much.
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