The Reality however
Is that M$ isn't going to disappear overnight any time soon if ever.
More likely if the business looses it's direction it will simply eventually become something that is talked about but little used.
As for Unix Clouds and the like they have never really disappeared the big Financial Institutions use a Unix Main Frame to run their business on with Windows on the Desktop. Always been that way and unless things change dramatically they always will be that way.
When you have something that Just Works there is no reason to change and it's those places who drive M$ to develop software to suit their needs, it's not the other way around. M$ doesn't develop software and then expect Governments, Big Banks and so on to adopt their software they develop the software to work in conjunction with what their customers already have.
If M$ was to disappear overnight the ones who would be really affected are the Home Users and small business who have never used anything else but even then the reality is that most home systems are never properly patched so what would be different? Instead of being the optimum to Patch all Computers it would end up being what normally happens with Domestic Users becomes the Normal thing no new patches so they use other methods to stop infections. The same thing happens with the multitude of 98/NT systems still running as well as Server 2000 not to mention a couple of large DOS Systems that I maintain in a CAM Plant. Even that place could afford to loose everything M$ in their production area and not suffer any ill effects at all.
But no matter what M$ will be there for a very long time and if they do not become as able to change direction like they where when we moved from 8 to 16 Bit or from 16 to 32 Bit Computing they will just become irrelevant and little used in a slow process which the economy will not even notice their disappearance.
Col
