Imagine: it's January 1, 2007 and you've woken up to discover Microsoft has imploded. No Windows. No MSN. No more security patches. All gone. Would your OS of choice would rise to the top? Maybe not...
Here's a little thought experiment to take into the New Year. Not as difficult as Schrodinger's Cat, but thought provoking nevertheless. Imagine that you woke up tomorrow to a world without Microsoft. Not a world where Microsoft never existed, but one where it hit some hidden critical corporate mass and imploded, or it was discovered that the Windows source code was actually the DNA sequence for red cabbage, and all the directors disappeared to a hidden undersea stronghold. Whatever really ... Microsoft existed and now it doesn't.
What would happen? Firstly, the hardcore anti-Redmond Microsoft haters would dance around singing 'Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead', and then the realisation would set in.
The disappearance of Microsoft and Windows would leave a massive vacuum in the computing industry - who would be able to take advantage and slip into the gap? Who would benefit the most?
It would probably be a field day for Apple in the home computing market. In the absence of Windows, Apple is the only company producing and all-in-one product suited to home users, and given its existing marketing and distribution capabilities, you could reasonably expect it to dominate in the home market.
The big question at that point is what the mainstream hardware manufacturers would do. Would they petition Apple to produce a redistributable, OEM version of OS X which they can deliver pre-installed on their systems? If so, would it be in Apple's best interests to do so? Arguably it would be a great financial move, but then Apple simply becomes the new Microsoft - the antithesis of its current marketing position.
As the new Microsoft, Apple would encounter a stack of brand new problems which Microsoft deals with on a daily basis - security holes, targeted attacks and viruses. Plus, it would probably lose its default alliance with the open-source community.
In the absence of a common enemy, I think that Apple would find itself as the big bad meanie of the computing industry.
Another option is that hardware manufacturers choose a Linux distro and throw their weight behind its development. But which one? Despite Ubuntu's popularity, it doesn't have the same enterprise support base as Red Hat or Suse. And don't forget Sun.
There's no doubt that Linux would do very well in this new Microsoft-free world, but I think that only two or three distros would float to the top. Despite the vibrancy of the opensource community, it's far too fragmented to be able to make concerted mass inroads into the home market in the same way that Windows has. The only ones which are going to make it are those with a proper infrastructure of support, training and compatibilty, and that's only something which a large company making a serious effort can achieve.
Regardless of which distro becomes the dominant one, it's a fair assumption that Linux, not Apple, would be the new face of business computing. Apple might be incredibly popular, but it has next to nothing to offer in the world of corporate IT.
Linux is already offering alternatives to Microsoft, and would easily rush into the gap.
Finally, console developers would have an absolute field day. Game developers would probably develop more for OS X and Linux, but chances are that with Windows out the picture, the powerful, standardised platforms of consoles would nudge computers out of the picture for gaming. The addition of a mouse and keyboard would make consoles perfectly viable for all the games people say are best played on PCs.
So a world without Windows would be a mad, fluctuating scramble, but market rules wouldn't change overnight. It's just possible that the most successful companies will be the ones who can play by Microsoft's old-school rules.