As Vista’s release, the new Microsoft operating system, had been several times postponed, some observers noticed it could benefit Linux and increase the number of users of the free OS : it is now clear it didn’t and the monopoly of Microsoft on the market still remains.

Microsoft takes advantage of its market domination and, above all, of the pre-installation of Windows on new computers (75% of all new PC’s have Windows pre-installed on it). If only the real price of the operating system was clearly written on the buyer’s bill, a lot of consumers would think twice before paying 150$ and not having the choice at all.

The advantages of Linux are well known and for something you don’t have to pay charges for, this operating system is simply great. Distributions such as Suse or Ubuntu can technically obviously compete with Microsoft Vista but it is actually not the problem. It is somewhere else.

If you compare the show paid by Microsoft for Vista’s release and what happened for the release of, for instance, Dapper Drake, you just become aware of how big the advantage of Microsoft is. The strength of MS is its impressive marketing power : people who just do nothing but using their computers (and not living through it ) will know about Vista. CNN offered a 15 minutes show to Gates (with some soft criticisms though). The day Mark Shuttleworth will get 5 minutes on television for the release of the next Ubuntu has not come…

Such a marketing campain is precisely what Linux companies can’t afford : if Canonical could pay for it, the whole world would talk about Edgy Eft, Beryl or Compiz and how innovative those softwares are.

The life cycle of XP is still not over (its support has been stretched until april 2009), but during this time, there has been no revolution in the way people use their computers, even if new technologies (many of them supported first by open-source and free softwares) appeared.

The only way analysts think the RSS feeds will become popular is their introduction into Internet Explorer 7, even if Thunderbird and Firefox (which are also available for Windows) already propose this feature. It is nothing new that Microsoft picks up the best of the other’s technology, integrates it in its products and spreads it everywhere as if it was their own.

But this time, open source and free software companies are supported in their development by giants of the sector (IBM, Sun, …), what should be a good source of income through support and services.

Moreover, the main strength of the free softwares is their communities. Thousand of involved users bring a lot of innovation : all the employees of the Redmond’s firm cannot be as inventive as hundred of thousand involved users who can directly communicate with the developpers.

Now that Linux is accepted as a competitive solution for servers and enterprises, it has to become popular on the desktop’s markt and need a powerful marketing campain in order to compete with Windows.It may have to get rid of this geeky image and show the consumers it is an innovative and professionnal product that anyone can use.

We have seen it since the beginning of the software industry : not the best product wins, but the one which has the best advertising campain.