1. Revenge of the Start Menu. Microsoft will resurrect the fabled Start menu in Windows 8, and will provide a startup option that allows users to run in a Windows classic desktop mode or the new tiled interface. This will very likely coincide with the Surface Pro early in the year, and may in fact help them gain some inroads to the tablet market. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the rest of the year will continue to be dominated by all things Apple.
2. Intra-Cloud Networks. Many organizations currently undertaking cloud initiatives will re-examine ways for these to get managed in-house. If you already oversee network infrastructure, particularly in a production environment, there is little benefit to cloud-sourcing components in this configuration. As such, you can expect the boon of cloud sourcing to dwindle without many of the larger organizations ever really getting onboard.
3. Autonomous Vehicles Hit the Road. There is going to be a lot of this, but before the end of the year expect to have one or more cars to choose from that support some kind of autonomous driving. This will very likely mark the end of the hybrid craze as drivers start shopping for cars with advanced cruise control capable of regulating both the speed and direction of the vehicle.
4. Android Growing Pains. This may be nothing, but we should expect to see some Android vendors defecting to other platforms, with Windows Phone 8 being a logic alternative. The legal wrangling with Apple and Microsoft has many of these vendors scared, and so far Google has done nothing to ameliorate these concerns.
5. Apple Content Deal with TV Networks. This will be the lynchpin of an AppleTV product; a content licensing agreement for TV on demand covering the major networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, FOX) at a fixed monthly cost similar to your current cable. Imagine if $15 a month gained you access to on-demand access for all of your favorite shows using iTunes and of course the as yet unannounced AppleTV.

As always, the real surprises haven’t even been imagined yet. It is quite likely we will see the end for both BlackBerry and Nokia in the months ahead, along with potentially a few other technology giants as the economy continues to drive a downturn in consumer confidence.

Programming paradigm shifts were rather evident on TIOBE during the past year, Objective-C moved from an 8th position into the top 5 programming languages and C# nearly overtook C++. I expect within a few more months the C# platform will move into the third position right behind Java and C, and of course Objective-C will continue to grow. What’s in store for 2012?

1. Microsoft Releases Software. There are a number of platform shifts underway, which is making it difficult for Microsoft to maintain a virtual monopoly on the PC desktop. In the new year, expect to see more apps for iOS and even Android from Microsoft, this will likely include a full Office offering that runs on your iPad. Microsoft may position their developer tools – including Visual Studio – for additional platforms including OS X and iOS development. Opportunities abound if Microsoft can return to its roots and focus on building great software and development tools without being locked to the Windows operating system.
2. Streaming Internet TV. This is going to be an emerging trend as consumers vent frustration with the complexities of cable providers like Comcast. The switch to digital cable has required subscribers to attach set-top boxes to their TV’s which invariably makes the entire configuration difficult for a PVR. Services like Hulu and Netflix continue to erode the market share of cable subscribers, and consumers will increasingly rely on online streaming for their television viewing. The key here is services that already integrate with your PVR (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon) are nearly universally available, and there is an opportunity for streaming TV providers to rebroadcast television over the Internet in much the same way as Comcast sends it to your home on cable. This paradigm shift will begin to disrupt cable TV providers in much the same way as VoIP rattled the land-line telephone industry.
3. Solid State Standard. SSD (Solid State Drives) have permeated the PC industry, and there are now a number of popular laptops that only ship with SSD. Expect this trend to continue and the popular MacBook Pro will get an update next year to have it ship with an SSD by default. As a bonus, MacBook Pro owners will have the option to also drop a 1TB hard drive into the unit so they can run the core operating system from the SSD and use the storage capacity of the larger hard drive. Dell and Toshiba will also revamp their model lineup to include an SSD in popular entry-level units as the default drive; for example, the Dell Inspiron and the Toshiba Satellite models.
4. Nokia Bankcruptcy. The popular cell-phone maker continues to lose market share, and the Lumia isn’t exactly going to turn the tide for them. While they continue to secretly work on Symbian in case the whole Windows Phone 7 thing doesn’t pan out, it’s pretty clear they have been left behind in the smart-phone market. It’s likely that a company such as HTC will acquire the Nokia name and use it for marketing purposes.
5. Google Acquires T-Mobile. They have Android and Motorola for headset hardware, the only thing remaining for Google is a cell phone carrier for their phone. The T-Mobile/AT&T merger has fallen through the cracks, which leaves T-Mobile ripe for an acquisition. With a complete solution like this, Google would be able to offer something that Apple cannot – a full service solution at a price point that Google can set.

The tablet computing market has emerged as a viable platform primarily as a result of Apple’s iPad gaining wide acceptance. Google and Microsoft are trying to get a corner of this market, and while it remains to be seen it seems likely that both Android and Windows 8 will end up playing a key role in the evolution of tablet computing as year unfolds. We should expect to see continued growth in the tablet market, and while opportunities abound it’s certainly going to be Apple that continues to dominate.

By the fall of next year, Apple will be openly discussing their television platform which will likely be a combination of a subscription service and a unique amalgam of technology that may include both a set-top box and a standard TV set. Microsoft will lament Windows Media Center and may try to re-market WMC on Apple’s coattails, but it’s unlikely to have any impact. Needless to say, 3D televisions will be out of vogue almost before the new year begins and the rest of the 3D market (cell phones, cameras, etc.) will dwindle as the year progresses.

Finally, Lytro will introduce a camera that you can actually use – 6 megapixels – but with 3D falling out of favor and the tricky proprietary software it may end up being too little too late. Whatever happens it will continue to be a wild ride and as always the most amazing stuff isn’t even on the technology radar yet.

Has anyone else noticed the shelves at the local Best Buy have fewer boxes of software? Historically, shrink wrapped software distribution (“shrinkware”) has been challenged by electronic delivery as retail software releases require significant capital outlay. Think of all the things you need to do to deliver a box of software to stores for distribution. Of course there is the cost of developing the software, but for smaller programs this may pale in comparison to the printed box, manual, distribution media, packaging, shipping and ultimately advertising. In the end, you could easily spend $3-$5 per customer and for a small application ($10) this is a large percentage of the cost of distribution.

…App Store is a good thing for most small and independent software developers who are looking for a distribution modelOn top of that, you have to include the money you have spent to distribute your software while it is still sitting on the shelves at local stores. Large companies can easily write this into their balance sheets as part of accounts receivable (AR) since they can expect to sell thousands of copies and will need to distribute more – for them it is a distribution pipeline. Smaller software companies don’t have this benefit, and this has largely been the impetus for the shareware / freeware software delivery model.

1. Electronic Distribution

Unfortunately, shareware is complicated by the distribution model. The average consumer of a shareware app will need to visit at least a handful of sites before they can even find a reputable source for the software they are interested in. Try looking for a backup utility for your Windows computer, you will need to visit dozens of websites and read at least that many number of reviews before you can settle on a program. Imagine if all of that information was in a single place – a virtual software storefront – where you could read the reviews and download the application that best suites your needs.

This is where the Apple App Store model comes into play, as a software developer your application can gain immediate visibility without a need for maintaining an online delivery mechanism of your own. Even better, you don’t have to advertise to gain traction on a user base – if your application meets a need then consumers on the App Store will start to download your program. The freeware model still prevails if you want to offer your program for nothing and if you chose to profit then you can let Apple take care of the checkout process.

2. Minimum Platform

Apple implicitly provides some assurances in terms of the level of platform capability. Programs that are purchase through the App Store must be at least running Snow Leopard, so you can build a program to this platform and be assured that your users will be at this level. Going forward, it is reasonable to expect Apple will continue to enforce minimum platform requirements for your application which let’s you remain confident that users will be running a version of Mac OS X that you’re willing to support.

3. Auto-Update

The App Store provides a central mechanism for updating your application. Rather than implement your own package updater you can upgrade your install base from a single upload to the App Store. This allows you to quickly address defects and user issues without being concerned about how you will deploy these updates to users.

4. Free Advertising

Well, it’s not entirely free – but once you have paid to publish your program to the App Store it is somewhat self promulgating. Users can find your program based on keyword searches, and as your application is rated it will adjust in search results. Of course, if your application has issues out of the gate it may mar the release somewhat; however, over time as you are able to correct issues it should adjust accordingly.

5. Licensing

Apple takes care of managing the licensing of your application. This means you don’t need to generate software keys or really be concerned about piracy of your commercial program. Of course, if you want to distribute demo copies of your application you may need to take this into consideration in light of the downside list below.

As with anything, there are downsides.

1. Restricted Development Environment

You really need to develop using XCode and a current version of Objective-C on an Intel processor. Both Java and PPC code running via Rosetta are prohibited in the App Store. Although this goes somewhat to the minimum platform benefit, if you are familiar with another environment (C# or Java) you may find yourself somewhat restricted from delivering your app via Apple.

2. Trial-Ware Disallowed

The App Store won’t let you distribute a trial version of your application, so if users want to try your program before purchasing they must visit your website where they can download the trial version. Of course, at this point it’s almost easier to charge them for the application and provide a license which will let them unlock the demo-ware. Hopefully this is something Apple will consider addressing in a future version of the App Store.

3. Similar Software Restriction

Apple prohibits you from publishing to the App Store programs that are similar to existing commercial applications. In other words, it is a purely non-competitive ecosystem as it relates to commercial software. While this is good for consumers as they won’t have to choose between two virtually identical applications, it is a detriment to developers since they won’t be able to build competitive products that might have analogous functionality in existing App Store items but that have been enhanced in certain unique ways.

Generally speaking, the App Store is a good thing for most small and independent software developers who are looking for a distribution model on the Mac. The deprecation of Java may come as a shock to some, as there are quite a few good applications out there for Mac that were written in Java and would probably sell well on the App Store. Obviously, Apple is taking this somewhat as an opportunity to solidify the Objective-C ecosystem and may in fact succeed as there are many benefits to the electronic distribution model.

Solid State Drives (SSD) made significant inroads this past year, every major computer vendor offers an SSD option on a new machine and in many cases this is the only drive type. While drives have not yet hit $1 per gigabyte, they are hovering at these levels and there are some tremendous offers available for drives that are now on sale.

Large storage hard drives made improvements in capacity as well, with 3TB now available and 2TB drives commonly sold at a very reasonable cost. It looks like Hitachi has reached 4TB capacity in their Travelstar series of drives, so this will be something to anticipate in the new year.

Clearly Netflix has all but won the HD streaming market, with nearly all major electronics vendors shipping systems that are Netflix ready. Google is attempting to compete in this market, but they have their work cut out for them. Meanwhile, cloud computing hasn’t really taken off with even the most aggressive estimates putting it at maybe 2% of the typical IT budget. This trend should continue in the new year, IT organizations will continue to revisit how they outsource cloud data and will more than likely absorb the fractional cost of bringing these services back in-house.

Finally, Apple was clearly able to deliver on a tablet computing device and will continue to acquire market share with their visionary iPad. Google is somewhat conflicted in this space, but realistically we should anticipate the demand gravitating towards the iPad for the foreseeable future.

So what does this leave for 2011?

1. Programming Paradigm Shifts. While C and Java have remained the most popular languages for quite some time now, both Objective-C and C# have been whittling away at this over the past few years. In this new year, I think we’ll find C# replacing C++ and Objective-C bubbling into the top 5 languages on TIOBE. The popularity of Apple devices and the arrival of Windows Phone 7 will help drive this, and of course the concern developers have with Java now that Oracle is controlling things will further erode market share.
2. Applecessories. Everybody will be buying accessories for Apple devices (iPod, iPhone and iPad). The popularity of induction chargers certainly drives some of this, but with the advent of AirPlay many consumers will be looking for ways to connect their portable devices to home stereo and TV systems. This should also translate to the enterprise, where it will become possible to run a presentation from your iPhone wirelessly over an AirPlay connection to a projector.
3. Microsoft Acquires Blackberry. If Microsoft is going to continue competing in the smart-phone space, they will need to acquire at least one of the existing market leaders. The acquisition of Blackberry would give Microsoft at least a 15% share of the mobile phone market, this would also give them an opportunity to integrate BES with the Exchange server product directly.
4. Google Acquires Netflix. The GoogleTV platform is in its infancy; but realistically Google is going to need a streaming movie provider to power this device as the content on YouTube just isn’t going to be enough. Simply buy the market leader and Google will have exposure to the Netflix streaming service on all GoogleTV appliances.

Of course the other big story will continue to be tablet computing devices, with Apple iPad devouring the greatest market share and Android powered devices just starting to make inroads. The era of netbook computing is fading as consumers discover tablet computers can offer many of the same capabilities with larger screens and longer battery life.

If Microsoft doesn’t acquire a market leader like Blackberry, the Windows Phone 7 platform will be the last version of the Windows mobile platform. They have certainly left the door open for this kind of maneuver, the Phone 7 platform will be marketed at consumers which leaves them an opportunity for a different enterprise solution.

As for Google and Netflix, if Google doesn’t join with a market leader the Google TV will wither and may in fact disappear from store shelves before spring. Google will also need to revitalize their Android platform before the end of next year in an effort to gain platform parity across the many kinds of devices out there, in the process of doing this Google must eliminate Chrome OS.

Before proceeding, this tutorial assumes you are running CUPS on a Linux (Ubuntu) server to share out one or more printers on your network. In my configuration, an HP PSC 500 provides printing and scanning services and a Brother 2820 is our general purpose laser printer with fax. After settings things up for AirPrint using CUPS and Avahi, I am now able to print successfully to both devices from my iPhone 3GS.

1. Configure CUPS. Get your CUPS server properly configured. This is going to require the following entries included in your cupsd.conf:
   Listen 631
Browsing on
BrowseOrder allow,deny
BrowseAllow all
BrowseLocalProtocols CUPS dnssd
BrowseAddress @LOCAL
ServerAlias *
   It will need to be have the option to share printers connected to the system (Browsing On), as a general rule of thumb if you can print to your CUPS server from another computer on your network then it’s probably configured correctly.
2. Install Avahi. You need this to broadcast your printer services, if you’re running Ubuntu server this can be done as follows:
   sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon
3. Download TJ’s Script. It will make your next step much easier:
   https://github.com/tjfontaine/airprint-generate
4. Run the airprint-generate script. This produces services files for Avahi. Copy the resulting files to:
   /etc/avahi/services
5. Restart Services. Restart your avahi service:
   /etc/init.d/avahi-daemon restart

Now browse to your printers on your favorite iOS device running 4.2.1 or later, when selecting Print from any of the standard applications (Mail, Safari, etc.) your printers should appear available.

If you made it this far and are on iOS 6, then your journey is not yet complete. Visit AirPrint on Linux with iOS 6 for a rundown on how to get your server setup to support the changes Apple made in this release.

At first, this occurred most frequently when the FBI warnings displayed onscreen, the intention was to ostensibly ensure that you were aware of the legal repercussions of copying the media. This was a tolerable restriction, and it seemed fair that the publisher of the movie could assert their right to the intellectual property on the disc.

This has since extended to all of the previews that appear before the movie begins. So it is no longer possible to quickly skip through the previews at the beginning or for that matter to even jump to the main menu on the disc.

So you might think this isn’t really a problem, the movie studios have a right to advertise before they get to a main feature on the disc. After all, even if you purchase the movie you don’t own it – you are essentially paying a fee to license the viewing of the material that is on the DVD. The problems are in fact manifold:

1. Impossible to resume a movie. If the disc is skipping and you are forced to remove and clean it midway through a movie, you should anticipate it will take you another 10 minutes to resume where you left off. It was quicker to remove, respool, rewind and fast-forward my VHS tape to the same location.
2. Not for kids. Whatever you do, don’t let your kids know you have a movie for them until the previews have completed. This is especially problematic if the main character on the cover is someone they know, in which case they are stuck watching previews for other videos they don’t really want to see. Good luck sneaking the disc into the DVD player before they know about, it’s more likely they will find the case first and track you down.
3. Unable to replay previews. Of course, the icing on the cake is you can’t even replay a preview if you want to see it again. Was this the intent? You are forced to watch the previews and if you actually want to see a preview again you won’t be able to.
4. Preview errors prevent the movie. If your previews are skipping, you may be unable to start the movie! This is simply moronic, if the only bad spots on the disc are the previews for the other movies then you should be able to skip through these and get to the main feature.

None of these problems existed on my Toshiba player as it was built before any of these inane hardware restrictions were put into place.

If nothing else, this encourages me to hasten my migration to video on demand delivery of my movies over the Internet using services like Netflix, iTunes and Amazon Unbox. The movie industry has crippled their primary delivery platform, and since I’m sure that Blu Ray has the same unnecessary restrictions I’m even less inclined to consider any kind of hardware upgrade.

Fortunately, there is a solution using something called VLC and a computer with a DVD drive in it. When this is connected to my television, it is possible to control the DVD disc playback from my iPhone with VLC Remote. My particular configuration actually has a laptop without a DVD drive connected to the television, and the video is streaming from a desktop computer in another room. The menus in VLC allow you to jump to any spot on the disk (Title/Chapter), pause whenever you want and even replay a preview if that’s what you want to do.

The DVD industry could learn a lot from this is the kind of implementation, it actually works the way the consumer wants it to.

Last year, I really went out on a limb with the open source adoption angle. The idea was quite simple, with the downturn in the economy it would be cheaper to deploy open source solutions than to purchase a commercial counterpart. As expected, this number is rather difficult to estimate. If you base it off desktop deployments with Linux you find possibly a 0.5% increase – and in the grand scheme of things this is one of the better annual adoption rates for Linux. The bigger story was the decrease in Windows market share, where the install base is shrinking on the order of 1% annually, and this appears to be translating primarily into a Macintosh user base.

While the iPod market remained strong, overall sales have plateaued while both the Microsoft Zune and the advent of Google’s Discover Music are going to continue to put significant pressure on  Apple. So what’s in store for next year?

1. Solid State Boot Drives. This has been brewing for some time now, but the price point on an SSD drive is starting to become reasonable. If it gets cut in half again for 2010 by the end of the year an 80GB solid state drive should be around $50. Microsoft has in fact built into Windows 7 a number of capabilities for solid state media, this will make it extremely likely that your next machine will at least boot from an SSD drive.
2. Really Big Media Drives. The other story is really big hard drives, and 2010 will be the year that 4TB disks land on the desktop. These large disks are great for storing media, and the SSD makes an ideal boot volume. With the proliferation of HDTV PVR devices, larger media drives will become increasingly important while a hybrid boot model (SSD boot drive and standard hard drive) provide the best protection to consumers from system failure.
3. Netflix Wins. The battle over a hi-def disc format is virtually over, but with the advent of HD streaming video from providers like Netflix it’s virtually irrelevant. You can stream Netflix media from so many different hardware devices, they are going to be able to demonstrate how much they own this market in the upcoming year. Expect to see content deals with major providers on the Netflix streaming network in 2010, you might even see your favorite TV show as a Netflix only event.
4. Cloud Computing Reality Check. Users will discover that cloud computing is synonymous with network computing, and most IT organizations will reject this kind of platform in favor of internal systems they can maintain in a secure fashion. Some services will continue to be outsourced, the most notable being email, but for the most part core IT systems (marketing, HR and accounting) will continue to be supported internally.
5. Tablet Computers. Tablet based computing has struggled on the Windows platform (CE / Windows Tablet Edition), and it doesn’t seem that Microsoft has been able to successfully pin down the platform paradigm. Apple will introduce a device in the coming year that will likely be a defining moment for tablet computing device. We should also anticipate an Android version of a tablet computer soon after the Apple tablet, if the tablet cannot be successfully molded in either of these devices then it will continue to diminish in importance.
6. Firefox is the Primary Web Browser. The Firefox web browser will take over as the primary web browser in the new year, while Microsoft has some good versions of Internet Explorer their market is highly fractured and consequently no single Microsoft browser will be able to take a commanding share of the web browser market.

The real story will end up being how Apple continues to take market share away from Microsoft Windows. While Windows 7 has demonstrated itself as a good replacement for Vista, it remains to be seen if companies are going to be willing to migrate away from XP. In the end, many companies may find it easier to adopt alternate platforms (Mac / Linux) and virtualize XP to support legacy platforms. While Microsoft is offering a similar solution in Windows 7, it requires new hardware so it may prove cost effective to recommission a workstation with Ubuntu and boot XP virtually.

It’s UNIX. The terminal window shortcut is in the middle of my dock, that makes it easy to get to a UNIX command prompt and immediately take advantage of the full compliment of standard commands. Things like grep, diff, awk, sed and much more are at my fingertips. The work of reformatting my Vista computer to run Linux or trying to wedge my Houdini board into my C650 is no longer an issue, Mac now provides this natively.

It works. Unlike other UNIX variants (Solaris, Linux, BSD) there is strong market share. Try hosting a GoTo Meeting on Linux or running SimCity on Solaris. There isn’t much that you won’t be able to run on Mac, and if you do really get stuck the capability of virtualization solutions like VMware will let you run just about everything seamlessly. In fact, my dock has an icon shortcut for Firefox, Safari and IE — the IE shortcut boots a virtual Windows XP instance and launches the application automatically.

Probably the best example of how well it works is the integration with Microsoft Exchange 2007 in OS X 10.6. After installing the update, a dialog prompts you for your Exchange email address and domain password, no additional information is needed for Mail to complete the configuration.

Applications are smart. An email arrived in my inbox today, it said something to the effect that I should keep my calendar open “next Tuesday around 11AM” and my Mac mail program figured out that this meant 10/20/2009 at 11AM. After hovering over the proposed meeting time, I was able to click on a menu option to add this to my calendar.

Zooming. I know this might sound trivial, by you can hold down the Control key and zoom in & out on the screen. This is especially handy if you are recording a presentation or giving any kind of demo to a group. Windows XP/Vista provides accessibility features, but they don’t have the same zero footprint.

Multi-Touch mouse pad. There is absolutely nothing like this on any other computer, the multi-touch mouse pad finally makes my laptop usable. It’s easy to scroll through documents using two fingers, jump to the top with three fingers or zoom into my photos. To make things even more usable, it’s possible to push down on the mouse pad and drag windows around lifting your finger up when you are done.

Java. I’m a Java developer, so it’s handy to have a JDK available. Fortunately, Mac ships with an excellent JVM along with some standard tools like ant. This makes it a full Java development environment without installing anything.

Battery Life. This is probably biased since I’m basing this off a MacBook Pro laptop; but the battery life on the Mac is so good you can almost forget about it. Obviously, you still need to plug it into the wall and recharge it but the laptop can run for almost 8 hours. I can go to work and leave my charger at home, yet I’ll still get through a whole day of work.

While there are some changes to the overall look and feel, the Apple user interface hasn’t changed all that much since 1984Power Management. Along with excellent battery life, the power management capability is transparent. My uptime right now is around 11 days — this is a laptop and I haven’t needed to turn it off for almost 2 weeks. Simply closing the lid puts the system to sleep and when the lid opens my computer is ready to go almost instantly.

Consistency. While there are some changes to the overall look and feel, the Apple user interface hasn’t changed all that much since 1984. This is still essentially a Macintosh and that makes it a pleasant departure from the litany of PC user interface.

Single menu. There is a single menu accross the top of the screen rather than a menu in every application. At first I thought it might be difficult to adapt to this again, but after using it for a while my PC screens (Ubuntu and XP) now look cluttered by comparison. The single menu provides more space for the application on the screen, and ironically this is something Microsoft is striving for in the ribbon bar placement for Office 2007.

Of course, no system is perfect and there are idiosyncrasies about Mac that I often find mind numbing. If you have been using a PC keyboard for a long time you will need to retrain your fingers for the Mac keyboard. Also, there are cryptic keyboard commands that you need to commit to memory (for example, a screenshot is Command + Shift + 4) but this list is relatively short.

So if you’re shopping for a new computer and maybe thought Mac might not be capable enough, hopefully my list has given you some ideas.

How important is HTML for composing an email message? My schedule barely affords me enough time to actually complete authoring an email, much less go about bolding text or adding background colors to random paragraphs. For those who are concerned about email format, they are also generally responsible for cluttering my inbox with various unwanted messages. In nearly all cases, my spam filters catch these messages and quickly move them into a bit-bucket where they never will be read.

It seems like a lot of work to petition Microsoft for a feature that is only going to benefit the messages I don’t want to receive. For that matter, maybe some of these users should start looking elsewhere for an email client. For example, Mozilla Thunderbird offers excellent HTML support and of course you could always just go and buy a Mac. There is a rather lengthy comparison of the various email clients, I’m sure one of these programs will support CSS and various other HTML markups.

Of course, the original message presented various degrees of failure in each of my mail clients. While this is certainly something they may be looking to prevent, maybe next time they should consider a text-only email instead?

Honestly, I don’t think the real failure of email is the inability to create formatted message with HTML or any other kind of layout for that matter. If there was some way to eliminate the 97% of my email that is spam, the infrastructure costs (storage, network traffic, electricity, HVAC, etc.) would let me hire a staff of developers to write my own HTML+CSS compliant email client.

Forget about fixing Outlook, let’s fix SMTP first.

The most obvious problem is that Microsoft is primarily a software company, so without some help from a PC vendor they won’t be able to offer you the kind of complete solution that you will find at your local Apple retailer. Amazingly enough, the $319 price-tag for something like Vista Ultimate gets you halfway to a Mac Mini, not mention most casual customers will likely need to upgrade their computer anyway to take advantage of the latest features Windows has to offer.

While Microsoft doesn’t necessarily need to get into the PC business to compete, it might be worth reconsidering a physical storefront in favor of a virtual one. The iPod Touch and iPhone offer easily installable applications from the App Store, maybe this model could also work for the largest vendor of commercial software?

Rather than ordering a copy of Microsoft Zoo Tycoon 2, what if you could visit the Microsoft Store from your Windows computer? The installer would integrate with the existing Add/Remove Programs screen, users could simply find software they would like to have and click the Buy Now to automatically download and install the program onto their computer

You wouldn’t have to wait for the CD/DVD to arrive in the mail. Larger titles may take a bit longer to install, but this would also make it easy to break these out into separate downloads. For example, instead of buying Microsoft Office you could pay $25 to install Microsoft Word and maybe decide to buy Microsoft Excel a few months later.

The software distribution model is changing, and Microsoft is still heavily reliant on a legacy shrink-wrap strategy. Consumers today simply download programs they want over the Internet and install them on their desktops. Many competing operating systems take advantage of this paradigm, in particular the Add/Remove capability of Linux based operating systems like Ubuntu make new software installation a streamlined process.

Forget about all the Vista bundles, sell a single version of the operating system and let the users purchase the additional modules they need. So you want a Media Center on your Vista install? Go to Add/Remove Programs, select Media Center for $50 and click “Buy Now”. If you are in a corporate setting with an MSDN subscription, this can integrate with your Windows Live ID to provide seamless installation support for any Microsoft product you are licensed to use.

While the Windows Server environment may not benefit as much from this model, a Windows workstation clearly benefits from some kind of upgrade path. Forget about selling boxes of software in an expensive storefront, offer Windows users an electronic shopping experience that allows them to upgrade Vista for anything new they might want.