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The Gartner Group, who said a few days ago that Open Source was here to stay, has now released a report in which they describe Windows as “collapsing.” Two Gartner analysts, Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald, use that word in describing the current state of the Microsoft operating system and go on to say that if major changes are not made, Windows will risk becoming obsolete.

The analysts stated flatly that “For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable." They cite serious competition from other operating systems and the baggage of twenty years of old code and corporate decisions as major culprits. Those older decisions and more recent ones, such as those involving Vista, are also causing problems.

"This is a large part of the reason why Windows Vista delivered primarily incremental improvements," the analysts said. "Most users do not understand the benefits of Windows Vista or do not see Vista as being better enough than Windows XP to make incurring the cost and pain of migration worthwhile."

Gartner has now joined a host of industry analysts and pundits who are essentially predicting the end of the era of Microsoft. They, however, said it very clearly when they made the flat statement, "Windows as we know it must be replaced." Those are strong words, but they seem to be a part of a growing consensus.