PC Retail

While this 'anti-Microsoft brigade' will be delighted with IBM's recent moves to discredit the Windows and Office platforms in favour of open source alternatives, any assumption that Microsoft is on the ropes or that Windows 7 is doomed would be a gross misinterpretation.

Linux may well prove to be a much more powerful player in the market, just as some are predicting, but I would argue the fact it is able to do this has much more to do with the widening of the PC market as a whole, rather than any fault on Microsoft's part.

It should also be remembered that the reason the PC industry is in such a healthy, growth period has to owe something to Microsoft and all it has done over the past two decades to make the PC a viable, mass market commodity. You've got to give the firm its dues.

While Linux distributors are busy trying to make headway into Microsoft's home turf, we have more details of chip giant Intel's invasion of the discreet graphics market, currently dominated by Nvidia and AMD/ATi.

Much still remains unclear as to the actual physical product that will emerge and the immediate ripples that will cause, however the language and details put forward leave no doubt if there ever was any that Intel intends to dramatically shake up not only the hugely lucrative discreet graphics market, but copious other sectors as well, all of which could alter the industry forever.


With all that going on, the UK channel now has a brand new trade organisation, which is promising to make serious waves.

Headed up by PCA chairman Derek Jones, Synaxon UK has decent ground to make such claims, the parent company having already having already cemented itself in the German channel, and significant 'financial clout' put in place to do the same thing in the UK.

And with ever growing pressure on independents coupled with the impending launch of the monolithic Best Buy on our shores, there will be high hopes this provides an effective string to the small retailer's bow.

It certainly looks as though the industry is facing a state of flux on a global as well as on a parochial UK channel level. These are exciting times – and moving with them is the key to making the most out of it. A rolling stone gathers no moss, as they say.