Ok, this is just a random thought, but I was thinking and I kind of predict some serious open source vs. proprietary wars coming within the next 10 years. I don’t mean the current geek bickering that you see all the time or the current enterprise level use Linux for blah. I truly see that normal users will become more educated on what open source software is and some beginning to switch to it. At that point I see 2 things happening.

1) Because so many people will be switching back and forth and there won’t necessarily be a winner on either side software is going to get better in general due to competition.

2) This will lead to the spilling out of the geek communities back and forth to the normal end users that don’t know much.

In business, especially in computers, there needs to be a power pushing the way. I think that there is going to be a power struggle, but I don’t know who is going to be there in the struggle for sure. I think that the company that offers the best mix between both OSS and Proprietary, like Red Hat, will come out on top. I don’t however see Microsoft fading into the distance any time soon much like IBM didn’t die when Microsoft took over. I do see them stepping back into second or third place restructuring for the new trends, and then I see them pushing innovation in some areas, mainly development.

I say this as an honest prediction of what I see. I could be totally off on my thoughts. It will be interesting to see what happens.

*This in no way means I love Microsoft and hate open source or vise versa. I love both and see the benefits of both.