First of all, he said Linux and open source. Open source has definitely disrupted, most notably on the desktop, Internet Explorer's monopoly. Also, LAMP and others have done rather well against MS on the server (although this would have been more retrospective than prediction even 6 years ago).
As far as Linux on the desktop goes, it's too early to call failure. Six years is not exactly an eternity. But in that six years, Linux has become much more user-friendly and easy to install, major vendors like Dell have started selling it pre-installed, MSIE has lost its dominance (which is important because you can now use the internet without running into MSIE-only sites now), webapps have made the OS less important, and the netbook thing is happening, reducing prices to formerly unheard of levels, making the price differential between Windows and Linux that much more important.
Call failure when the marketshare of Linux stops growing at the expense of Windows.
Here are some stats: Linux's numbers are low, but growing.
That looks about the same as it would have 6 years ago. It's still mostly Windows, then Mac OS. In fact, I'm surprised OSX hasn't grown to more than 5.
Open source hasn't stopped Microsoft or even slightly slowed their growth. The only thing that's had any noticeable effect is the recession.
Comments
First of all, he said Linux and open source. Open source has definitely disrupted, most notably on the desktop, Internet Explorer's monopoly. Also, LAMP and others have done rather well against MS on the server (although this would have been more retrospective than prediction even 6 years ago).
As far as Linux on the desktop goes, it's too early to call failure. Six years is not exactly an eternity. But in that six years, Linux has become much more user-friendly and easy to install, major vendors like Dell have started selling it pre-installed, MSIE has lost its dominance (which is important because you can now use the internet without running into MSIE-only sites now), webapps have made the OS less important, and the netbook thing is happening, reducing prices to formerly unheard of levels, making the price differential between Windows and Linux that much more important.
Call failure when the marketshare of Linux stops growing at the expense of Windows.
Here are some stats: Linux's numbers are low, but growing.
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
That looks about the same as it would have 6 years ago. It's still mostly Windows, then Mac OS. In fact, I'm surprised OSX hasn't grown to more than 5.
Open source hasn't stopped Microsoft or even slightly slowed their growth. The only thing that's had any noticeable effect is the recession.