Software Licensing in 2015: a Prediction

I personally believe, that the upcoming years will sadly unify the whole personal computer market, meaning that the experience we have using different software products will be more native (boring in the sense of it-fanatics, but easy in the sense of common-user).

This unification at the moment will lead us to two types of software - web-based (producer owned) and pc-based but web-enhanced software. Perfect example of a web-based software is Google with its Services (Docs, Gmail, Calendar etc.). These application fulfil the common needs of a user and don't cost anything to him or her. But these solutions are easily manageable, meaning that the market will dumb-down (simple actions like "Go to Tools - Options and do that" will soon become too elaborate for the user). The other way is the Microsoft way - meaning people will still have a monetary entry-point to gain software and also they have to pay usage-fees to the company, when wanting support and updates to one's software.

We cannot say, which way is better, because to me (as a it-fanatic) it is overall anyway sad, that this unification (or standardisation) of the market is happening, because new innovative solutions are now harder to be made available because of the extensive standardisation. But as stated - the common user will greet the changes.

The changes are also greeted because the battle of paid software will soon end, as there are more and more solutions, which don't cost anything to the user and still look good and function as wished. However I don't believe that the free (usually web-based) software will rule the market by itself, as Microsoft model is more traditional and "safe" for the user and the money one has to spend to get software, will overall be in-significant to him or her (as Microsoft and alike will drop somewhat their prices, to better compete with Google and alike).

I don't have great faith in OpenOffice or smaller projects, which work as a Microsoft product but follow the Google paradigm. As the user-base will want more standardized products, OpenOffice (or other alternatives to Microsoft, whether paid or not) will seem either too difficult to use for the user or just a cheap copy, which is also avoided.


PS: Microsoft and Google in this article don't stand for the companies named, but rather symbolize the leaders of the sector (eg. in web production Dreamweaver vs. xxx; in photo editing PhotoShop vs. xxx etc.).