I haven’t booted a Windows machine in more than two years. It’s not due to ideology; I simply no longer feel the need to run Microsoft’s ubiquitous PC operating system.
My daily drivers now are a MacBook Pro running macOS and a PC running Arch Linux. I do productive work and play games on both platforms.
I am not alone in making this shift. The engineers building the tools reshaping modern work are almost all on Linux or Mac. Much of Microsoft’s own Azure AI infrastructure runs on Linux. The real AI workloads overwhelmingly happen on open-source technology.
On the consumer side, something even more consequential is under way. In March Apple launched the MacBook Neo: a $599 entry-level laptop powered by the same A18 Pro chip used in the iPhone 16 Pro. It sold out almost immediately, and Apple reportedly can’t make them fast enough to cope with demand. Apple CEO Tim Cook said it delivered the company’s best launch week yet for first-time Mac customers, and analyst firm Gartner pegged first-quarter 2026 Mac sales growth at 12.7% year on year.
A rumoured Mac mini Neo, reportedly landing near $299 or $399 and with an A19 Pro chip, would amplify the squeeze on Windows PCs.
Apple is no longer competing only at the premium end. By using its manufacturing muscle and “chip binning” — slotting imperfect iPhone silicon that might otherwise be discarded — it is taking direct aim at the Windows PC world. For the first time (possibly ever), the cheapest new laptop worth buying is a Mac.
Meanwhile, Windows 11 has become a bloated mess. The software forces Copilot into every corner of the operating system — something few users want — and settings often reset themselves to favour Microsoft’s preferences, such as changing the default web browser back to its own Edge browser. Author Cory Doctorow has a name for this: enshittification.
There is a structural problem for Microsoft in all this. Its entire AI strategy — from the multibillion-dollar OpenAI partnership to Copilot’s enterprise push — depends on Windows remaining the default desktop. A drift of power users and developers to Mac and Linux does not just lose operating system revenue; it makes Windows and, by extension, Microsoft less relevant to the future of computing.
Microsoft is losing the audience that set the direction in personal computing for decades: power users and gamers
The bigger shift is happening in the PC enthusiast market. Thanks largely to Gabe Newell (co-founder and controlling shareholder of Valve, the company that makes the popular Steam gaming marketplace), gaming on Linux is now basically as good as it is on Windows.
Valve has spent years investing in Proton, a compatibility layer that lets Windows games run on Linux. The last dependency keeping most power users on Microsoft’s operating system — support for modern video games — is rapidly dissolving. Gaming is now a first-class citizen on Linux, even though most games that run on the platform are still built for Windows.
Add up all these developments, and Microsoft is losing the audience that set the direction in personal computing for decades: power users and gamers. Mainstream users will follow, as they always do.
Google, meanwhile, has been chipping away at the low end. Its Chromebooks dominate in US education. When those students enter the workforce, the monoculture that has defined corporate IT since the 1990s may face its first genuine challenge.
Of course, Microsoft remains phenomenally powerful. Its Azure cloud platform is a money-printing machine. Microsoft 365 Copilot (what used to be called Office) is deeply embedded in every enterprise. In South Africa, almost every bank, insurer, mining house and government department runs on a Microsoft software stack, and that’s not something that will unwind quickly.
But inertia does not equal strength. There is nothing stopping organisations from building hardened Linux desktop images for knowledge workers, field staff and contact centre agents. The economics make sense. And a business running mostly on browser-based apps — as many now do — does not actually need Windows as the underpinning.
Microsoft urgently needs a reset on the desktop. There are rumours of a “modular” Windows 12 in the works, designed to cater to different audiences. The company is also promising to dial back Copilot, which, honestly, can’t happen soon enough.
The ground under the desktop PC world is shifting in a way not seen for decades. For the first time since the 1990s, Windows is genuinely at risk of disruption.
If your company’s IT strategy still assumes Microsoft will hold the desktop by default, it is time to revisit that assumption. The alternatives are credible, and they are gaining ground fast.
McLeod is editor of TechCentral
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