Valve is releasing a free operating system next year which will be a direct threat to Microsoft’s Windows OS. Dubbed SteamOS
Valve have of course built a reputation in the computer gaming community for Steam – a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform.
Steam is used to distribute games and related media online, from small independent developers to larger software houses; in October 2012, Valve expanded the service to include non-gaming software. Though initially developed for use on Microsoft Windows, the client has expanded to include OS X and Linux versions, and clients with limited functionality on the PlayStation 3 console and for both iOS and Android mobile devices. In addition to being a central hub for gaming software, Valve has created a version of Steam with altered functionality to be used in schools for educational software, including a modified version of Portal 2 for teaching science and critical thinking lessons.
Justin Jaynes writes at Seeking Alpha that the reason he feels SteamOS has the potential to be a disruptive force to Microsoft due to the sheer size of the user base. As of 2012, Steam had 54 million active users. Insignificant when you consider that Microsoft projected an active 1.3Billion Windows users in 2012
The argument has some sound rationale but history has proven that even in the face of ‘free’, Microsoft manages to hold on to mainstream advocacy through a legacy of past use and continued new releases and support for core products like Microsoft Office. Challengers like LibreOffice have failed to make a significant difference. There are several alternatives to Microsoft Office but are they really alternatives that the corporate mainstream will consider particularly now that Microsoft is pushing Office365.
