I'm a simple person so I will keep it simple. If another company wants to create a new operating system to compete with Windows then do it. If they build it better, advertise it and price it correctly many will buy it. Microsoft has a huge market just because we keep buying them. There are choices out there.No one stuck a gun to my head and made me to buy Windows 7, I chose to and I'm happy I did.
Yes, this is a simple viewpoint and it makes sense when you don't think it through.
Take a guess at how hard it would be as an independent developer, making a new operating system to get the third party manufacturers to release specs or give you any assistance at all with getting their drivers into your new operating system.
Then imagine, if you took your independent operating system to Dell, HP, IBM, Gateway, Acer, Asus, Hitachi, Toshiba and asked them to start selling machines that included your independent OS rather than Windows. Yeah guess what....these vendors get a reduced price on Windows, from Microsoft, but
they are just about required by Microsoft to include Windows and nothing but Windows on their machines in order to retain their business. Sadly, these vendors cannot afford to get these contracts cut...nor can they survive in the marketplace without offering Windows...so they are stuck.
Now, also imagine the uphill battle you would have to design a new OS that would work well within a network of Microsoft boxes. If you wanted to participate, you might pay massively out the nose for the insight into the SDK's and such to even have your machine participate on an SMB network. Of course, unless you totally ate that cost, you would have to pass it onto your customers. It's getting very hard now to keep a reasonable price. And if you attempted to reverse engineer the technology...you would get your pants sued off of you by Microsoft claiming copyright and intellectual property infringements which would tie you up endlessly in courts...because you likely don't have the venture capital to battle Microsoft in the court systems.
I think as you can see...this market is extremely difficult to get into. Some would say impossible.
Don't get me wrong, I think Windows 7 is solid and I like it a lot. Aside from Apple though, there is no other real competition on the desktop. I think for the average joe though, if you cannot afford a macintosh computer and you are buying a retail machine...it's either Windows or skip having a computer.