A recent twist in this story involves IBM, a company that has long supported Windows and Intel but has also begun backing Linux. IBM is selling its PC division to the Chinese PC-maker Lenovo, which implies that IBM has an intense interest in pursuing Linux further. Still, even if the world's most-populated country pushes out Microsoft in favor of Linux (as it has been doing over the past year), this is one battle that isn't likely to affect the way you use your PC.

Son Of Mozilla

It often seems that Microsoft would like to consider the battle for the Web browser as already fought and won. Netscape Navigator once reigned supreme, and Internet Explorer proceeded to stamp it nearly out of existence. End of story.

But then innovations began to occur in browser development, and a buzz started among Web surfers that you didn't have to settle for IE's staid feature set. NetCaptor introduced tabbed browsing, which lets you keep multiple sites open at once without having to open a new window for each. The Opera browser incorporated tabbed browsing, as well, and added its own email and chat features. With Navigator and Opera still in the picture, and other browsers taking tiny slices of the market-share pie chart, the Mozilla browser emerged two years ago as IE's chief challenger.

Since then, Mozilla.org's free Firefox browser has taken the lead. Firefox has become extraordinarily popular, surpassing 20 million downloads as of this writing and helping to push down IE's share from 95.5% in June 2004 to 90.3% in January 2005.

Firefox offers the tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, RSS (Rich Site Summary) newsfeed, security, and other features consumers want. (To see a feature-by-feature comparison of Firefox and IE, check out "The Battle For The Browser" on page 56.) But at this point IT departments (especially large ones) are hesitant to accept an IE alternative. Because IE is a huge target for online attackers, prompting Microsoft to frequently issue security updates for its browser, some companies have publicly chosen to move to Firefox. Indeed, Firefox is more secure than IE by design, prompting you before letting anything suspicious hit your PC. But because IE better integrates with other applications and offers greater administrative control over individual desktops, chances are the IE-Firefox battle won't affect your work PC.

The Big Brand Era

Apple and Google are, at press time, in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots for the most-recognized brand, according to the latest survey from Brandchannel. Although Apple seems to rely more on brand identification for the success of its products than does Google, these two companies (with Firefox in the wings) will undoubtedly have the biggest effect on how you use your PC.

Google clearly dominates the search engine arena, with 41.6% of the market share compared to Yahoo!'s 31.5%, MSN's 27.4%, and AOL's 13.6%, according to the latest report from Nielsen//NetRatings. Google has used that popularity to drive skyrocketing ad sales and an overwhelmingly successful IPO launch. If Google had remained solely in the search business, though, it wouldn't pose nearly the threat to Microsoft that it does today.

With the release of Google Desktop Search, Google has hit upon a Windows soft spot. Microsoft has long recognized that users want to have more control over their data—how to label, organize, and retrieve it. Although the WinFS file system was intended to be a complete overhaul of previous Windows file systems and was slated for inclusion in the next major Windows release (aka Longhorn, due for release in 2006), a significant aspect of its appeal was to be user-friendly file searching.

In effect, then, Google Desktop Search, Yahoo! Deskop Search, and similar products are ways in which competitors are affecting your PC before Microsoft gets the chance to include comparable changes in future Windows versions.

Every battle we've discussed so far affects the software side of your PC; the ongoing Apple-Microsoft rivalry will have more of an effect on the hardware. Apple's cool product designs (think iPod) have so captivated the public imagination, that increasing numbers of Windows users drool over the prospect of switching to the Mac.

Cost, though, and incompatibility with Windows software, have prevented mass switching. Until recently, that is, when Apple launched its $499 Mac mini and reduced PowerBook prices by up to $200. Big PC-makers such as Dell might dismiss the potential effect on design, but rest assured that smart PC-makers will think more like Apple when creating new PCs.

More Ahead

In addition to the cover story articles we mentioned above, check out "The Battle Over Web-Based Email" for a comparison of MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Google's Gmail. And read "The Battle Over Portable Tech Entertainment" for a look at how Microsoft's music offerings stack up with Apple's.

by Cal Clinchard