Following on from my ‘ Windows 7 is ace’ post yesterday I came across this blog post from Computerworld in which Mr Vaughan-Nichols crows about the fact that Microsoft recently posted a last quarter earnings drop of 30 per cent, its first year-on-year decline in its public history.

Now reading the post its clear the Mr Vaughan-Nichols is an open source advocate and has an anti-Microsoft axe to grind. However, I do think he has a point.

As I said yesterday, I do like Windows 7. I also like the idea of Microsoft Mesh, though it still needs work, and Windows Live Messenger got a good looking spruce up recently too. Windows Server 2008 is also pretty well thought off too. However, I don’t see the point on Hotmail, when you’ve got Gmail and the less said about Live Search the better.

Windows XP, the OS that refuses to die, has also got a new lease of life on Netbooks, but that’s not necessarily been to the benefit of its bottom line, as it’s simply slashed prices to claw market share away from the ‘evil Linux threat’.

In fact to my mind, Microsoft’s approach to dealing with Linux is akin to how the US government used to deal with the cold war threat from Communism. Get in there, disrupt things and overthrow incumbents without much of a long term strategy. What do you end up with Windows XP given away for practically for free, Linux squashed underfoot, and the future promise of Windows 7 Starter Edition, which unbelievably is said to only let three applications be open at once.

The problem though for Microsoft is not that it just hasn’t made much of a dent in Google’s search and online advertising business, but that it’s earned far less over the past year in its office, server and Windows divisions – namely the cash cows of its business.

Naturally there are those who will point to the current economic climate as the reason for Microsoft’s trouble, but the degree of its losses are such that it just feels like more than that. And it’s also worth pointing out that Apple has managed to post a 15 per cent growth figure in the same time frame.

The suggestion is that Microsoft has become that which is originally sought to destroy and to take down - it has become IBM. It’s relevancy it’s fading, it’s clearly struggling for influence.

Is this true? In my opinion, it is and this could be a first clear marker of an overall downward trend.

Of course that’s not going to change the fact the Windows 7 is a real positive move but I think that to become as successful as it once one, Microsoft is really going to have innovate in other areas, and historically, it’s just not that sort of company.  And while super cheesy salesman Ballmer is in charge, I don’t think that’s likely to change.

I have to admit that I’m mildly excited with the news that the release Windows 7 release candidate will be available on Friday. (I must stress mildly, I’m not that sad. Am I?)

FYI it will be available for Technet and MSDN subscribers sometime next week, while the great unwashed will have to wait until next week – 5 May. (Actually, that’s the wrong way round isn’t it – let’s face it, MSDN and Technet subscribers are far more likely to be unwashed – I’m not so sure about the great bit… anyway I digress).

As I was saying, the point it, that I’m actually going to bother do download and install it as soon as I can.(Hopefully it will install directly over older builds). You see I’m rather enamoured of Windows 7, and I’m running it, as many of the techie sorts are over the way at PC Pro, on my main machine.

Having given up the ghost on my official Windows XP powered Dennis Publishing laptop, on account of it being as slow as a very slow thing on a particular sluggish day in Slowland, I had the opportunity to use a MacBook Pro as my main work machine. Nice.

And for a good while I did, running Windows Vista inside Parallels, in order to get the best of both worlds. I did this you see, as I wanted m Mac grooviness (not enough people use the word groovy anymore I feel), but I also couldn’t give up on Outlook and Xobni, a powerful combination that I like a lot, especially considering Microsoft’s Outlook equivalent for Mac, Entourage is frankly, rubbish.

However, as Windows 7 beta wouldn’t run under Parallels on the Mac I had to install in on yet another machine – but since I’ve got it all going the MacBook Pro has stayed in the draw, which is a bit of a waste of a Macbook Pro if I’m thinking about it.

In fact, I’ve just come to the realisation that if I had to spend my own money I think I would actually prefer a Windows 7 machine over a Mac. As great as Mac OS X is, I don’t think it’s got any great draw over Windows – especially for a work machine. More specifically it’s also about the application – I like Office 2007 a lot more than Office 2008 for the Mac, which feels dates – and if I want to use Outlook and Xobni, then I might as well do it natively.

Thinking about it, on a Mac the best apps as far as I’m concerned are still iPhoto and iMovie – which means that for me, the ideal machines would be an iMac at home and a Windows 7 machine at work. And as for fun, well I guess it’s not a PC either these days – it’s a console.

So a PC for the boring stuff and a Mac for the creative stuff. It seems then that old clichés are still true.