As we ramp up to another Windows release – lots of pundits are talking about the good and bad of Windows 8. Ed Bott (of Zdnet) recently published a novel idea that we’re looking at another Windows XP all over again – and how badly that turned out. I encourage you to check it out, if you can read it all. It’s, of course, all very stupid.

Enter a great blog over at RoughlyDrafted.com by Daniel Eran Dilger. In it, he talks about all sorts of things –  but the biggest idea is that we’re not looking at another Windows XP. Perhaps most telling right now is that Microsoft is not enjoying the kind of monopoly they did back in 2001 with Windows XP. People today have a number of different choices. Daniel says:

Volume value that once supported Microsoft and Intel (enough to coin a popular portmanteau) is now increasingly, and exclusively, benefitting Apple. This is enormously important.

We all need to see this for what it is, Microsoft’s biggest actual gamble. In the past, it was rhetoric, and on October 26th, the stakes look to be higher than ever for Microsoft.