Comments on: Windows is on its Last Legs!?

By: Four months closer to 2010… « Limulus

Four months closer to 2010… « Limulus — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:32:28 +0000

[...] April 17: an excerpt from this article: “Something’s happening here and it is very clear. Windows is losing its grip on the desktop. It [...]

By: other

other — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:23:07 +0000

Maybe it’s because Amazon is one of the few places that you can get mass-produced Linux based PCs? How many PCs does Amazon sell compared to say, Dell, HP, Lenovo, TigerDirect and other Microsoft shills? Even Dell, that made a big deal about offering Linux PCs, made sure to hide its offering behind multiple layers of obfuscated web layers to make sure there wasn’t too many sales to upset Microsoft. Does it even offer them anymore?

So what Amazon offers is hardly of any consequence in the market. Microsoft still has a lock on the manufacturers, and we’re still stuck paying the Microsoft tax if we want non-bespoke hardware offered by most (all?) of the major manufacturers. We still have no choice here in North America unless we want to build our own machines from scratch, or purchase from one of very few manufacturers that offer alternatives.

At least in France they ruled such tactics illegal. But France is one of the few countries that has real consumer protection laws. Unlike North America, where consumers are considered just walking wallets that corporations are allowed to “target” and harvest anytime the feel like it, with very little protection for the consumer from the predatory practices of companies like Microsoft.

By: pogson

pogson — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:13:26 +0000

“There is, after all, an enormous installed base of Windows PCs out there.”

The Vista installed base is not that enormous. It is small and growing at roughly one-third the rate of consumer PC production. GNU/Linux and Mac OS can catch that because they are growing much faster. What will happen when XP is killed off? Will business start installing Vista by default? Some. Others may cling to XP for a few years, holding back Vista growth, and really opening eyes to GNU/Linux because GNU/Linux is more business-like than Mac OS which has hardware lock-in.

If M$ promotes a server OS to the desktop in 2009/10 they would have to strip all the bloat. What would that tell the 100+ million suckers who bought Vista? Will they want a refund or will they want to throw more money at M$? I think the consumer will be educated in the process and not accept M$ as the default computing platform because M$ does not deliver on the promises. Retail channels will also be disappointed. They lost out on Christmas sales in 2007. If people expect a new product in 2009, they may hold back in Christmas 2008. M$ is taking hits from all sides and will never recover, even if the next release is peachy. They will be seen by all as gougers and unreliable partners. Expect more retailers to give more shelf space to GNU/Linux.

The future is bright for GNU/Linux. It has none of the baggage M$ carries by its own choices. GNU/Linux will run well on almost anything and drivers are becoming less of a problem as are applications. Once M$’s share slides, the apps will flow to GNU/Linux to avoid sliding with M$.