

Windows is so irrelevant - timurlenk
http://uiorean.ro/world/2010/01/windows-is-so-irrelevant/

======
shin_lao
Microsoft sold a large amount of Windows 7 licenses - see:
<http://beta.thehindu.com/business/article96694.ece>

People use Windows because they like it and they can do a lot of work with
this operating system. Stop believing that people use Windows because they are
forced to.

As for the rest of this article, I have the feeling I'm being fed with a list
of peremptory choices based on little or no field experience.

I'd like to see more examples of strategic choices of choosing an OS vs
another and the impact it had on a deployment.

~~~
fnid2
I bought a mac book because it could run windows. I installed windows on it
and i have tried unsuccessfully to get into the mac side of things. The dvd
player doesn't work under windows, so i boot to mac to watch movies and such,
but I always go back to windows.

Under Mac, I don't like the way the mouse moves. I don't like the window
resizing. I don't like that I can't maximize a window. I don't like it isn't
really all that stable. I get the spinny rainbow wheel. I've seen other
people's macs lock up in the middle of a presentation. I find the mac
constricting.

You may disagree with me, which is fine. But to say that people use windows
because they are forced to isn't true. I use windows because I prefer it.
Maybe it's just familiar. I dunno. I started out on Apple IIe's decades ago,
but I don't really have a problem with windows. I think most microsoft issues
are religious. When you add up the hardware and the software for a PC, they're
much cheaper than macs. The hardware is nice, but I probably won't buy another
one for myself.

EDIT: I do wonder sometimes if I'm "holding myself back" by not learning
another environment. I do understand the advantages to *nix and another reason
I bought the mac was the underlying kernel for the OS. Perhaps I just got
locked in. I don't find it unsettling though.

~~~
Zak
Much of the dislike for Microsoft is historical. At various points, Microsoft
has beaten competitors by means other than making the best product at the best
price, and some of us don't really like doing business with that sort of
company.

There's also the fact that some versions of Windows have been less than
shining examples of the art of computer programming. Perceptions of a brand
take a while to improve. 7 doesn't seem too bad, but Vista wasn't exactly
universally loved, and some of us still remember Windows ME.

As for price - my Thinkpad was only cheaper than a Macbook Pro because it was
refurbished. I don't think it's fair to compare either to a lower-priced
consumer-grade PC with similar specs on paper.

~~~
ewams
Because Apple does not throw its own weight around? Ok.

~~~
Zak
I'm not defending Apple here. I'm explaining why people don't like Microsoft.

~~~
fnid2
Perhaps you're also describing why people will come to dislike Apple in the
future?

~~~
Zak
Perhaps, but I think people dislike Apple now (and probably in the future)
because of their insistence on a locked-down and controlled experience
regardless of what users and third-party developers want.

------
fierarul
> I will stay away from free products based on Linux and some comodity
> servers, I will focus only on commercially supported products with provide
> reliability.

A company will feel no shame in using Linux and commodity servers. Not
everything needs to have a support contract attached to it, quite the
contrary.

My rule is simpler: laptops are macs, servers are linux on commodity machines
(or VPS) and windows sits in virtual machines for testing.

~~~
Kliment
I believe it was meant as a thought experiment - even when actively avoiding
free solutions, your best shot is a non-microsoft setup. That's how I
understood the article.

------
trebor
The article is taking one of two stances, but never formally (or clearly)
states which. Either it's arguing that Windows is irrelevant because there is
comparable software for no cost, or that the continued existence of Windows as
an OS is pointless.

I'll freely admit that I host _all_ my websites on a Linux machine. As a web
server Linux is just better for PHP & Ruby. My development is on a Dell Studio
1555 with Windows 7, since I cannot afford the Mac price tag (I even got this
one on a $150 off sale!).

But I still don't see why a $20 billion market is "irrelevant".

Now, that $20 billion is partly due to the fact of all the pent up demand for
a working version of Vista. Remember that when ME flopped XP sold quite
well... so it's not irrational to assume that W7 has prospered thanks to the
failure of Vista.

------
unwind
... and so is Linux, apparently, since the world is about to switch to Macs on
the desktop. That comes naturally once the admins have had to to learn BSD by
picking non-Linux-based server/backend solutions. Excuse me while I go hold my
breath.

~~~
wendroid
Indeed. And while OSX might have a BSD heritage the command line isn't exactly
where it's at with OSX.

Strikes me as being written by someone that does more reading than building.

~~~
rbanffy
OSX makes me feel nostalgic. Every time I open the terminal, I feel like I am
on a VT-100 running Unix on a VAX...

Seriously: having no package management as a central part of the OS is so
70's... The next step could be charging extra for compilers...

~~~
robin_reala
Installing MacPorts is trivial.

~~~
zppx
Have you ever tried to delete every file that a .pkg installation creates on
your hard drive, good luck! I think this is what he was trying to say, even
slackware has a better package management than OS X... MacPorts mitigate this
for some software but not all, but I still prefer pkgsrc.

------
empika
No mention of Sunacle hardware and software?

