The above image, taken from this blog, is sobering for a long-time Windows guy like myself. The Mac marketshare numbers continue to grow, and if this image is any indication what the average college student is using, I wonder what sorts of shifts we’ll start to see in market share five years from now? As much as I like Vista, it just doesn’t measure up to what I was expecting to see from an operating system that had been worked on for five years. Will Vista be remembered as the tipping point for when Microsoft’s empire started to fall? I sure hope not, but I’ve lost count of the number of people I know that have switched to OS X…
This is truely interesting and sobering for microsoft, but if the EU gets a bit twitchy about the bundling of media player in their OS being monopoly, what are they going to do when every other PC manufacturer starts to die. Truth is the above picture won’t expand to everywhere because Apple as the sole provider of IS cannot be tolerated. What could happen though is OS X on all the kit we currently associate with windows, a path made possible by Apples adoption of the intel architecture. All it needs is for them to start selling their OS independant of Kit.
Of course this will expose the OS to the vast plethora of hardware that Windows is expected to just support and this could lead to some support issues. It will also expose the OS to the attentions of the Crackers and malware creators as it becomes the biggest platform for computing…..
An interesting thought! But do you remember when Apple licensed their OS to clone vendors in the ’90s? Apple thought that most people would still prefer the Apple hardware….and Apple hardware sales tanked because people cared more about saving money than about how their systems looked. Apple revoked the licensing agreements (or didn’t renew them, same thing) and all those companies went kaput. It’s the most brutal, predatory thing an OS company could do – and Apple did it. But that’s Apple: they’re 200% more ruthless and brutal than Microsoft ever was on their worst day. One of many reasons why I don’t want to live in an Apple world…
Jason, couple points in response:
1. What does it mean to be a “Windows guy”? I call myself a “computer guy”, not a “Windows guy”. I use different OSes daily in getting my work done. It’s all about using the right tool.
2. Apple is not an OS company. They happen to be a hardware company that makes an OS to sell their hardware. Apple revoked the licenses because the company was in danger of going bankrupt. Call it predatory if you like, but it was really their only choice at the time.
3. Your ruthless comparison is… comparing (sorry for the pun) apples and oranges. I’ve said it before, and I truly believe it: Apple seeks to control their product, while Microsoft seeks to control the market. Both are kinds of lock-in at different levels. You don’t want to live in an Apple world, fine. 😉 But you do live in a Microsoft world, one that would be surprisingly hard to break out of. 🙂
Oh, and one other thing: the above pic is highly unusual, even today.
Back in my day we used pen and paper to take notes in class. And if we wanted a distraction during class, we did crossword puzzles which were at least educational. Now you whippersnappers just surf the net when you are bored in class. 😉