Skip to main content

When will people switch from Microsoft?

( I posted this on the ProFox mailing list but I liked the ending enough to want to state it here. Granted I've been wrong before - but people don't change unless they see the real benefit)

Until someone comes out with a truly revolutionary O/S, I can't see it happening. Corporations move slowly - sometimes even slower than governments.

Linux needs a killer application. The Mac had graphics. They got the niche market - everyone who is involved in graphical design prefers a mac. Just because the bitheads prefer Linux isn't going to be enough. Especially, when Linux/desktop tries so hard to look just like Windows just to get it into the corporate door.

I remember back in 90 and 91, I was playing with Windows 2.x and a colleage pulled me aside and showed me this thing called OS/2. I simply shrugged. Minor revisions on an interface aren't going to cut it. This is why so many people still run Windows 98, only upgrading to Windows XP when they get a new machine.

If Linux wants to make a difference, then they need to change something in a big way. Not just the dollars and cents but the landscape. Don't think it can be done? The Internet did it in a big way - they changed the entire concept of single clicking for an entire generation but also in a positive way. If HTML and web browsers were only available on a single type of O/S, would it have been as revolutionary? Well - I could argue that that O/S would have become the one embedded onto small tablet style devices and the like but HTTP was simply a transport and HTML simply a text version and every O/S jumped on board.

Everything I hear from every camp is more variations of the same. XAML vs XUL - cripes it's a TEXT file that creates an interface (ANY o/s should be able to support it).

And right now, all these vendors want all the applications to work together so you can switch between each environment without noticing a problem. So what's the real reason to switch?

You want to work with other operating systems? No problem. I want to work as many as possible.

You want me to CHANGE operating systems? Change my world or at least make my world THAT MUCH BETTER. Then I'll consider it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elevating Project Specifications with Three Insightful ChatGPT Prompts

For developers and testers, ChatGPT, the freely accessible tool from OpenAI, is game-changing. If you want to learn a new programming language, ask for samples or have it convert your existing code. This can be done in Visual Studio Code (using GitHub CoPilot) or directly in the ChatGPT app or web site.  If you’re a tester, ChatGPT can write a test spec or actual test code (if you use Jest or Cypress) based on existing code, copied and pasted into the input area. But ChatGPT can be of huge value for analysts (whether system or business) who need to validate their needs. There’s often a disconnect between developers and analysts. Analysts complain that developers don’t build what they asked for or ask too many questions. Developers complain that analysts haven’t thought of obvious things. In these situations, ChatGPT can be a great intermediary. At its worst, it forces you to think about and then discount obvious issues. At best, it clarifies the needs into documented requirements. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com

MS has just introduced their portal and it's pretty comprehensive. Nothing quite like learning that some people use AIM instead of MSN messenger, or that there really may be a need for supporting 4 monitors ( Cyrus Complains ) However, it's really a great sign that MS is serious about supporting the blogging community which seems to have um, exploded in size in the past year. Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com
1 comment
Read more

I’m Supposed to Know

https://programmingzen.com/im-supposed-to-know/ Great post for developers who are struggling with unrealistic expectations of what they should know and what they shouldn't. Thirty-forty years ago, it was possible to know a lot about a certain environment - that environment was MS-DOS (for non Mac/UNIX systems). . There was pretty much only a handful of ways to get things going. Enter networking. That added a new wrinkle to how systems worked. Networks back then were finicky. One of my first jobs was working on a 3COM + LAN and it then migrated to LAN Manager. Enter Windows or the graphical user interface. The best depiction of the complexity Windows (OS/2, Windows NT, etc) introduced that I recall was by Charles Petzold (if memory serves) at a local user group meeting. He invited a bunch of people on the stage and then acted as the Windows "Colonel", a nice play on kernel. Each person had a role but to complete their job they always had to pass things back to h...
Post a Comment
Read more