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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.

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