The Death of Microsoft?

[IJ Reilly]

If someone wants a Windows PC they can go to Best Buy, Circuit City, or Dell and pick from a plethora of machines, accessories, hardware options, and applications to run. If someone wants a Mac they can to Apple.com, an Apple Store or a local Apple Reseller like Best Buy for their hardware and software needs. Are their comparable retail solutions if one wanted to run a Linux machine?

You've put your finger on it. The open source advocates have always operated under the assumption that the "free, as in beer" aspects of Linux would overcome the disadvantages of not having a commercial infrastructure to promote and support it. In reality, this is a limitation, not an advantage.

 

[hiimamac]

I count that the 384657785 time Steve Jobs has contradicted himself.

You know, as much as I like Apple (although I can't stand their scheme of not releasing a decent mb or mini (graphics), and could go on and on how for PRO use (anything to do with graphics has to be done on a MBP or Mac Pro)...

I was reading a book not to long ago and found this...

The book went on to say about bosses and bad people to work for:
Does your boss make false claims?
Does your boss put down the competition?
and 3 other questions and went on to say the person is insecure and not good to work with, but seriously, every question could be anwsered YES to for Steve Jobs, especially the whole PUTTING down windows thing.

And wouldn't it be funny that since Apple can run windows (I don't see Apple asking Bill if it's okay) that if a company came out with a computer (HP, (new TOUCH), Dell, and said, hey apple, if you can run Windows, we're going to make machines that run OSX...

There are some you know (and I know this might come as a shock) that simply cannot stand OSX and this ranges from proffesional users (who need to be able to buy the fastest graphic card, to business users, that simply must have a piece of software that is PC only, to gamers who can sometimes get almost 2 times faster off of their CPU/FSB Memory).....I know, I know, hard to believe, but they are out there. So I don't think MSFT is going anywhere and being one of the richest companies, if something were to look bleak, Bill could say, the OS is not doing so well, then snap up Nvidia, Dell, HP, Sun and build a Computer/OS machine and let the "foul" anti trust crap go in one ear and out the other if it ever got that bad.

I just posted about the new TOUCH by HP (not out yet), imagine if Gates bought HP and then sun micro's LOOKING GLASS and then started his own line of PC's that ran windows (if you wanted) or HP's touch or "Project Looking Glass" by SUN, and you know the machines would be just as fast, if not faster than a mac, plus would allow you to upgrade to any graphic card, and probably come in way below a iMac or Mac Pro...

HP TOUCH (coming soon)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwoAxSvYCzk
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/touchsmart/#/Main/

I see TOUCH computing becoming very popular in pro use for video editing, music production (touching faders), graphics (for mask's) and for the consumer, for games, video chatting, music mixing (DJ).

We'll see.

 

[jf8]

I have to disagree with that. Vista's unusability is why I have a mac. For most people vista will work fine but for hardcore users who are doing tons of data backup, iso creation, cpu intensive tasks the freezeups and slowness of the system makes it unusable. I know I have more machines at my disposal to test with then anyone in this forum and this is a problem I found with most (not all) of the vista machines I've been on. For some of us it truly is an unusable OS. But, I truly thank Vista because without Vista constantly crashing in the middle of large data transfers I wouldn't have a mac today (Not to mention Vistas problems keep me employed.)

How exactly is OS X is any better? On an iMac 2.4GHz 4GB RAM, I find no significant difference between OS X Leopard and Vista SP1 with regards to I/O performance or system performance while performing CPU-bound tasks. I find that the limiting factor when running either OS is hardware speed... unless the system is swapping, which is easy to do with 1GB of RAM on OS X or Vista.

 

[FoxyKaye]

Everyone seems to be deliberately missing my comment about business usage. Already IT departments spend months tailoring Windows builds to the particular needs of their users. Now as I'm working amongst IT people I'm noticing a definite trend. Senior IT management are very pro-Windows whereas the smarter techies are very pro-Linux. In a few years time these smarter techies are going to start getting into decision making positions. They aren't afraid of Linux like the current crop of managers who cut their teeth in Microsoft-only shops. I'm telling you now. Linux will start making serious headway into the corporate world before you know it.

I'll jump in to the fray here and say that I'm a one-woman tech department at a nonprofit, and it's on my roadmap to pull a sandbox system offline early next year and start playing with Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox and so forth with the intention of determining its feasibility for some of our more "everyday" workstation users (folks who check email, browse the Web, use Word/Excel, and that's about all).

To me, it's about how I want to spend my time: there has hardly been a user issue I couldn't solve in OS X, but Apple hardware is much more expensive. Plus, if Linux is still a "lighter" OS than OS X, I'll get more years of use out of our systems. I couldn't support as many Windows users as I do Mac users, which is why in a staff of 25 we have three Windows machines. So, if Ubuntu is as mature as I've been reading, and OpenOffice continues to evolve, I can get a better ROI on older Intel hardware that doesn't need to run Photoshop, Final Cut, or some Windows or Mac specific program like a few of our workstations do. I'm definitely investigating doing a pilot with 1-3 users next year with Ubuntu, and if it goes well, start deploying it into the mix come 2010.

Yeah, I'll need to re-learn Linux (I haven't touched it since the early days of Red Hat and Yellow Dog), and I'm sure our users will have some new support issues, but to me breaking my organization's complete dependency on Apple and Microsoft is a noble (if not completely attainable) goal. Especially since so much of the software, including Ubuntu itself, is free.

 

[FoxyKaye]

You've put your finger on it. The open source advocates have always operated under the assumption that the "free, as in beer" aspects of Linux would overcome the disadvantages of not having a commercial infrastructure to promote and support it. In reality, this is a limitation, not an advantage.

Ayup. The burden of support falls to the user. However, I'd argue that in some cases this is OK, especially for specific purposes and goals.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Ayup. The burden of support falls to the user. However, I'd argue that in some cases this is OK, especially for specific purposes and goals.

It may be okay for some purposes, but it's not an advantage.

 

[LethalWolfe]

You've put your finger on it. The open source advocates have always operated under the assumption that the "free, as in beer" aspects of Linux would overcome the disadvantages of not having a commercial infrastructure to promote and support it. In reality, this is a limitation, not an advantage.

Speaking of free (talk about a perfect setup), one of my favorite geek proverbs is, "Linux is only free if you time isn't worth anything." The free (as in free speech) aspect of Linux is what really sets it apart and while that bodes well for power users and techies it bodes not so well for typical end users who need more of a computing appliance and less of a computing erector set. I'd love to see Linx really come into it's own and make it a viable three way fight between Linx, OS X and Windows but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I see TOUCH computing becoming very popular in pro use for video editing, music production (touching faders), graphics (for mask's) and for the consumer, for games, video chatting, music mixing (DJ).
We'll see.

Speaking as an editor I don't see touch interfaces (like something from Minority Report) becoming all that popular for editing for the same reasons I don't see professional typists ditching their keyboards in favor of a gesture based touch interface.


Lethal

 

[IJ Reilly]

Speaking of free (talk about a perfect setup), one of my favorite geek proverbs is, "Linux is only free if you time isn't worth anything." The free (as in free speech) aspect of Linux is what really sets it apart and while that bodes well for power users and techies it bodes not so well for typical end users who need more of a computing appliance and less of a computing erector set. I'd love to see Linx really come into it's own and make it a viable three way fight between Linx, OS X and Windows but I'm not going to hold my breath.

This is almost exactly what I've been saying for years. It seems to really tick off the Linux advocates.