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What is a non-consumer operating system?

Krazy Bill

Krazy Bill

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Dec 21, 2011
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Timmy C appears to be pretty proud of this:

2012-09-14 08.19.47 am.jpg



Given the context of the term "consumer" these days, this confirms what I've been saying all along about where OSX is headed. I'm glad somebody finally labeled it.

So WTF is a non-consumer OS and why the need to distinguish the two like PC Mag did?
 
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I would add most server editions of commercial OS's since they aren't intended for use by the general consumer even though they may be available to them.

When somebody talks of a consumer OS they are talking about the stock OSX or Windows 7 (generally whatever edition comes with the machine), or perhaps a specific build of Linux. It would be an OS that is sold to the consumer for general use purposes instead of a dedicated task or task.
 
Ubuntu / Linux and the other clones...I run an Ubuntu box to play with big terminal commands...Just for fun.

It has a pretty basic GUI, but if you wanted to get away from consumer based operating systems it works perfectly. A home user could easily use any of the flavours at home and do pretty much anything a day to day tasking environment on a consumer OS would do.
 
You used to be able to do everything on a computer.

Now the computer does everything for you.

In my opinion, a consumer OS is an OS that does everything for you- with little or no option to change the default behaviour. A non-consumer OS goes out of it's way to offer you power and expandability at the expense of simplicity.

NeXTSTEP, OpenStep, OS/2 Warp, Windows 3.1 through to 7, BeOS, Linux, Free/Net/OpenBSD are non-consumer OSs.

Mac OS X and Windows 8 are consumer OSs. They sacrifice usability and options for bling and simplicity.

-SC
 
This response is obviously oriented toward an audience that knows nothing of the operating systems listed. Windows 7 Home Premium not a consumer OS? Then what is its purpose? If BeOS was not a consumer OS, then what was its intended market? As for MacOS X, what computer task do you have that cannot be done using MacOS X?
 
Consumer OS: An OS which intended to be sold to individual users who's primary use is at home.

Non Consumer OS: An OS which is intended to be sold to businesses. e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Windows Enterprise Edition, etc...


It's as simple as that.
 
SupadudeX said:
It's as simple as that.
Click to expand...
Disagree.

The word "consumer" is spewed around too much these days. I basically take it to mean, cheap, lesser, inferior, non-professional, etc. And I think there's some "cover-your-ass" politics going on with PC Mag's statement. If you remove the word consumer they would be saying:

"Once again, OS X takes the prize as the world's best operating system" :eek:

Which is of course, a bit overzealous and I can see why the reviewer wouldn't want to go out on a limb like that. Perhaps the word "General" could have been used instead.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the future of OSX but looking at Tim Cook proudly standing next to that slide pretty much sums up Apple's future or (or non-future) in the Prosumer and enterprise market. No surprise. The writing has certainly been on the wall for some time. :(

All in my paranoid opinion of course. :)
 
Krazy Bill said:
All in my paranoid opinion of course. :)
Click to expand...

One that isn't based on Occam's razor or simple logic. A consumer OS is one that is designed and sold for consumers. It doesn't imply anything about simplicity or anything else of the sort. If it is sold/distributed in a channel (digital included) that is intended for consumers (the average person) it's a consumer OS. If it isn't sold that way, it's not.

Windows and Mac are consumer OS's because they are sold to the public as consumers for use in consumer applications. Windows Server, Embedded Linux, whatever is on the Mars Rover - those are not consumer OS because they are not sold to consumers nor intended to be used for such things.
 
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