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Is Windows Losing Ground?

Posted by Cliff on from the erosion-of-dominance dept.

Rimbo asks: "I work for a small company developing wireless mesh networks to (among other things) give broadband access to large areas where a single access point can't cover the whole place. Since we're small, we made the mesh networking application for Windows, intending to support other platforms later. To our surprise, our first beta site complained: 'Most of our residents use Apples.' Has anyone else experienced anything similar? Is Windows losing its dominance to the point where small shops must consider multiple OS support to get business, either through Java, 'web services,' or cross-platform toolkits like Qt?" With the number of IE vulnerabilities, macro viruses, exploits and other such annoyances over the years, is this really that surprising?

3 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Science at its best by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    yeah. i think this is a bit of a non story*. but will probably get loads of replies (and a big PC/Mac flamewar going) anyway.

    *where are all the stories from people who found Windows support was needed?

  2. MCSE == Unemployment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    I've been travelling around to a few meetings and conferences and I notice that OS X and Linux users are unusually large. At one conference, it looked to be about 60% OS X. At another, the ratio was nearly100% the first day tapering off to about 60% as the conference tech crew was able to go one on one with users get their Windows machines working with the wireless network.

    Of the people that I talk to that are unemployed, these are the ones with heavy emphasis on Windows. Yes, I run into Windows caretakers that are still employed, but in the last month 100% of the unemployed I've met are Windows geeks.

    So yes, it looks like Windows is losing ground. If the OEMs and hardware manufacturers are freed from the onerous licensing requirements that prevent interoperability with anything other than Windows, then we'll really see a drop off.

  3. Re:My company is jumping on Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    This is about as good a place as any to point out that Mac OS X is an excellent platform for Java development.