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Microsoft Expects 1 Billion Windows Users by 2010
prostoalex writes "The head of Microsoft Windows client division claimed there will be 1 billion Windows users by 2010, while nowadays there are 600 million of them, Microsoft-Watch reports. 35% of Microsoft's enterprise customers are still running Windows 9x and they are ripe for upgrade. Currently Microsoft's desktop PC market share is at 96%, with the closest rival - MacOS from Apple Computer - being installed on 2.8% of the desktops."
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Maybe they should get one of those signs like McDonalds used to have: "over 1 billion served!"
"Who hasn't slipped into the break room for a quick nibble on a love Newton before?" - Mr. Peterman.
As they say, predictions are difficult, especially about the future. What we have here is either bravado or, at best, a marketing goal. Lots of thunder and very little rain. What it's doing in ./ other than as a troll, I don't know.
The post about Earth's magnetic field flipping sounds so much more credible.
1 billion sold -- but poor quality, dangerous for your health, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
What's wrong with being a good server OS, with 1% desktop share?
1% is still a hell of a lot of people, more than enough to keep linux a viable platform worth supporting.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
didnt i read a few days ago in another story that apple was behind linux on the desktop?
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
Is that 1 Billion LEGAL users?
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
2010... is that when they are releasing Longhorn?
-m
#
# Modus Ponens
#
Nothing, but you hear everyone say that Linux will conquer the world. Indeed, they already have done that in de servermarket, but I don't see it coming with desktops.
My photo's.
Indeed it does. However, look at the growth it has had in the last six years, and project that into the next six years ...
If users how many of those users will also be Linux/Mac users?
Maybe someone familiar with set theory can comment here?
Omnis amans amens
1...billion?
Does that include all the 3rd world countries that they're hawking Windows to? All of the Asian markets they intend to monopolise?
This is as close to complete corporate hegemony as we can get. Welcome to the future, sponsored by Microsoft, GE and Exxon Mobil.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Of course, they probably won't have to pay, since many of these countries are fairly lax about copyright laws. In order to really get Linux, the People's OS, out to them it would probably be a good idea to petition their governments to *follow Microsoft's lead* and crack down on software pirates. That drives up the cost of Windows and Linux wins!
Perhaps the interesting claim here is that there will be over a billion computers currently in use in the world (one computer for every seven or people). That is, assuming that 96% figure is correct.
Doesn't one billion PCs sound a little high considering that the vast majority of the world's population doesn't have access to a telephone?
Another MS prediction based on propaganda. Like the Gus Van Sant film, makes me wonder if they see the elephant.
Unplug the mainframe, and 500 little peer to peer servers emerge.
What this article neglects to indicate is, ironically, Fear, Unvertainty, and Doubt. Open source. MS only sees FUD when it is convenient!
tell me I am wrong. Afraid or uncertain that I right?! Ha!
The Custom Mary
Allthough I can't quote any scientific studies or reports I can FEEL something is changing. Everywhere around me people are throwing out Windows, replacing it with Mac OS X or Linux. Internet Explorer is slowly losing market share. A general awareness of alternative platforms is beginning to progress. There have been so much talk in the media about the insecurity of Windows and how other operatingsystems don't have these problems. I really really doubt there will be one billion Windows users by 2010.
The report does not say where these extra 400 million are coming from. I doubt China would embrace MS, with "Red Flag" their pretty puppy.
Short of the smaller emerging countries, which seem to embrace non-MS more often than not, India seems the only place likely being targeted.
Interestingly, the one fact they report - 35% of users in Win9x/NT - would be a perfect focal point for an all-out Linux/Mac ad blitz (whoever wants it the most). That would take over 200 million away from their current base.
I think that by the time Windows gets 1 billion users, all the geeks here at Slashdot would of had hot steamy sex, including me.
flag burning
yeah! who cares? until companies stop buying windows for their pcs - this won't change. I'm an admin for Solaris and Linux -- and I have to use Windows on my laptop....(managed desktop) something to do with exchange something or other...
so we make do with exceed, scrt and putty. poor windows.
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
The slashdot headline says "1 billion users" and my first thought was "what about all the servers, surely there are a significant number of non-windoze servers out there? (more than 4% of the total surely?) but no, the article does actually state "1 billion windoze pcs" rather than 1 billion users.
:(
Shurley Shome Misteak?
Where do all the claims that unix/linux based Apache webservers rule the internet come from? surely there#s SOME truth to them?
I fear this is more marketing hype and FUD from microsoft. Maybe a bid to get developers and business committed to developing for windoze only.
I've come across at least one webmaster who flat out refuses to support anything other than ie5+ on windoze, claiming that it's too hard and not worth the effort cuz "everyone" uses windoze.
Articles like this don't help that thinking at all
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
runs all your favourite RISC OS apps :'(
:
Thanks for reminding me of the Betamax of Desktop OS'es
One day, Bill Gates went to Herman Hauser, head of Acorn, in order to convert him to MSDOS.
Hauser answered
"-Thanks Bill, but we really cannot make that step backwards."
The BBC (RiscPC's ancestors) indeed had network (Econet which spawned ATM), mouse, color and sound while MSDOS almost had directories...
In 1994, my RiscPC had antialiasing, full-screen video and was able to execute Windows on a 486SXL second processor...
So, Microsoft is about to be used by 1/7 of the planet, I guess it's more because they know how to influence people who can take such decisions for their fellows.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
There are still millions upon millions of PCs not connected to a telephone line. Also remember that a lot of people may have more than one PC (I have eight). And telephones are approching PC-dom, with some even running Windows.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
35% of Microsoft's enterprise customers are still running Windows 9x and they are ripe for upgrade.
We'll be sending Guido around to make them an offer they can't refuse.
KFG
i think *Most* might be a huge exaggeration there...most users just by the box, and use the windows that comes preloaded with it...unless you're saying that most *nix users by a pre-loaded box, and then install their favorite distro...but if that's true, then that's a waste, you're better off just building your own...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Do you think they adjust for all the PC's sold with a licensed copy of Windows, then wiped and imaged with a corporate version of Windows that's separately licensed? I think every PC I've seen at work has a Windows product sticker on it, but it doesn't match the actual version installed.
But it's got until 2010 (or 2007 for longhorn?) to get there, with almost no modern competition.
How many windows users will switch when Windows 98 goes unsupported, and microsoft wants $150 per desktop?
How many windows users will switch after 3 more years of regular blaster/sasser style worms?
This is our best opportunity for pushing Linux on the desktop. Try to reduce the numbers of sasser machines I have to clean (I'm a engineer doing support of the general public, or at least that part of it with $$$)
All the article really says is that Microsoft expects all those myriads of people still running Win 95/98/ME/NT workstation to upgrade. Basically, they're counting in much the same way McDonald's counts, in this case, by number of licenses sold. This number is not a measure of active users.
Linux has an opportunity to beat Microsoft to the punch with Longhorn. Application learning curve? Given that few of your existing applications will work in Longhorn, why not learn Linux? Fully developed suite of utilities and applications, you say? Buy a distribution from SuSE, Redhat or Mandrake [insert your distro here]. With Longhorn, Microsoft is giving up the one advantage they really had, the Win32 APIs (a position elaborated very well by Joel Spolsky in his Joel On Software column--sorry I don't have the link handy).
Over One Billion Served!
Somehow fitting, as Windows is to well written software what a Big Mac is to fine cuisine...
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
I'm surprised that a comment like this comes from an MS spokesman. While there may well be that many Windows desktops, they're clearly missing the big picture if that's their target.
Even people who don't use a windows PC will be using windows. Even Linux users, if they use the web. Many sites, like Slashdot, are running through a windows server. And even if you're not interested in the net, Windows will be on a PDA, in your car, and on your set top box.
so they don't like paying for stuff...
maybe they should try.. umm.... umm..... a free alternative, that will probably run a lot of there windows 95 umm... I mean dos apps.
I've been able to play more games using dosemu than using Windows, so I assume more dos application will run under dosemu than under Windows.
Linux 1 Windows (home goal).
If there still using Windows 95, I assume that there not running all the latest apps,in which case then chances are Linux does more than they could wish for, both on the desktop and as a server.
Linux 2, Windows 0
If there still using Windows 95 changes are they don't want to shell out $200 per windows, whatever crap they chuck in suit, seat, $100 for a bit on Linux tech support and a good choice of apps may suite them a hell of a lot better.
Draw.. (It depends what package they go for as to the TCO.)
Linux 2, Windows 0
If there using old custom applications chances are they'll run fine under wine, possibly betther that they will run under windows XP or longhorn.
Linux 1 Windows (home goal).
It looks like Microsofts need for greed and glitter has caught them short with 35% of there customers, Linux could easly move in and give them a more viable upgrade path.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Acutally, Linux is barely holding steady in Server Marketshare, while Windows is increasing fast. Just recently, Microsoft broke 50% for new server shipments. For all the Linux hype, that's pretty impressive.
As of yet, there's little evidence that Linux Servers have really broken out of the "Unix Ghetto" -- Apache/Sendmail/Bind/Oracle and into the much larger file/print and office application markets.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Not paying a dime for their pirated copies.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I hadn't heard of itfacts.biz so I followed the link to their page, which then provides an onward link to a New York Times article about the proliferation of Linux.
You have to subscribe to get into the body of that article, but from the first fifty words the tone does not seem to reflect the "Windows dominates the desktop" story of itfacts.biz.
They are:
GNU Linux, the free computer operating system, has had far more success in winning converts in corporate data centers than on desktop personal computers. But as more user-friendly software makes its way onto the Linux desktop, the free operating system is starting to make progress in its David-vs.-Goliath competition against
"The head of Microsoft Windows client division claimed there will be 1 billion Windows users by 2010
The 3rd reich lasted 1000 years too....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
In some cultures it is believed that people start hallucinating when they are nearing their end. Just like microsoft, yesterday it thought it could take on Unix,Linux variants in terms of security and today it is thinking about 1 billion window users. PS- Bill, please stop smoking. You can't smoke and come to work ;-)
While most of the article and comments here seem to focus on upgrades and the US (developed world) market, I don't think that is where most of this growth is expected to come from.
The article mentions PC growth the the developing world. The potential for growth there is huge, and I can see how they can come up with the 600k -> 1 billion number once that is factored in.
That being said, will windows catch on as much as they think it will in counties without a pre-established windows bias? That remains to be seen. Looks like China may already be able to be counted as a loss.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
The link that ultimately may have provided an answer requires you to pay. But do Macs constitute 2.8% of all desktop computers now deployed? Or are 2.8% of new sales (both boxes and OEM) Macs? If there is a meaningful difference in how long the various desktop systems are in use before upgrades/replacements and if these market share statistics are calculated based on sales, then the numbers may be misleading if understood as capturing the lay of the land - rather than raw sales.
They don't.
Microsoft stock isn't rising anymore for several years already, Microsoft needs some optimism for the stockholders so Gates, Ballmer, etc. can sell the rest of their stock - oops, sorry: to diversify their portfolio - before it becomes worthless.
The cold hard truth is that MSFT is still vastly overvalued. In the late 90's Microsoft looked like the company that will take over everything: Servers, embedded systems, cellphones - and destroy anything else: mainframes, all non-x86 architectures, etc.
The stock was valued this high because of these huge perceived future earnings.
Now things have changed a lot and Microsoft is struggling everywhere outside their core-market (which is desktop software) and even their core-market is threatened.
Microsoft has 60 billion in the bank, but will they ever be able to earn enough to justify their market cap of 300 billion?
I seriously doubt that.
Personally, over my multiple machines, I am probably counted as 4 users going back over my last 4 machines.
After all, machines may die, but licenses live on forever.
Seriously, this is not a troll of flaimbait. If Windows is really so bad as many people claim, why does it have so many users? I'm not looking for unhelpful onliners like "most users are idiots", etc. Some Linux and a lot of MacOS X users claim that their platform is superior to Windows in every way. Many Apple users will even argue that the Mac platform is not even more expensive (although they often confuse price with value). If so, why don't more people switch?
I'm a reasonably advanced computer user. Of the major platforms, I use Win2k/XP, Linux quite a lot, OS X somewhat less. In my opinion, they are pretty comparable for most things I want to do (and they each have their own set of quirks). But maybe I'm missing something obvious. So if anyone has some INSIGHTFUL comments on why people don't switch en masse to superior platforms, please let me know. And no flames please, let's try to keep the discussion polite.
so long as the other 2-4 bn are using linux | BSD.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Nabil Expects 1 Gizillion Windows bugs/viruss/trojans by 2010.
Won't somebody please think of the Karma!
Are we still going to be using desktop PCs in 6 years? I want a wearable computer and I don't want it running Windows!
I dunno ... a lot can happen in six years. Microsoft claims a billion Windows users by 2010, but one might consider, on the other hand, Jeff Prothero's prediction that by 2010, Windows will be as dead as CP/M which is based on doublings-over-doublings of Linux market share.
Reality, as always, is probably somewhere in between.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
This could also count the number of embedded windows installations on portable devices. I you remember the worlds most installed OS is barely heard of.
I expect the MS Windows peak will occur in 2010.
Linux acceptance will have grown sky high, Linux on the workplace will be feasible, Linux distributions will fit the needs of the man in the street and the MS Windows growth will actually be negative.
The base on which this reasoning is made is identical to Microsoft's.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Although I run W-2000 at work and on my most used at home, my backup is still using W-95 that I loaded from Floppy disks. Except when I run ACDSee and Photoshop LE along with Netscape 4.7, it never has a problem. If third world countries are having as few problems as that computer has, why would they spend money to upgrade from 95 or 98 to something new. Think of it this way. If you have $5.00 and food and housing costs $4.75, are you going to spend the other quarter on a software upgrade?
I don't think the average user switches his OS. He (unwittingly) gets a new OS when he buys a new PC. And when he buys a new PC he goes to the shop, sees 4GHz Intel at $1000, 1GHz Mac at $1500, and buys the PC. There's really not a lot linux can do about that.
Honestly, it ain't gonna happen. The next time Microsoft says "Hey, it's time to pay the Windoze tax and upgrade!" I think they'll find everyone is switching to Linux instead. Same hassle, half the price. If you want to make some good money in the not too distant future, I suggest you hone your skills at migrating IT shops from Windows to Linux. That's going to be a nice little boom market for a few years, starting right about the time Microsoft tries to ram Longhorn down our throats. All cliches aside, I will most definitely welcome our new penguin overlords.
I think this article sums it all up rather nicely.
Oh, and once they lose the corporate market, they'll lose the home market shortly afterwards. Think about it. If Joe Blow uses Linux at work and likes it, imagine his reaction when he asks the IT guy where to get it and the IT guy hands him a copy of it on disc because it's "free." Microsoft got into the server space by winning the home user first. Linux is going the other way.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Yes, I agree with you. /all/ computer purchasers replace preloaded Windows with their favourite *nix distro.
More than 50% of
Let's not let common sense get in the way of things.
The fact that there are 1 billion Windows users on this planet means that there are 5 billion inhabitants of Earth that can easily learn to use Linux, Mac OS or some other civilised OS!
-- Cheers!
- will be linux users as well...
New server shipments??
I know all the servers we run here are not bought with Linux on them. We generally either buy servers or parts, and put Linux on it ourselves.
It's not surprising that MS appears to be gaining when you look at something like preloaded servers. It's not an accurate reflection of the real world though.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
as a virus writer, i find this news encouraging .
With the cost of upgrades, the continued security holes, the perceived instability, the required activation, and the neutering of XP Home... I really don't see myself or others upgrading from Win98 or Win2K without being forced to.
How's that going to happen? Microsoft is going to have to discontinue support for those operating systems.
And, I suspect that's their longer term plan. By cutting support, when the next window of bit-rot or software bloat forces a user to consider their options, I think Microsoft is banking on intimidating them into a newer version of the OS, no matter the cost.
It was precisely the anticipation of this world wide event that made me switch to using Apple's OS X (based on FreeBSD!) and start finding non-Microsoft solutions via Linux.
I've found a new mouth piece as well. When I went to evangelize alternate solutions to friends and family, I got the standard "but you're a geek" roll of the eyes. I was, however, able to convert my wife of alternatives to Microsoft with the use of applications such as Mozilla's Firefox as a browser replacement to get rid of pop-ups/adware and Thunderbird to stop her from getting infected with viruses.
Upon learning that there are alternative solutions with better features that let her not have to deal with everyday annoyances, she was an easy sell on Linux, and now uses Putty and SSHing -- something I never thought I'd see!
She's the one who gets creditability marks with her friends. They know she's an artist and not a computer geek. If she's raving about it, they want to try it, because obviously it's not above their level.
Linux, however, is going to have to compete hard with Microsoft. It isn't Linux's free price tag or outstanding stabilily that's holding it back. It's complexity.
The learning curve is too great for the non-technical user to setup and immediately start using it. Microsoft scores big when it comes to easy install for a basic system, and they actually do automatic updates quite well from a simplicity standpoint.
What many geeks don't get is simple computer users are willing to give up power and features for ease of use. If someone put out a basic distribution that auto-detected hardware, did an easy install, and set up the basic environment with nothing but the standard Office tools -- much like a dumbed down version of Mandrake or BeOS or the free OpenBeOS version.
Microsoft sees that "we don't get it" and aren't catering a special distribution to "grandma", and with that fact they leverage Windows into homes, knowing that once someone invests in learning something, they usually don't switch without good cause (frustration, cost, or inapplicability to task).
Remember that old saying "You can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time"?
Somehow, I think 1 billion is close enough. Sigh
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I seriously quiestion their reveny is going to be this high in the future even if they succeed in bringing home additional markets like China or India. Pirating is rampant and not many are aware of license costs. Recent discounts MS have been handing out seems to indicate that prople just dont want to pay that much money for MS Windows. Constant upgrading of the operating system isnt something the users want either. The day of printing money seems to be coming to an end.
Suppose Microsoft somehow makes the ultimate DRM system effectivly killing all the pirating in the world? Would the users gladly pay or would they just switch to something free and gratis instead?
Microsoft is in for a ride and i hope it makes them a teamplayer like IBM and others who once was big and without concious.
HTTP/1.1 400
In 2010, 35% of Microsofts enterprise customers will still be using Windows 95. Why? Because who these companies are and what they are using the operating system for. When Windows 95 first came out, several VP's and CEO's bartered a deal with Microsoft to purchase UNLIMITED LICENSES for their company. Microsoft more than willingly accepted their money believing that they would quickly upgrade anyway... But most of these companies are for data entry, and have computers for grunt speed-typers. Windows 95 is all these companies need. Maybe the CEO, VP, and important managers will have upgrades so they can enjoy the latest MS-wingdings... not the rest. A speed-typing grunt worker does not need Internet access, email, fancy word processing (such as an office suite), instant messaging, or any type of meaningful software that anyone would try to sell other than the data entry software. These Windows 95 computers can be kept behind firewalls so tight with the only hole being the data entry conectivity. Should one the computers rarely be infected, just format and slap on a new image of Win95 with data entry software. Microsoft's worst enemy is its own greed coupled with content corporate users of Windows 95.
As a side note: Should these companies ever desire to upgrade their grunt-workers desktops in 10 or 20 years, it would be easy enough to convert to stripped down Linux or UNIX desktop environments.
Best Regards,
A Technology Guru that has seen the unbelievable.
FTA:
------------------
Poole said Microsoft expects the demand to come from enterprises in developed countries, all sizes of companies in developing markets and from OEMs that tailor Windows for specific markets.
Many industry watchers have talked about the Windows desktop market as being a saturated one, with little potential for the huge unit and revenue growth of the past. But that's not the picture Microsoft's painting.
"PC replacements are at the top of what IT will be spending on this year," Poole predicted.
----------------
I know at work it seems that everyone is getting a laptp in addition to their workstation, and sometimes we are given workstations to take home for "remote office" capability. If this is a widespread business trend, then yeah their perceived OS sales would "double" even though their user base doesn't really.
Aside from this possibility I think the article is just MS wishful thinking. Open Source isn't going away. On the contrary, it will only get better and better. I see MS having blinders on when it comes to OSS. They are in denial, and they are trying to distract everyone from realizing how truly innovative and progressive OSS is.
Once the Linux vendors of the world achieve hardware driver, gaming, and interoperability capability on the order of Windows (and they are VERY close to this) then there will truly be NO reason to buy Microsoft.
Longhorn is MS' next big thing. Linux has an opportunity between now and then to seize the tactical initiative. GO FOR IT!!
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
These numbers are from IDC, so you'll have to argue methodology with them. They are based on surveys and not only raw sales figures. (A few years ago, when IDC showed massive Linux growth, nobody was arguing with them -- in fact they were quoted by every Linux advocate.) The numbers might not be perfect, but thinking they are radically incorrect is probably a delusion.
y Reader$56
2004 Boo! - http://www.wininsider.com/news/?7124
2001 Yeh! - http://www.oreillynet.com/manila/tim/stories/stor
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
If you are a large enterprise site still running Windows 98, what do you upgrade to? Look at the choices Microsoft gives you:
Windows 2K? Windows XP? Those both have much greater hardware requirements, are still only 32-bit OS, have numerous security problems, and have much worse compatibility with those old DOS or Win 3.1 internal apps you may be running.
Windows XP 64-bit? Still in beta and compatibility even worse than with the 32-bit Windows OSs since it has zero support for 16-bit apps of any kind.
Longhorn? Really? When? What?
Linux, by contrast, has good compatibility, full 64-bit support, far fewer security problems, and will not bring the BSA down on you if your disgruntled employees drop a dime. It doesn't hurt that its inexpensive, either. If Microsoft is assuming that all of those Windows 98 users are going to wait and upgrade to 'Longhorn' or something, I want whatever it is they are smoking.
unless joe user sees a 3 ghz AMD for 500$, or a 1.5 ghz Via for 350$, and bothers to read the fine print on the back of the box that shows hundreds of installed apps with the linux variants as opposed to a dozen with the windows machines. But that won't happen unless all the stores carry them.
A lot of people, like is said, are still running an old box with 32 or 64 megs of ram running sub 1 ghz and like 98. And they paid (and they remember this part) well over a thousand dollars for those machines, and are still annoyed they are almost being forced to upgrade. They get confused over broken software versus broken hardware all thee time, it's "the same thing" to them, as in "computer works/doesn't work" binary observation. This is puzzling to people, and most annoying. When they see they can get a much cheaper machine that apparently doubles or triples what they have now, in terms of processor speed, installed ram, and number of easy applications, they *could* decide on the cheaper versions, I know I would think about it. They just have to be right on the shelf there side by side with the other machines to look at, all running with the same bandwith if they are net connected, for the real world testdrive.
That's the part that is hard, because you just don't see it, a lot of these places only show the higher end stuff on the shelf, and definetly not all three major operating systems. For instance, in my area (granted, semi rural, but only one hour from atlanta) there are half a dozen places that sell computers, none of them carry any macs or anything that doesn't have XP on them. Let me see, there's an office despot, walmart, a k-mart, and three whitebox shops. No macs, no linux that I see, not even any boxed software for the two alternative systems.
You get just a fraction outside the major cities, and the *apparent* choices drop dramatically. If all you see is a belchfire motors car dealership, most people in the area will be driving belchfires.
...so long as users are able to use pirated copies of Windows.
Not clamping down on piracy in the developing world ought to be part of Microsoft's strategic plan.
Their best long term scenario would be to keep the existing market base and to grow the number of Windows users in the developing world using differential pricing: either officially, as in the lower-cost Thai version of Windows, or unofficially, as in turning a blind eye toward piracy.
Later, after TCPA is introduced into the latest versions of Windows, there will be plenty of opportunity for cracking down on piracy and other revenue enhancement strategies that are not available today.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I was thinking the same thing.
Although someone else replied "build your own" that's not that easy to do with a laptop. Mine had Win-XP preinstalled on it. Only lasted the time it took for me to get the machine home and reinstall with SuSE (now Gentoo).
I think that a lot of Microsoft's statistics include both machines that have had another OS installed, machines tho's owners have loaded an earlier version when upgrading hardware (some prefer 95/98 rather than XP - or have legacy apps that will not run with XP) or people who have replaced XP home with XP pro.
I doubt that their stats include that some of these desktops have effectively got multiple licences on them.
Java gaming nut - http://www.retep.org/ or for the rail http://uktra.in/
there will be 1 BILLION linux distributions. unfortunately the number of linux users won't increase by that much
Join Team Mozilla #38050 Folding@home
The count problem with users/desktops doesn't just apply to Linux, there is multiple counting from Microsoft. Nearly every large company has a site license but still purchases PCs with windows pre-installed. Thus, every corporate PC has at least two licenses. Throw in the MS "encouragement" to upgrade, you've got ANOTHER license added to that. MS proabably also keeps track of the folks who install warez copys of their OS and adds them to the tally.
If they wanted a more accurate count, they would count the corporate licenses and the home/small business users for product activation. The number from that count would probably fall well short of the one billion they're claiming. That number wouldn't look so "impressive".
1 billion possible only if... They can re-create the Windows 95 effect. Scary that a lot of /. may not remember it(I am getting old). I just remember that when it came out, everyone wanted, everyone needed, and if you didn't have Windows95 on your computer, you were stuck in some sort of time warp.
I personally got over Windows a long time ago. I support Linux as my day job and use OSX at home. Life couldn't get better.
is provided by Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia etc. Half a billion people and maybe three original licenses in use.
I'm intimately familiar with pretty much every program on my desktop. UI, menus, shortcuts, capabilities and limitations and so on.
In addition, I'm reasonably certain that if there is a new application out there I'd like to run, it will be available for Windows.
So to sum it up:
- Lack of comparable applications (as-is)
- Familiarity with applications
- Flexibility in future applications
A platform is just that - a platform. And a good platform is important. But I spend very little part of my time messing around with my "platform". I spend my time in applications. And while you may argue about the differences between the Linux and Win32 and Mach (OS X) kernel, there's no doubt that the most software is for Windows.Of course, that is a chicken and egg problem - applications don't come to the platform until users do, which won't come until the applications are there. But that is the barrier to other platforms.
Of course, it doesn't exactly help that the maker of core applications (Office, Outlook etc.) also has a vested interest in NOT making them cross-platform. If the US system had had some balls, and split up MS as they should, there'd be a lot fewer barriers.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
there is a BIG difference. I have trouble believing they even believe themselves that they'll have a billion users. However, its clear that more and more people own more than one PC, and companies like MS are pushing for this as much as they can, with products like Windows Media Edition, or even the XboX.
A billion windows pc's wouldn't be too lofty of a claim. I think thats completely attainable.
once you go slack, you never go back
The translation of that "expectation" is:
"The only areas where we are big are the desktop and Office, but the perception is that those are saturated markets. Therefore, our stock price has stopped growing and we need to give the market an excuse to pump up our price a little more."
As for the desktop usage percentages, without detailed statements of methodology and definitions of terms (what exactly is a "desktop user"?), Gartner's nubers are meaningless even if they collected their numbers correctly (which, itself, seems doubtful).
I'm pretty sure they are simply adding up all the licences ever sold and not subtracting all the dead PCs lying in basements and dumps the world over.
Oh well, what the hell...
If that many people eat/use their hamburgers/OS, they must be good.
...what's that smell... I think it's karma burning.
Actually, everyone knows it's just sh*t, people eat/use it because it's convenient...
My brother was one of those 35% running windows95. Now he's running Fedora Core 2. Viva La Linux...
So that means that M$ will only be on 1/6 of the worlds PC's or roughly 16%. Does this mean that the rest of the world will be using Linux, FreeBSD and Mac? :)
-Cnik
Sure, 96% of all computers sold in a given period this year may have a version of Windows, and the 2.8% percentage of Macs sold is probably accurate, too.
But if you go on the streets and homes and count up an average of the installed computers still in use over a given period (let's say, 5 years), you will find a different percentage.
My experience shows that, on average, 80-85% of all computers in use in the home or business are PCs running Windows. The rest, around 15% are Macintosh systems, with a smattering of Linux users who are particularly choosy moms and dads.
The Apple business community, which includes Apple itself as well as its product's software and hardware vendors, could not possibly survive with only 2.8% of the population using Macs.
An installed base of around 15%, however, is a healthy slice of the pie. Many car companies that thrive well today would kill for such a large percentage.
The installed base, fortunately, buys Macintosh software a bit more often than the average PC user (despite the point that PC software is generally cheaper and more readily available). My logic? PC users fight more with the computers running Windows and don't want to rock the boat much, on average. Gamers and programming geeks are excluded from this observation--we'll try ANYTHING.
This Windows/Mac software buying trend has decreased as Windows became more robust with XP and PC software has become less crappy, however. Fortunately, the Apple and UNIX communities still work on the "we try harder" mode that pushes the technology instead of revamping or reanimating older stuff. Case in point? Microsoft adding UNIX programming ability in Longhorn. If they cannot lead, they will follow.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
And, how much will they pay? Between discounts to keep first worlders from switching, and discounts to get third worlders to pay anything at all, their realized income per copy has nowhere to go but down, fast.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Takes on a whole new meaning.
All your base are belong to Google.
....You need to force computer manufacturers worldwide on x86-compatible PC's to sell the operating system as a separate-cost item, not as bundled into the final product.
Such a change could reveal that the additional cost of installing a commercial Linux distribution at around US$10 per machine, while installing Windows is more like US$45-US$55 per machine. That could persuade many corporate customers to pre-load their new office machines with desktop Linux distributions along with Linux server distributions.
A different assessment of desktop share: "IDC expects to announce within weeks that Linux' PC market share in 2003 hit 3.2%, overtaking Apple ... the researcher expects Linux to capture 6% of this market by 2007."
Well, looking at the numbers here, it would appear to me that "free" servers don't show up anywhere.
"Servers based on the Linux operating system will have comparable market share numbers in 2008, representing approximately 29% of all server unit shipments and about $9.7 billion in revenues. Microsoft Windows-based servers are expected to capture 60% of all server unit shipments in 2008 and represent the largest server operating environment in terms of revenues with $22.7 billion."
Corrected for market sizes, the average Windows server brings in 13% more revenue than a Linux server. This is not TCO numbers, these are revenue figures. Does that seem right to you? No, these figures only include servers with commercial support, such as Red Hat's server program. The dollar figures may be right, but the server figures are way off. Including free servers, there are many more Linux servers, and the average revenue is much lower.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wow...what a trip. I want what you're smokin' cuz that is a hell-of-a hallucination.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Keep that in mind the next time these rubes start accusing Microsoft of FUD and you'll see why so many of us find Slashdot to be hilarious.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
I'd say that, if you're still running Win9x, you're not an enterprise customer. There's a difference between "enterprise computing customer" and "we have a tremendous pile of unmanageable, unsecurable, toy computers".
Survey companies are incapable of measuring something like Open Source activity. They don't even really try.
There's nothing in it for them.
--Richard
You know...
WRT to real-world security and Linux:
MS has made some really, really bad moves that gave away security for a shorter learning curve or easier application development, and have recently found that people really *do* value security to some degree -- maybe not as much as they should, but it's not something that they can ignore. MS clearly made some decision back in the day that "security has little value", and it's costing them now. SP2 includes some good improvements, but there is a "security at the level of core design" issue with Windows that just does not work out -- Windows was not designed with security in mind (especially security against local user accounts) to the extent that *IX and *IX software is.
They also have some really asinine decisions. MSIE should never have been designed the way it is; from a security standpoint, it is a huge vector for attacks, as it is given special privileges (and the ability to go through most personal firewall software), cannot be removed, and is not updated as frequently as it should be.
All that being said, Linux is not a panacea for spyware. Eventually, as others have pointed out, spyware *will* exist for Linux, unless something stops Linux from becoming a major desktop OS. Yes, the popular mail and web browsing software for Linux places a greater emphasis on security over ease-of-use than Microsoft's own Outlook/OE and MSIE do. Yes, Linux can be CD-booted, and thus software of a Tripwire nature can be easily used, and yes, software is generally open source, and thus it's more difficult for a commercial company to include "phone home" code, and easier for the OS and third party software to be audited and fixed by the community (even if the original developer is no longer around). The open nature of Linux lets distributors compete more heavily, including on security. Chroot is a useful and easy-to-use tool for sandboxing that Windows lacks. The binary-level compatibility fragmentation of the Linux world makes buffer overflow attacks much less likely to work. Packaged software for almost all modern Linux distributions is distributed in a signed package, meaning that most users have the ability to use entirely signed (and theoretically tested) software. However, there is *still* the element of "the user may download, mark as executable, and execute a piece of software, assuming the Linux installation is configured to allow write access and the ability to invoke new software at login. It may be harder to attack, but it is not impossible, at least for a common desktop environment. Linux has already seen its first "spyware" in the Linux implementation of RealPlayer (which, like all RealPlayer implementations, phones home), even if Linux users had the option of bypassing this behavior by just using the RealPlayer codecs through mplayer or similar software.
Keep in mind -- Linux is an improvement over Windows when it comes to security. Just because it's better does not mean that it is a final answer to all computer security problems -- switching to Linux does not mean "I never have to worry about computer security again." I'm worrying that some folks are expecting this kind of behavior, and are going to be sorely disappointed in a couple years when the attacks on Linux from commercial software vendors ramp up a bit. I see a lot of "I don't have to worry about viruses/worms/trojans, because *I* use *Linux*, which just plain isn't a practical stand to take."
There are also a few areas where Linux is *behind* Windows when it comes to security.
First, I do not know of any free systems for Linux that allow for mass remote management of systems on a degree that Windows (possibly plus additional software) does. The ability to monitor and administer systems in a "domain" (as Microsoft puts it) easily is an important element in the "read your logs" bit of computer security. The easier it is to check up on the computer you administer, the better security is.
Second of all, Windows has *easy to use
May we never see th
Why should they adjust for that? After all, they're getting paid for both licenses.
This article, written in 1999, predicted 10% of the desktop in 2000 (which never happened), 40% of the desktop in 2001 (which never happened), and market saturation in 2002. So reality is somewhere inbetween Microsoft being write, and this article being totally wrong?
Doesn't one billion PCs sound a little high considering that the vast majority of the world's population doesn't have access to a telephone?
A little high? No more so than the fact that McDonalds has served a hundred times as many people who have ever lived.
If they had a dollar for like every user...they'd have like...a billion dollars or something!
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
I bought a copy of Windows XP Home last week. Sorry!
--RJ
That's because most Office admins are dullards. I know many professional office admins who are frigging morons, they took a networking class in high school and now their mr admin.
What do I mean by office admin?
Admins who don't handle more than one location, more than say 30 daily users. These are usually people with titles like Engineering Associate or something. Frankly Windows is a lot easier for them to use and lot of them know about Linux but the guts are too scarry for them and their already familiar with Windows.
Plus many businesses have volume licensing from MS which pretty much means it's VERY cost competitive with Linux, even though Linux is free you can get a 1/2 acceptable Windows admin for $8/hour. Any *nix admin you can get for that either either gonna suck or be 14 and there by not really a viable option cause he's still in school.
The solution is that by making Linux and (MORE importantly) it's rag tag band of apps more and more desktop friendly while not dumbing it down, we will gain more server share.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The average user doesn't even know they run windows they have a computer and it's of the windows kind and they don't even know what an OS is.
/. user put Linux on 3 PCs in the next year in the home market that's a hell of a lot of PCs.
They don't upgrade or switch thier OS they buy new computers and thus get new OSes. OR the local geek switches one for them
We should all offer to put Fedora or something very friendly on everyone's computers we know, activly I might ad. We need some open source brochures or something. If every
I know countless people with Windows98 systems that are crumbling. However most of them are addicted to MS office like heroin or something. It's not windows they care for, it's opening their co-worker's and friend's documents at home that they care for. Yes they very obviously can do this with OOo and I honestly feel for the home user OOo is a BETTER product not just an alternative. But at the same time, it's different and people have already had enough trouble learning to run Office and their PC in general.
I argue Linux and OOo haven't gone far enough. We need a more dumbard version. When I click the button-a-ma-jig I don't want to see "system tools" I want to see "Change My Computer's Settings" Yes this is wordy and stupid but if Linux can get a REAL usability not usefulness edge on Windows then we'll be set. This includes OOo it's too complex for my grandma (So is Word) and it's too complex for a lot of people. So we should make an alternative that's much simpler, people don't give a crap about features. They want pretty and easy. A word processor only needs a few different settings and the ability to open lots of other documents and save them but it doesn't need to be able to actually do everything they do. We could have a starter mode for OOo that tells people this document uses page breaks or margins or whatever your current mode doesn't have a tool bar button for this please go to X menu or switch to advanced mode and please consider using the help tutorial section.
Honestly we geeks might not use the help button but lots of people do!
More likely the slang definition. Over one billion people got served by Microsoft.
You aren't using "predict" correctly in your examples. In each case what you would have to say is something like "I predict that this water sample will turn out to contain an unsafe level of arsenic". You can't predict the past or present; you can only predict our future understanding of current or past events.
I didn't know there were that many gamers out there!
Windows is for playing games.
Linux is for serious work.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
> 35% of Microsoft's enterprise customers are still running Windows 9x and they are ripe for upgrade
That's a funny way to spin the fact that apparently, a lot of Microsoft customers don't care what OS they're running.
Can't help but see a new Bill Gates Dr Evil icon with the Dr. Evil pinky raised to his lips. Should the Borg logo be replaced?
Microsoft is saying they expect even more people using computers and using Windows. Yes, they currently have 96% of existing computer users, but they're just saying more people will be using computers and that they will be running Windows.
You can eat ALL the mcdonalds food you want. Just every little bite has to be in the presence of naked fat people.
make world, not war
Slashdotters tend to say things like this. "I just FEEL something changing!" Well, that's because you visit Slashdot everyday, read posts day after day criticizing Microsoft, and form your perspectives based on the headlines posted on Slashdot. Yeah, if I did that, I can imagine I'd "feel" something changing too, because human perceptions are easy to shape.
You say everywhere around you people are throwing out Windows, which is either not true or means you have very techie friends. You claim Internet Explorer is losing market share without citing a single figure or study to prove that (Google Zeitgeist shows otherwise). You vaguely claim a "general awareness of alternative platforms" that is "beginning to progress," which is silly since I doubt you've scientifically polled the general public on this and are yet again just going by what you perceive your friends doing. There has been a lot of Windows insecurity talk, but it's mostly been on tech sites like Slashdot. The general public is busy with other things. Besides, tech studies have shown that Windows is no more insecure than OS X or major Linux distributions, according to that study Slashdot itself posted.
I would not be surprised one bit if there were one billion Windows users by 2010.
Afterall, Microsoft believes they have the same target market share.
there are half a dozen places that sell computers, none of them carry any macs or anything that doesn't have XP on them. Let me see, there's an office despot, walmart , a k-mart, and three whitebox shops Maybe you did not really look around. As far as I can remember Walmart does sell computers with the Sun Java Desktop System (which looks like XP so maybe u got confused or maybe Walmart doesnt sell them everywhere)
1) Longhorn will be the most expensive version of Windows yet developed (No shit Sherlock) BUT it will be the cheapest in real terms.
2) Linux will start to win around the time M$ start to push people towards Longhorn. Linux will have another 2 years of polish and development. Businesses will start to tale a long hard look at the choice of paying the Microsoft tax & taking it up the ass from Bill or shifting to Linux paying the short term pain (which will be a lot closer in cost for businesses when it comes to deploying Longhorn) with the long term gain.
We won't get everybody but as the O/S upgrade cycle swings around we will pick up a significant proportion of business. Once that business starts wanting features & sponsoring their development then it's bye bye monopoly.
What are you listening to? (http://megamanic.blogetery.com/)
To serve Man..
It's a cookbook!
Yeesh, you spray and you trap but they keep on coming back.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I assume Microsoft is counting installations the way they always have: 1 PC = 1 Windows Install
Just like McDonalds, windows users are just that -- Users to the core. They will have liver failure, get fat, and have bad skin.
All those spam zombies on Comcast, etc. are probably running on legitimately licensed copies of Windows. Then you count each person who hires a zombie as a user of each system and, voila, a billion Windows lusers and all of them on licensed, legal copies.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
walmart dot com online sells various computers with alternatives to XP pre installed, some quite inexpensive like the ones from microtel starting at around 200 dollars, but I am not aware they do this in their brick and mortar stores. They may some places, but I haven't seen it. I always look, too, in the last two years I have been in 3 regular walmarts and two walmart supercenters, all I saw was XP, and the cheapest on the shelf was closer to 500$ at the low end.
Wow. That's perhaps the best-written and most bias-free analysis of security difference between Linux and Windows I've ever read. Bravo.
Someone mod this guy up.
Comment of the year
They expect a lot of this growth to be due to world-wide PC sales expansion, which is where organized piracy and government Linux users will hit them the hardest, so the numbers may be more difficult to achieve than they think.
The question for me is - what is making up that 6% in "Other"? Could some of those be mistaken OS X or Linux boxes? Or are they all BSD? :-)
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The OS market has very strong network effects
that lead people to all run the same OS. This
makes OS market share changes non-linear and
unpredictable.
When a Windows-to-Linux transition occurs, it will
be sudden. People won't see it happening until it
has already happened.
Right now, Linux is sort of pushing up against
Windows. At any time over the next 20 years,
we could see a transition that mostly happens
within a couple years.
An even mix of Linux and Windows would be
incredibly unstable. Momentum makes it unlikely
that Linux would fall backwards, but Linux is
doomed if it does -- however, in that case some
other OS will crush Windows.
That's market share, not installed base. Apple only accounts for 2.8% of the desktops sold annually, but that is not directly comparable to their installed base. If the average Apple user kept his computer for twice as long as the average PC user, Apple's installed base would be 5.6% of all the desktops currently in use. It's a commonly held assumption that Mac users hold onto their computers longer, though I've never seen any statistics to back this up. It's makes little difference, I know, but it's so common for people to make this mistake that I had to say something.
Remember, they're probably gonna need new computers too to run any modern OS. I have a 64MB P2 (RedHat 8) which is fairly sluggish, I can just imagine what Win2k or Redhat Enterprise or SuSe would be like on a 200MHz P1 with 32MB of memory. Shudder.....and remember that they expect all computers to had 2GB of RAM when Longhorn comes out. If they don't pay for new computers, they can't use a new OS.
I understand that there have been some recent belt-tightenings at Microsoft, as astonishing as it may sound. Apparently they got rid of the free soda, et cetera.
Also interesting about their attempted attack on Unix from Longhorn-- the much ballyhooed Unix support on the Longhorn core.
I think they're headed for hard times. They must work with OSS, and yet the more they do so the more they're going to be competing in an uneven playing field. Free software that works is far preferable to massively marketed, grossly expensive software that's full of bugs.
Only thing that Windows has now that Linux doesn't (don't split hairs with me, I mean mostly) is game support. And even that advantage is shrinking visibly. Currently I boot into a stripped XP for gaming, and that's it-- half the time in the XP installation, I'm running Cygwin to catch X apps from my other box for such things as browsing and sundries, thereby endrunning the execrable memory management in Windows.
If they don't accept OSS, their island is going to slowly erode under their feet. If they do accept OSS, they're screwed once again, because if they receive the Mark of the Penguin, their users will get used to free open source software and they'll start wondering why they should pay $178 for a similar but shittier, more bloated word processor. And then they'll start thinking about the OS that's full of security holes every week and vulnerable to all kinds of malware...
I just don't see how any kind of UNIX integration is good for the Windows business model.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Okay, so is that 600 million ACTIVE users, installations, or currently running machines?
I don't know. You don't know. And even the evil empire, Microsoft, doesn't know. No one knows. There has never, ever, been a full accounting for any OS.
Some of those "Windows" machines may, in fact, be running Linux, DOS, or, heaven forbid, not at all!
Microsoft's PR division (sorry, CLIENT division) is spouting out fake news. Hell, I trust the information on "The Daily Show" more than I do from MS.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
Don't get me wrong -- the problem with Linux IS NOT the CLI. A trained monkey could learn a CLI, it's all memorization.
The problem with Linux is that a lot of things don't make even the slightest bit of sense. Developers opt for brevity over simplicity, a hold over from the Unix Way of productivity over ease-of-use. The result? A platform that REQUIRES training, REQUIRES handholding, REQUIRES knowledge. It takes more time before you can start doing something because you have to learn how to do it, you can't just guess and be mostly right.
Nowadays, people don't know how to use computers. They know how to guess enough functionality to fake their way through them. Like it or not, these people could NEVER use the current Linux offerings...it'd be like handing a jackknife to a spastic.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
---You claim Internet Explorer is losing market share without citing a single figure or study to prove that---
Here's one:
Mozilla takes bite out of IE
For the first time since Microsoft saw off rival Netscape in the 1990s Internet Explorer's virtual stranglehold on the browser marketplace has loosened. IE's share decreased slightly from 95.7 per cent to 94.73 per cent in the month up to 6 July, according to Web metrics firm WebSideStory.
Mozilla was the main beneficiary of the defection of one in 100 users from IE. According to WebSideStory, the combined Mozilla and Netscape market share rose from 3.21 per cent in June to 4.05 per cent in July. Although small in percentage terms, a defection of users from IE is something Microsoft ignores at its peril.
I guess this must prove there is more than one sucker born every minute!
Well, you can make linux quite tight, but still have a lot of the benefits of a modern OS. I suppose Microsoft could ship windows without Media player, IE, .net ...... umm.....
Linux 4 Microsoft should have accepted the original anti-trust offer.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Because let's face it most Linux users converted their old PC at one time.
Peace
But let's pretend that the market itself, driven by Free software and by true Apple-style innovation, solves the current monopoly problem in a few years. Let's pretend that then, Microsoft was still of debatable monopoly status, that it wasn't of blatant, illegal, and/or abusive monpoly status as it is today. Are the open standards and the Free software reference implementations being developed thoroughly enough and quickly enough to prevent another power vacuum, and is competition thorough and competent enough to not hand everything over on a silver platter again when the next big wave hits?
I think that there are corporate competitors whose culture has learned its lesson, namely IBM. Free software remains perfectly viable but yet untamed as a de facto, relatively turnkey, solution for the pure practicality of this particular caliber of job.
The problem with Linux is that a lot of things don't make even the slightest bit of sense. Developers opt for brevity over simplicity, a hold over from the Unix Way of productivity over ease-of-use. The result? A platform that REQUIRES training, REQUIRES handholding, REQUIRES knowledge. It takes more time before you can start doing something because you have to learn how to do it, you can't just guess and be mostly right.
Please provide some examples. Or are you just saying this because you originally learned the microsoft way and relearning doesn't make sense?
This is a legitimate question. I began using computers with DOS, Win3.1 etc. It was only in about 1998 that I began using Linux and while the original learning curve was a bit steep, it was more because of what I had to unlearn than what I had to learn. Now, when I have to support windows (one of the downfalls of having an MCSE/MCSA, lol) I am baffled by some (most) of the things it does.
Nowadays, people don't know how to use computers. They know how to guess enough functionality to fake their way through them. Like it or not, these people could NEVER use the current Linux offerings...it'd be like handing a jackknife to a spastic.
Not to sound elitest, but maybe that is the problem. *Maybe* home users should stick to their webtv and gaming consoles and leave powerful tools to those that know how to use them. You don't see Average Joe(tm) using industrial tools around the house (well you might, but it is usually with a reference to Darwin). You might see him using a scaled down, not nearly as powerful version. There is a reason for this. Think about it, if a hairdryer needs a sticker telling the consumer not to use it in the shower, what does this tell us about the general populace? (other than we are a bunch of litigous bastards) I am not saying that a home user should not be able to own a computer, just that unless they really need one, why have it? *Most* (pardon the generalization) home users only want to browse the web, look at photos, and send email. They *don't* need a full blown home computer for that.
Good thing Microsoft is only 90% of the market and is a noble, ethical, do-right business and never uses its size or influence to hurt competition or threaten other companies, or heaven forbid, force them out of business.
(By the way, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you if you're interested.)
Microsoft Expects 1 Billion Windows Patches by 2010?
You might find an OEM Linux system with bottom feeder specs sold off a warehouse pallet at Sam's Club. But Wal-Mart's advertised specials are Windows only.
Technically, if the cost spread is over 6 years, they can afford to give away 400 million free PC's with windows preloaded. So if they are determined enough, they can hit their predicted mark.
I am a little curious about how they count users. How they define and measure users affects how realistic their 1 billion goal looks. Do upgrades count as new users. Do I already count as 3-4 users because of all my past purchases? Do former Windows users still count as users? If I use Windows both at work and at home, am I 2 users? Does simply touching a windows pc make you a user? Does an xbox user count as a windows user because it runs win2k? What about a PDA running winCE?
Does each PC I own with Windows count as a user, or perhaps is it the number of windows CD's ever sold plus piracy estimates? Or did they try to take random samples of the population and extrapolate for each region in the world? Or did they guess at the number of computer users in the world and multiply it by their market share estimate?
users....
(little finger touching lip)
Oh, sorry....
One BILLION users
(little finger touching lip, small grin)
Mooahaha, Mooahaha, Mooahaha, Mooahaha, Mooahaha, Mooahaha, Mooahaha, Mooahaha, Moo-ahaha, moo-a-haha, mooa-ha-ha....
Alright thats enough. Back to work.
"Prepare to be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctives to our own. You will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile"
Mr. Leinad