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Forbes Says Vista Not People Ready
Diomedes01 writes "Daniel Lyons has an opinion piece up on Forbes.com about a recent press conference held by Microsoft, and the results are anything but flattering."
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People reject OpenOffice and reject even Mac, because they don't know any different. They have been "programmed" to use Microsoft Windows, therefore, until they are told different, they will continue to use Microsoft Windows.
We can sit around all we want and say stuff like "when people get tired of (malware|viruses|spyware|whateverelse)" they will switch to (Linux|Mac).
It's just not true. People will switch when they are told to. Nothing else. Until Companies FORCE people to switch, there will be no switching.
He's a troll, and an inconsistent one at that.
The final paragraph of the linked articleReally explains alot. I presumed this guy (with his anti IBM, Novell & Linux stance) was an MS shill. Turns out he's just another Apple fanboy.
My pics.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
He doesn't need discounts on sewing machines. The companies that he contracts with to produce a half a mil of his latest fashion obscenity needs the discount on sewing machines. Tommy needs discounts on computers and software because his company neeeds to integrate with and coordinate with all of those other companies in their supply chain. Tommy needs to be able to send the numbers to his accountants firms. Tommy needs computers to work with his ad agency so he can convince even more sheeple to buy his stuff. I'm betting that, just like every other "idea" company in the U.S., Tommy has multiple hundreds of thousands tied up in hardware and licenses for software.
puts on my laptop. I'm a sheep. Aren't we all?
Right now it's XP and Office 2003.
As long as I can hook it up to a projector and bore the crap out of a room full of people with 83 Powerpoint slides, The Bossman is happy.
I don't see big corporations being first in line for a shiny new OS that practically triples the minimum hardware requirement.
At Home I'll use whatever Valve software tells me to use so I can Play Half-Life 3. Sheep, remember?
Sure, he's a fashion designer, but his business has the same IT needs as every other business. They do sales and marketing, buy from suppliers, sell to distributors and retailers, hire and pay employees and provide them with benefits, coordinate and pay for travel, and so on. In the modern business climate, he still needs computers for all of that, even if the activity underlying it all involves ultimately swaning about with charchoal sketches and fabric swatches.
But, of course they can! They're a monopoly, and there's nothing that Steve Jobs, the Open Source community or anybody else can do about it (well, the US Justice Dept. tried before Bush stopped 'em).
Unfortunately, Microsoft's customers (i.e. most of the world) are willing to wait a really long time before they give up on the Redmond giant. It's that damned critical mass that they've built up over the years: everything's geared to supporting Windows before anything else, from hardware manufacturers to ISVs to ISPs to media companies, etc. Even Google doesn't support anything but Windows for Google Earth! (okay, there's a Mac beta for it now too, but you get my drift).
Therefore, I figure that Microsoft's monopoly position can only be threatened if one of their next new operating systems turns out to be a total failure. If Microsoft aren't able to dump it and replace it soon enough with something better, only then will significant numbers of their customers begin to loose faith in them and move on to alternative operating systems.
Let's hope Vista turns out to be that dog.