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The Relevance of Windows
Josh Fink writes "ZDNet has up an article exploring whether of not Windows is still relevant. In the age of 'Web 2.0' both older folks who remember the days before Windows and younger folks who have never known anything else are beginning to see Microsoft's offering as old news. From the article: 'Before closing the books on the Age of Windows, however, let's not get too caught up in the fashion of the moment. The water-cooler crowd may take a dim view of "Win-doze" for all the right reasons. Still, Microsoft's archrivals continue to view it as a product with a potentially make-or-break impact on their businesses. In fact, two of them--Adobe Systems and Symantec--are lobbying European regulators to get tough on Microsoft. The European Union already has an unresolved antitrust dispute with Microsoft, and Adobe and Symantec would be silly not to play that card for all it's worth. So this is what they're doing.'"
For my friends and family Windows are relevant, because Office is relevant. It's sad, because otherwise many of them would strongly consider buying a Mac. (Which would be a huge win both for them and for me, for I would no longer have to fix the broken Windows XP boxes...)
Imagine relearning all they know about their desktop in a Linux environment.
I've seen plenty of average people in both home and business move to both Linux and Mac OS X. With a system installed for them (like Windows was when they bought their computer) they all adjusted fairly quickly.
Windows also has a lot of software not offered on other platforms, such as Photoshop, Flash (the IDE), Dreamweaver, 3DSMax and so on.
Windows has a variety o software not found on other platforms, but that software is shrinking. More things are ported to the Mac. Emulation technologies on the chip combines with emulators and WINE type solutions make the number of programs fewer each day. All those you mentioned run on the Mac natively and I think all of them run on Linux via WINE.
The Linux alternatives for a designer are mostly jokes (like Gimp, where you can't even draw a rounded rectangle without installing specially crafted Script-Fu commands).
I use Photoshop and the GIMP (photoshop more). Both are better for different tasks. No surprise there.
The Mac platform is a lot worse than Windows where I'm locked not only into proprietary OS (which is outdated every year and you have to re-buy it), but also proprietary hardware which you can't upgrade any better than a laptop (add some RAM, a DVD.. and that's it.. wanna faster processor on your iMac? throw away the whole machine and buy a new one).
I'm always astounded when people make the argument that because new versions of OS X come out more often, with new features, it is inferior to Windows in this regard. I think the opposite is true. Each version does the same thing it did when I bought it. OS X just gives me more options. I can upgrade more often if I want the features, or I can wait and upgrade every other version, or every third version. Compared to Windows where I don't have the option of getting any new features every year and I'm forced to wait 4 years, or 6 years to get that one feature I want that has been on OS X for many years, well I'd really rather have the flexibility and choices.
As for the hardware being proprietary, what exactly can't you upgrade on a Mac these days that you can on a PC? The only thing I know about is the motherboard. You can swap every other part with one not from Apple, as far as I know, without issue. You can even swap the chips on the new ones.
Of course since 90% or more of users never upgrade anything and do just get a new computer, this is really a non-issue for most users.
I guess I just don't see that your arguments have much relevance to the real world today. Those points you make that ever had relevance have mostly disappeared in the last few years.