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How Microsoft Beat Linux In China
kripkenstein notes an analysis up on TechRepublic detailing how Microsoft beat Linux in China, and the consequences of that victory: "With the soon-to-be largest economy standardized on Windows desktops, desktop Linux does seem to have an uphill battle ahead of it." "Linux has turned out to be little more than a key bargaining chip in a high stakes game of commerce between the Chinese government and the world's largest software maker... The fact that... Linux failed to gain a major foothold in China is yet another blow to desktop Linux. After nearly eight years of being on the verge of a breakthrough, Linux seems more destined than ever to be a force in the server room but little more than a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop."
"Before Windows (or DOS...) there was no high-volume, mainstream OS that ran on commodity hardware"
Never heard of CP/M then?
"The result was a huge amount of innovation in hardware devices and software that worked with Windows"
Oh please. The PC up until maybe 5-10 years ago was anything but innovative. The Amiga and Mac in the 80s were light years ahead of the PC in both hardware and software.
Bill Gates had a good business head but his software and OSes were shit and only recently is any quality starting to show and some would debate even that.
You can't compare Windows 3.1 sales from 1983 to CP/M sales from 1979.
By the time Windows was even relevant, CP/M was already in its grave and the Linux kernel was getting started. We have taken a 25 year detour and are just getting back to where we started with the Apple I, Altair, and PC clones: general-purpose hardware that works without an expensive software package that doesn't work. Where have you been?