... is the year of the Linux desktop. The article says things like "Remember, it's the job of the Linux OEM to simply make everything work - out of the box, no excuses," but I don't know how true that is, unless we are talking about niche markets. Most average Jill users don't get an OEM computer that just works (unless they bought a Mac:D) -- they get what would be a decent PC were it not for it being bogged down by bloatware (and, very likely, a bunch of useless system restore crap that was put on the hard drive to save a DVD:P). Yes, power users expect things to work (I don't want to buy a Linux box from a company who expressly provide a "Linux PC", and find out that it has a freaking Broadcom Wireless Chipset), but power computer users, especially power Linux users, are not a sizable chunk of the consumer PC market. These companies sell a "working PC" and not a "weekend project", until the end-user wants to A. play a game that isn't Frozen Bubble B. get help from their pseudo tech-savvy friend (who may well say "Linicks?!") C. enjoy true compatibility with Office D. use iTunes (I think that matters a tonne, given the number of (non tech-savvy) iPod users out there), especially the iTMS E. etc.
Much as I loathe Windows, and love *nix, I'm still weary to recommend it to any of my friends who need a computer. I think Mac OS X is an excellent alternative (hey, it's what I use primarily too!), and it seems like the Ubuntu folks aren't too far from making a distro that average Jill can use, but there's still the matter of user-friendly (GUI) apps, which I think *nix is still lacking in.
The article also mentions frustration with Windows boxes and them having Linux-incompatible hardware. But again, these sound like niche frustrations. When's the last time your aunt said "Goddamn! I wish SuSe worked on my lappy so I'd stop BSODing all of the time!"? More like "Which one is the internet?"
A lot of end-users still find Macs exotic and are grossly misinformed about them. Linux for someone who hasn't heard of Linux, to me, is, at best, just as good for them as an XP box.
Vista's price, system requirements, and youth make it a less-than-optimal choice for deployment in almost any business setting. What does Vista do for, say, everyone in my office that XP can't? Most people here on PCs run MS Office (we just upgraded to 2003), WordPerfect (and the rest of that suite... gross, but it's still our Government standard), IE, and FileMaker Pro. We already have images setup for XP (just load it onto the HD and we're done), and it means that the computers that aren't so great here can still be useful to people who are just using it for standard office work.
It's a new OS, and it's received a bunch of notoriety for being a pain to use and upgrade from. I'm not a crazy Vista hater (there *are* lots of problems with it, and some aren't just bugs -- they're serious OS flaws), but I doubt I could think of five reasons for most people to upgrade to Vista. I upgraded my PC Laptop to Vista Ultimate and about two months later went back to XP Pro. I didn't hate it, per se, but I just didn't feel like I had gained anything by having it (and it hogging over 400MB of RAM at idle). And I certainly lost the ability to use a handful of apps I like.
I'm sure we'll see Vista adoption, but at least not until SP1 arrives. There just aren't real reasons to upgrade yet.
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... is the year of the Linux desktop. The article says things like "Remember, it's the job of the Linux OEM to simply make everything work - out of the box, no excuses," but I don't know how true that is, unless we are talking about niche markets. Most average Jill users don't get an OEM computer that just works (unless they bought a Mac :D) -- they get what would be a decent PC were it not for it being bogged down by bloatware (and, very likely, a bunch of useless system restore crap that was put on the hard drive to save a DVD :P). Yes, power users expect things to work (I don't want to buy a Linux box from a company who expressly provide a "Linux PC", and find out that it has a freaking Broadcom Wireless Chipset), but power computer users, especially power Linux users, are not a sizable chunk of the consumer PC market. These companies sell a "working PC" and not a "weekend project", until the end-user wants to A. play a game that isn't Frozen Bubble B. get help from their pseudo tech-savvy friend (who may well say "Linicks?!") C. enjoy true compatibility with Office D. use iTunes (I think that matters a tonne, given the number of (non tech-savvy) iPod users out there), especially the iTMS E. etc.
Much as I loathe Windows, and love *nix, I'm still weary to recommend it to any of my friends who need a computer. I think Mac OS X is an excellent alternative (hey, it's what I use primarily too!), and it seems like the Ubuntu folks aren't too far from making a distro that average Jill can use, but there's still the matter of user-friendly (GUI) apps, which I think *nix is still lacking in.
The article also mentions frustration with Windows boxes and them having Linux-incompatible hardware. But again, these sound like niche frustrations. When's the last time your aunt said "Goddamn! I wish SuSe worked on my lappy so I'd stop BSODing all of the time!"? More like "Which one is the internet?"
A lot of end-users still find Macs exotic and are grossly misinformed about them. Linux for someone who hasn't heard of Linux, to me, is, at best, just as good for them as an XP box.
Vista's price, system requirements, and youth make it a less-than-optimal choice for deployment in almost any business setting. What does Vista do for, say, everyone in my office that XP can't? Most people here on PCs run MS Office (we just upgraded to 2003), WordPerfect (and the rest of that suite... gross, but it's still our Government standard), IE, and FileMaker Pro. We already have images setup for XP (just load it onto the HD and we're done), and it means that the computers that aren't so great here can still be useful to people who are just using it for standard office work. It's a new OS, and it's received a bunch of notoriety for being a pain to use and upgrade from. I'm not a crazy Vista hater (there *are* lots of problems with it, and some aren't just bugs -- they're serious OS flaws), but I doubt I could think of five reasons for most people to upgrade to Vista. I upgraded my PC Laptop to Vista Ultimate and about two months later went back to XP Pro. I didn't hate it, per se, but I just didn't feel like I had gained anything by having it (and it hogging over 400MB of RAM at idle). And I certainly lost the ability to use a handful of apps I like. I'm sure we'll see Vista adoption, but at least not until SP1 arrives. There just aren't real reasons to upgrade yet.
I was so excited yesterday afternoon when I read this at work. Someone's buying a new computer :D
First time I left my computer unlocked at work, the guys I work with did it to me :D
We play pranks on each other all the time.