“Ask around the office. You’ll hear the Gen Xers sneer about how Microsoft’s operating system is, well, so yesterday. Even a fair number of IT graybeards are warming to the notion that the times, they are a changing,” Charles Cooper writes for CNET News.
MacDailyNews Note: Ah, Dylan. Steve Jobs would surely appreciate that reference.
“And so they are. 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,” Cooper writes.
Cooper writes, “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.”
Cooper explores the security leeches’ and Adobe’s PDF worries about the latest version of Winblows and concludes, “However this gets resolved, the dustup speaks volumes about the true state of Windows’ relevance. Looks like ‘yesterday’s product’ still has a few more tomorrows left.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “AshNazg” for the heads up.]
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Microsoft Windows will always be the perfect example of a bad example; therefore, its relevance will be eternally enduring.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow! I (never) loved ya, tomorrow!
You’re always an unsecure mess!”
…that is why the European Union is suing Microsoft. For one billion dollars!
But M$ still has billions of cash in the bank and has installed blinders on most IT shops. So don’t look for anything but the most incremental of changes for the foreseeable future…
love it or hate, it’s still 90+% of the user experience. the question seems stupid and pointless.
its The times they are a changin’ (no g)
It was also Blowin’ in the wind…
And to answer his critics calling him for droppin’ his g’s he called John Wesley Hardin, John Wesley Harding (with g!)
Details are important.
Dylan knew that.
Apple knows that.
Just asking the question tells you volumes about where the product is headed. MSFT has lost the X generation. These are the decision makers/influencers of tomorrow (today?).
“love it or hate, it’s still 90+% of the user experience. the question seems stupid and pointless.”
sometimes i wonder why BMW is even in business. what’s the point? they’ll never catch up to the honda civic.
yeah really mike i mean wtf hondas are everywhere.
GM used to be the dominate force in US auto sales with over 50% market share. Now they are one of many struggling to stay afloat. Nobody would have dreamed in 1960 more cars would be produced in Ottowa than in Michigan (2004-) or that Toyota and Honda would have such a huge percentage of the US & World market.
Microsoft may have billions and 90% of the market today but maintaining that is likely harder than getting there.
Windows’s dominance will go down someday just like the iPod will.
MS has got to go – they must go. I am so sick of this techno-communism I could hurl vast amounts of seething putrification. We can argue about which side constitutes a better computing experience, who the fanatics are, who’s serious about meeting the demands of business and who’s not, but its all just crap. MS rules, like it or not, and something has got to change.
I hear winds-of-change-like talk on this site frequently, but the overall numbers are not moving fast. Don’t get me wrong, its not Apple’s fault, its all about the consumers. What will it take to get consumer, enterprise and home, to make a sudden about face? Will it be VISTA? No doubt it will drive some to change, but will it change many? What will it take?
Consumers get screwed right and left, year after year, yet keep flocking to the store to buy yet another HP or Dell or whatever. Business IT pros dogmatically refrain from even wanting to know what other solutions are out there that are not based on MS technology – its crazy, but its got to change. What will it take?
I believe MS has single handedly all but suffocated the realm of personal computing, and in a way and at a scale never before seen in the history of the world. Somehow, I can’t quite put my finger on it, its got something to do with the way all of this got started back in the middle 80’s. Right away the whole of pc technology, hardware and software, became quickly embroiled in this huge philosophical game comprised mostly of philosophical grand-standing, and that mostly on the part of Apple and Apple users.
As enterprise began to quickly implement, in practice, the idea of using pc technology in the workplace (enterprise was already primed and ready to go for this new technology, which basically grew from the desktop calculator), the developers of this technology began to see possibilities for getting non-enterprise to embrace the technology, if for no other reason, as an interesting novelty or hobby.
Anyway, early on everybody took philosophical sides and so began a product loyalty feudalism not seen in a very long time, and it continues to this day. I guess its ok to subscribe to the philosophy of a product, but for Apple I think it has been a bullet in the foot, not fatal, but a two decades long set back none-the-less. As Apple has begun to level the playing field with its Intel based products that also easily and natively run Windows, the enterprise consumer as well as the general consumer seem to be warming up to the idea of not using Windows. Maybe its because there’s not so much percieved pressure to subscribe to a philosophy while buying a computer.
Of course, its not like MS doesn’t have a philosophy, its just that their’s, perhaps, is not one that would help their sales.
I sense that the more we de-philosophize the Mac platform, the more free potential first-time buyers feel to explore something new.
I was just wondering the same thing about C|NET.
interesting how zero mention of Apple in the above MDN story. didn’t bother to read the link but i’m sure it’s not mentioned there either. pathetic how Apple is always totally discounted.
Unfortunatly dear fellows…
…corporations around the world will stick to Microsoft crapola forever.
Do you want a example?
Mac’s have over 85% of the creative market and Apple nearly died, but artists continue to use them and stuck stubbornly to what they knew. Despite Adobe writing Apple off and even recommending the creative industry switch to PC’s.
So imagine if it was so hard to kill off Apple’s loyal following, how hard would it be to kill off Microsoft’s in the much larger buisness world?
Microsoft and Windows is relevant and will continue to be so unless Bill Gates just forces the world to Mac OS X.
Windoze relevent? Yes, for all the primates who are just realizing that typewriters have been slightly upgraded and now appear under a new name: XP!
MW: group. 90%+ market share? It’s all because of the GROUP mentality.
Microsoft certifies most IT weenies.
IT weenies influence most corporate computer purchases.
Most new corporate computers run a Microsoft OS.
No coincidence there.
If Apple wants into enterprise they should certify all IT weenies on the Mac OS, for free, as in beer.
A few will see the light.
Most corporate and serious computer users couldn’t care less what OS they’re using. It’s the applications which count – and iLife doesn’t figure in their calculations. Just get on and write that report or fill in that spreadsheet. MacOS lacks the applications and muscle in enterprise applications and backwards compatibility (no company’s going to make a revolutionary change to its IT dept). All the while that problem remains, MacOS will continue to occupy a small niche market. Despite the rantings of this forum, virus problems don’t feature large on most Windows users list of issues – it’s a way of life they’ve grown used to, and providing you install a decent AV checker and are sensible about what you do, is not of any significance. I’ve had Windows machines from 1998 and never yet had a virus. Same goes for my Macs, which I’ve had since 2003.
Well, the British BBC is still entrenched in the MS world.
Sad to say, I’m paying for it via a government-imposed tax called a ‘licence’.
Hey iSteve, your reference to Ottawa is actually Oshawa (near TO) and yeah Ont does produce more cars than Michigan… crazy.
With Vista coming into the fold we know that some brave (small) IT departments will do the “upgrade”, I think the question for Apple is, will some of them purchase Apple computers in order to allow movement to OSX in case Msft falls flat on their faces.
OSX Leopard will make this choice easier with more intergration via virtualazation.
In a word, no. Windows is dying a slow, painful death. It is as relevant to computers as Democrats are to American politics.
It could be that this thing will go like a teeter-todder, the weight will suddenly shift towards OSX in a dramatic way.
My 2 cents:
Apple should buy Adobe
Make Adobe/Macromedia products far superior on the mac through integration with OS X and core image/core video/core animation, spotlight, etc.
Continue to make macs the ultimate platform for running windows but add many more reasons for people to boot only the mac os. Speed, stability, eye candy, superior apps, etc.
Make an Office killer
______________
The problem for the last several years is that software developers have tried there best to be platform agnostic. They want their apps to be the same across the board. So adobe, who let Illustrator languish for years on the pc, made the two versions equal, etc. The only way around this is for apple to buy/develop their own apps that rock everybodies world and once again bring us to the place where the real pros must use the mac or be left behind. We are getting there with small developers creating apps that take advantage of core image, for example. And Apple has some pro apps that are becoming the must-haves of the video and photo world. Why not do the same for the graphic design, engineering, education, etc. fields.
I sound like a broken record cause I always go back to the same strategy.