Is it just me or has both linux and mac gained a lot of ground over the last 5-6 years? The windows family is still dominating, but does not seem to be moving forward.
Could the reason be mobile devices, iPhone etc., and that people are using their mobile to surf in a greater degree? Are more and more poor people in the world being set up with Ubuntu dists on cheap laptops? Techwizards, please enlight me. :)
Seems somewhat logical in that as more people become computer adept, they can move farther from their roots (Windows) to explore the alternatives for either need or curiosity.
Another consideration is that computers have gotten so much cheaper year after year with even laptops being in the sub 300 area for many consumers. Windows has remained the same price or more expensive in contrast, and the cost of the OS is becoming visible.
Is it just me or has both linux and mac gained a lot of ground over the last 5-6 years? The windows family is still dominating, but does not seem to be moving forward.
Could the reason be mobile devices, iPhone etc., and that people are using their mobile to surf in a greater degree? Are more and more poor people in the world being set up with Ubuntu dists on cheap laptops? Techwizards, please enlight me. :)
Seems somewhat logical in that as more people become computer adept, they can move farther from their roots (Windows) to explore the alternatives for either need or curiosity.
Another consideration is that computers have gotten so much cheaper year after year with even laptops being in the sub 300 area for many consumers. Windows has remained the same price or more expensive in contrast, and the cost of the OS is becoming visible.
Strange, you'd think that on cheaper devices they'd make the OS cheaper too. Cheaper devices = selling more of them = selling more of the OSes on them, if the OS is cheap enough to make the complete device cheap enough that is...
>>Strange, you'd think that on cheaper devices they'd make the OS cheaper too.
I believe they have been doing this. Though for a lot of machines the OS is the most expensive component + not the cpu,HD or anything physical.
Perhaps they should look at apples strategy, Im not a fan of apple but $50 OS upgrade every 6-12months vs $200 new OS every 3 years. Its debatable if a they would make more money but a lot of ppl (like myself) have skipped vista entirely which == $0 for MS. Apple are doing this with there iphone/ipod shop sell heaps of apps at $1-$5 low cost == lotsa volume, yes perhaps its equals less money at the start but there are other benifits, piracy, loyalty, ppl get used to buying things.
Quote:Original post by zedzPerhaps they should look at apples strategy, Im not a fan of apple but $50 OS upgrade every 6-12months vs $200 new OS every 3 years. Its debatable if a they would make more money but a lot of ppl (like myself) have skipped vista entirely which == $0 for MS.
I'd be happy to upgrade to 7 for 50 USD. I hardly believe that would ever happen, but considering the piracy rates here, I don't quite get how they can still not considering "snapping in" users with a decent upgrade path.
Quote:Original post by Yann L Yeah, I've also noticed that. Everybody around me suddenly seems to be using some form of MacBook.
Quote:Original post by Yann L Yeah, I've also noticed that. Everybody around me suddenly seems to be using some form of MacBook.
Me too. That sucks.
Hey, they are pretty! Now, the real question is *which* operating system are those people running on their Macs? I've seen a few MacBooks pop up at my university, but most seem to be running Windows or Linux rather than Mac OS...
Edit: quote fail...
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That's gotta hurt the freetards to see a BSD-branch *nix that was essentially dead for several years overtake them in market-share with far, far fewer developers in just under 4 years.
I wonder if we're seeing more "linux" out there is because of the OEM vendors who are taking the guess work out and pre-installing it in various flavors on different types of machines? A lot of netbooks are being sold with Linux on them, and a netbook is much closer to an internet appliance than it is to a real computer. Some are going for $90 right now (with Windows XP), that's cheap enough to almost make the thing disposable. How many Linux-based cellphones are out there?
Quote:Original post by capn_midnight That's gotta hurt the freetards to see a BSD-branch *nix that was essentially dead for several years overtake them in market-share with far, far fewer developers in just under 4 years.
FreeBSD owns. It's running on my desktop, even though it's more of a server OS. But I can run most of GNU software so I don't care.
Windows OSs will inevitably always dominate the market. Why can't we just move to to something useful and constructive instead of posting this every few weeks/months? Does everyone not have something better to do? [sad]
Former Microsoft XNA and Xbox MVP | Check out my blog for random ramblings on game development
Quote:Original post by capn_midnight That's gotta hurt the freetards to see a BSD-branch *nix that was essentially dead for several years overtake them in market-share with far, far fewer developers in just under 4 years.
I wonder if we're seeing more "linux" out there is because of the OEM vendors who are taking the guess work out and pre-installing it in various flavors on different types of machines? A lot of netbooks are being sold with Linux on them, and a netbook is much closer to an internet appliance than it is to a real computer. Some are going for $90 right now (with Windows XP), that's cheap enough to almost make the thing disposable. How many Linux-based cellphones are out there?
Android is a Linux distro.
Maemo (the current Nokia smartphone OS) is a Linux distro.
I have several pre-release Linux phones sittong on my desk. Linux is the future of cellphones.
Stephen M. Webb
Professional Free Software Developer
>>Windows OSs will inevitably always dominate the market.
patently incorrect (yes I have it ;) ) Check out the windows mobile OS share, this is one segment MS have tried + are fighting a losing battle. on the desktop as well their market share is trending downwards as well, True I dont think linux is very much a viable challenge but theres Mac + cloud/google, In 5 years time things could look very different
