It's obvious now Linux will go nowhere soon nor later for reasons you've
stated (Mr. R. Nutcase R.) and, the market does not have a familiarity with
the product (at even individual level). Despite arguments of a superior
built OS, there are too many distros and more than one Desktop GUI, Gnome,
KDE enough to scare a consumer right back to what they feel comfortable
with. Most people (users I've met and spoken to about their computer
preferences) don't like Macs because their mouse has only one button, their
belief. Nearly everyone that says, what's Linux? Never heard of it. No
marketing, no product familiarity and seems to be the exclusive discussion
of the "nerds", whom's revenge will never come.
I worked for two corporations that tried the Linux line and dropped it for
many good reasons, one being support, and development tools, and users not
being (yes there it is again) familiar with it, who wants to re-train their
employees if they don't need to? Even though there are skins that will look
exactly like a Windows desktop for Linux, say to a person (employee) it's
Linux and the first thing they'll say is what's that? Then call you
(support) every five minutes to ask questions like "...to do this..., ...is
it the same as...?" And you can bet on that, goes back to familiarity.
People have an innate fear of products and will lean towards what they're
familiar with. How many of you are familiar with, "Where do you want to go
today"?, Or "Create something new with Windows XP" ? Tell me a Linux
slogan.... A Mac one... Instead we see Linux boxed with a penguin, is that
image corporate? Do you think MS products have a corporate image or don't
scare off corporate purchasers.
Looks like the Marketers (with their crap) beat the Engineers (with their
craftsmanship).
My opinion (all 1 1/2 cents worth of it) is that someone (or people) should
decompile (reverse engineer) WindowsXP and the new Pista and reconstruct it
and familiarise the market with it and have no WPA, WGA and will run MS
Office and run .NET and can install Visual Studio 6.0 -> .NET 2005 and maybe
call it Doors! A can market it something like, "...You can look through
Windows but, You can open the Doors of opportunity.." Break on through to
the otherside, Break on through to the otherside,... Oh Yeah! (<-- sorry
about that).
- Winux P
: WPA is not liked by nearly everyone, including many inside MS. It,
: unfortunately, is the result of years of trying to cut down on "casual
: copying" - something which, not unlike file sharing (pirated music in
: particular), is only getting worse and harder to control. I would expect
: that it will become more rigid rather than more relaxed. The only other
: major x86 compatible OS, Linux, is still not user friendly enough for
: general public distribution, and as long as there are 100+ different
: versions being distributed it never will be. Until all the 'nix developers
: band together and cooperate on producing one solid consumer-friendly
: interface, it likely will never go beyond being a novelty in the home user
: market. Of course, if they do that they might just as well incorporate
: themselves and........
:
: --
: Best of Luck,
:
: Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
:
: Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone
:
: Windows help -
www.rickrogers.org
:
: : >I wish there were competing operating systems with the same level of
: > compatibility with software and hardware as Windows XP.
: >
: > I hate the fact that when I make frequent hardware changes I get
punished
: > for it by having to trade a 40+ number activation code with some person
on
: > the phone which takes away time from the real work that I have to do.
: >
: > Anyone have any thoughts. Will Vista be as unfair?
:
:
.