If Microsoft Windows operating systems are so terrible, then why are they so popular?
Just a real random thought I had as I was rebooting my computer for the fifth time today. Now I can’t sit here and say that Microsoft operating systems suck, largely because I haven’t tried anything else. Well, last year I did experiment with Linux, but I must be too stupid learn how to use it. LOL!!
Anyway, we all know the huge hype and controversy about Microsoft and how much their previous and current operating systems just totally blow. So how is that? Why do people feel that way? The reason why I am asking is because the numbers just don’t seem to add up.
There is such a hissy about how terrible Microsoft is, especially with their latest operating system, Windows Vista. Yet, people buy their products. So my question for anyone reading this post is this:
If Microsoft sucks so bad, then how come people still buy their products? What element(s) gave Microsoft superman powers to brainwash billions of people into buying their products? Perhaps at one point in time, maybe Microsoft was cool and produced great stuff. But if that isn’t the case anymore, then how is it possible that they continue to drive sales?
Do you see where I am coming from? Here is an example. If I purchase a new vehicle and after having 10 years of nothing but terrible experiences with that vehicle, do you think that I’ll turn right around and purchase that same make and model again? Would you? No… So if Microsoft sucks so bad, then how come people again and again, continue to purchase their products.
There is at least two alternatives: Linux and Mac. As mentioned above, I am too stupid to use linux, as I suspect many other average skilled people are. That leaves only one option, Mac. So how come Mac has never gain much in popularity. To me, it was only very recently when they started doing better with marketing and promoting. Within the last two years is when I recall starting to see more television commercials and such.
So what gives? If Microsoft sucks so bad, then why do people time and time again continue to buy?
Popularity: 4% [?]
23 comments
For me, the issue has been cost. I just bought a quad core machine with vista for $1500. The equivalent Mac would have been $2500 plus some software. I have 4 PCs in my house.
Still, I think I should have bought a mac.
Mark
Linux is not tough to learn. It just takes time. People don’t “continue to buy windows” they are forced to buy it. Personally I’ve never purchased a copy of Windows that didn’t come on a computer I purchased. I believe that Mac has a better product but it costs so much. Microsoft now has a monopoly, people are used to it, even tho they hate Vista they’re still going to use it because they don’t know about anything else. I hope that OSX takes a bigger % of the market share although I can say that OSX is far from perfect.
Anyhow I think thats enough of a rant for now.
@ Mark
Many people would challenge that comment. A few months back I ran a post that just got bombarded with traffic titled, Apple MacBook vs Dell XPS. I ended up getting over 100 comments on that thread, mainly all from Mac supporters and M$ haters.
The issue regarding cost came up quite a bit in the comments. I do believe you about the initial cost compared of a PC compared to a Mac is less initially. But isn’t time money too? I can’t begin to tell you how many things I have had to start over from scratch due to a system failure.
Also what about productivity? Honestly, Windows Vista seems really nice at first, but the minute I install something additional, even something so small as Yahoo Messenger, I immediately see a drop in system performance. To me, having a slow system costs me more than the $1000 dollars extra spent on something better.
What are your continued thoughts?
@ Owen,
Linux is not very user friendly. My grandmother has more of a chance using a Windows based computer for the first time in her life compared to using a distro of Linux. Also one thing that comes to mind regarding Linux is security. People feel that Linux is more secure than Windows and I don’t believe that to be true. With so many different distributions of Linux it can take weeks to get security patches installed.
With Windows, even though on the surface of things it might seem less secure due to its popularity, Microsoft is very quick towards releasing security updates.
I agree with you when you say that Mac OS X might not be as perfect as it is lead to be. It would be really great to subject that operating system to as much exposure as Microsoft’s operating systems. People say that Mac OS X is more secure and that can partly be to the fact that many people don’t even bother with trying to hack it because of the low level of people using it.
When you say that even though people hate Windows products such as Vista, yet they continue to use it because they don’t know better… I wonder if Apple has any chance of scoring a higher % of the market? What do you think is needed in order for them to do that?
Thanks for the comments guys.
@Garry. Yes. You are right. I should not have bought the damn Dell. Unplugging it now.
Now now… I have a Dell notebook so I can’t allow you do just do that. But I am serious.. I am just at much fault of this as you. I buy Windows based computers too! Why, I don’t know? I too fell for the “Apple computers are too expensive bit”… well, being honest, I was going to finally buy my first Apple, then my wife and I discovered that we were going to be having our forth child. So, I don’t rightly feel that would be fair to purchase a new computer when we could be investing the money into diapers and such. LOL!!!
Seriously, I think the time in lost productivity is offset by the 15 years of accumulated knowledge that I have about PCs. I don’t know the first flippin thing about a Mac. I do know that my Mac friends occasionally struggle with late or poor vendor support for things that are well supported on the PC side like video cards and printers. So, I’d call that a draw.
Having said that, I need to go now. My wife has an HP laptop running XP. The printer she wants to use is on my new Vista machine, but the XP machine cannot see it today (it could yesterday).
That crap drives me nuts and does cost me time (which is money).
Mark
I don’t think Apple needs to do anything to gain market share, they already are. To take over they need their operating system to run on *ALL* hardware. This is not what Apple wants, they lose control then and come to the problem that Microsoft has. It simple doesn’t work because Joe Blow can make a piece of hardware and make a crap driver. This should get better with the Vista stuff.
I have many clients that use Linux. Hesitant at first some actually swear by it now. One user has a Virtual Machine for his critical Windows software & can reformat in about 10 seconds. Another only runs Linux on their business now. They have new hardware and get Linux to boot in about 30 seconds. This helps with Spyware, employee wasting time (since they don’t know how to use it) and security.
With Windows the average patch time is awful. With Open Source, you can turn the component off, and a lot of time your not even effected by the exploits. With modern distributions updates will be done pretty much in the same fashion as Windows does it except probably quicker
As far as working for every one, its not for every one. But I believe that your grandma has more chance in using a Windows PC because thats what she’ll get when she buys it. E-Mail & Web Browsing is just as simple on Linux as it is on Windows. With distributions such as Ubuntu even installing software is even easy. They have some distributions for this purpose, I can’t think of any off the top of my head. There are also distributions for schools & non profits to get them up and running at minimal cost, where as to run the last supported version of Windows (currently XP) they need a license which means they have to either pirate one, or get Microsoft to donate.
I think that Linux has a more specialized purpose than Mac OSX or Windows. They are more “generic” operating systems where as Linux can be tailored to do anything for free given enough time. It gives me the flexibility I need without worrying about expensive development platforms or buying a piece of software every time I need to do something.
Hope that answers some of your questions
…diapers — or Cubs tickets? lol
@ Owen,
Yes indeed your comment is very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
* For everyone who doesn’t know owen, he is the author of a really cool blog that I have been keeping tabs on called, The Linux Blog. For any advice, tips and tricks regarding Linux, Owen is your guy!
Ok Owen, I do have something I like to pick your brain about. As mentioned above, I am not in the market to purchase an Apple. I want one badly as I feel it would fit my needs perfectly as a full time blogger / publisher. But, family comes first and I am not forking out the cash.
Also, I can’t justify the cost for the 15inch Macbook Pro, which is the one I would purchase if I were to. I can’t deal with 13 in screens and I hate desktop computers. I am a total notebook junkie. I take my notebook everywhere I go. I have kids in sports and my wife makes me go shopping with her… notebooks are the way to go.
Having all that said, I like to see if you could guide me in the right direction. I am very willing to try Linux again. I have numerous available systems to use towards doing this.
My needs are very simple and are as follows:
1.) I need a quickly loading notebook system.
2.) I need Firefox web browser.
3.) I need Open Office.
4.) I need Adobe Photoshop.
That is all I need to do what I do. I am very simple when it comes to computers. I don’t need a lot and I sure as hell don’t download games, shareware, etc.. I am simply just a publisher and a web surfer. I want to push the on button of my notebook and rock and roll. What do you recommend for me? Which distro should I get, and which options should I install.
I remember last year when I was screwing around with Ubuntu, it asked me all kinds of questions, do I want install this, do I want to partition that, etc…
Your help would be very appreciated.
From the beginning, Apple tightly controlled manufacturing of their hardware. Not just anyone could build a Mac. Anyone could build a PC, or peripherals for a PC, and hundreds of manufacturers sprang up. Many, many more PCs were built than Macs, and economies of scale drove prices down, much more so for the PC than the Mac.
But what good is a PC without an OS? Microsoft signed deals with manufacturers to bundle the OS with their hardware. And got very rich.
That relationship with manufacturers continues to this day. Most computers come with Windows installed, and Windows-compatible software. And most consumers keep the OS their computer came with. Only very recently have some manufacturers started offering Linux pre-installed.
People also get used to doing things a certain way, with the tools that they’ve become familiar with. If you’ve been using Windows for years, and programs that run on that OS, you’re reluctant to switch to a different set of tools, and relearn how to do what you need to get done.
Linux has started to become much more user-friendly. Distros like PCLinuxOS, Mint, and Mandriva are as effortless as can be. And with any distro, just a bit more effort pays off big time in terms of cost, stability, and security.
Kiba,
Thanks for the wonderful comment. You’re helping me to see the light on this picture very clearly. Mainly for the fact that you mentioned change. Most people don’t like change. I too don’t like change… that may be hard to believe as I “Change” my WordPress theme like once a day! LOL!!!
But seriously, I know what you mean. I know that I would have to get adjusted to using a Mac or even a Linux based PC.
Understanding that things are going to be different, I am very open minded towards giving it a shot. For the life of me, I don’t understand why Windows Vista has been made to be so demanding on my system resources. I have a very beautiful and powerful notebook computer that I enjoy using very much. However, how can Windows Vista drop so much in performance when I install only a few items.
I have Adobe Photoshop 6, OpenOffice and a few other things such as FireFox, YIM, Google Talk, Windows Live and a few other really minor things installed, yet my computer suffers in performance.
I work with mostly UNIX systems, Linux has a much friendlier GUI than UNIX, on the windows side I have learned to hmmmm love? windows maybe, well it doesn’t bother me to use windows. It’s not either or for me anymore they’re both very different and there’s always been the claim that the Linux kernel is much more robust than windows, but it does break sometimes. However, on the administration side, my counterparts on the windows side are busy all the time, patching and fixing and upgrading and rebooting. My systems have been running themselves for years and not that I’m not busy, but I don’t suffer as much as the windows admins. It really sucks for them.
Home users are just whiners, even though windows is designed for them I think. It’s supposed to be the easiest thing to use. I think they would complain the same if MACs were more affordable. I’d never complain if I had a MAC. There’s nothing wrong with Dell either it’s good hardware, you can run x86 versions of pretty much any Linux or UNIX kernel on them.
That’s my two cents.
Charlie,
I like Dell computers… and feel that they are the best being offered. Are you saying that Dell computers also do well with Linux? Owen went to bed for the night so he won’t be back until tomorrow. What do you know about the various versions of Linux for the home user? Do you have any recommendations as far as which distribution of Linux to install?
I’d recommend Ubuntu just for the fact that there’s a huge and very active community to help you get familiar with the Linux way of doing things. It’s a great introduction to Linux. Of course, Mac is basically a very, very user-friendly Unix variant now—or more accurately BSD, which is even more stable and powerful than Linux, if not as bleeding-edge.
I really like Windows XP, but Vista is just garbage. It’s the best thing to happen to Linux, I think. I’ve installed Ubuntu on several friends’ systems, thanks to their horrible experiences with Vista.
Photoshop would probably run on Linux using Wine, but I’d get the commercial app CrossOver. It was funded by Pixar specifically for running Photoshop on Linux.
Hey there,
Ubuntu is probably the best for new new users. There are different flavors to choose from this too. You have Ubuntu which ships with Gnome, Kubuntu which is KDE based and Xubuntu which has Xfce. I like Xfce because it is light weight but it doesn’t have the best file manager. Therefore I would recommend Ubuntu. I think that the setup is a little easier now, it has automatic partitioning and all of that.
One advantage to Mac OSX / Linux while running Firefox is that you only get 1 instance for Firefox. Open it up on Windows (Even when you press CTRL+N for a new window) you get a separate Firefox instance taking up resources. This is not the case with Linux or OSX, it runs off of the same process which means it uses less resources.
Ubuntu has a nice program called automatix which is great to install stuff like Video Player Plug-Ins and PDF readers.
The only thing you will have trouble with Garry is Photoshop. There is NO Photoshop for Linux. Some may argue that The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is the replacement but it is far less sophisticated and difficult to use for the Photoshop user. I have got older versions of Photoshop working with Wine but they are a little buggy and sometimes crash, which is understandable since .exe files were never suppose to run on Linux.
You can use Pidgin for your instant messaging and it supports AIM, Yahoo, GTalk, Jabber and a bunch of others. That knocks out a couple of applications if you were to install each of them on Windows
Grahpics support is one of the things that really needs to be set up properly to enjoy Linux. The easiest to install by far is the NVIDIA graphics driver, I always try and make sure my hardware has a GeForce video card for this reason. ATI has some well supported 3d accelerated cards but all of the GeForces I have used have been much easier to set up.
I like my Toshiba Tecra M2 and Linux runs great on it. Mostly everything works with the exception of the SD card reader, Infrared and Modem, but I don’t use those and they apparently can be made to work. I have suspend when I close my lid and can also use Hibernate if I wish.
For my Windows Apps I can run VMWare and Windows XP and you could not tell the difference from running Windows on bogged down machine in my opinion. I showed a professor office 2007 running in a full screen Virtual Machine and he was amazed at how much quicker my Virtual Machine was then the 2.6GHz+ with over a gig of ram computers in the Lab. I have a 1.7GHz with 768MB of memory. So you could probably run Photoshop in that, I’ll try to get a video cast up some time if possible.
Again, Linux isn’t for everyone. It does break and its quite possible that when it breaks that you could spend a lot of time Fixing it. I have had it break right at the most inappropriate times but, at least I could fix it without having to reinstall everything which it seemed like I used to do on a bi-monthly basis before.
Hope this answers more of your questions.
- Owen.
[...] As you may know from previous posts I read Garry Conn’s blog on a regular basis. When he wrote an article on Microsoft Windows I couldn’t help but comment. You can read the post in full here. [...]
Mind you, I’m not a zealot who’s ranting that “this is the year of the Linux desktopâ€. I’m just pointing out what I think are flaws in your argument – and your conclusion. I do think that Linux desktop adoption will grow – very slowly, but surely. Until one day people will wake up and it’ll be a major factor. Just like with Linux on the server. Linux has too much efficiency in its model of production, and in its cost of production. Think about it: Linux has no need to “rush†its adoption in order to satisfy VC’s. And it will never “go out of businessâ€. It will always remain a player, and keep making itself better and better (and never increase its price!) until eventually more and more people will begin to realize it.
I don’t think this is the year of the Linux desktop, to be honest, I don’t think it will ever have a “year.”
I agree with several people above that cost has played a role into whether people go for a PC with Windows or Mac OSX. I also think Microsoft does quite well by preying on the fear of less-tech savvy computer users. Many people I recommend a Mac too just cringe and say that it’s too hard to learn to use the Mac’s OS, when they really don’t know. I’d recommend a Mac any day over PC, but unfortunately our world is heavy with PC users afraid to switch.
In response to comments above about having to re-learn Mac, the newer models offer the ability to switch between Mac’s operating system and Windows. So in essence they are much much more versatile than PC’s.
Here’s my comparison of the three major operating systems, I have experience with all three of them, so I’m not as biased as most. Here’s my take on six key points which I think best describe a good operating system.
1. Customization
Linux: Very customizable, but to much customizing may cause some problems.
Mac: Very little customization support, but there are third party programs that change things such as the Window Skins and the Dock.
Windows: More customizable than Mac, but again, but there third party programs to change anything major.
2. Stability
Linux: I have never had Linux crash on me in the four years I’ve been using it, and miraculously I’ve never had a program crash either.
Mac: I have also never had Mac crash on me either, but I have programs crash on me often.
Windows: Windows crashes and so does its programs, go figure.
3. Community Support
Linux: There is a HUGE Linux fanbase which offers support for any Linux Distro. There is generally always someone on a Linux forum ready to answer your question.
Mac: Support on the Mac Website is mediocre at best, and there seem to be few technical Mac Users on any forum or website.
Windows: Generally good Website support, but not very much community support.
4. Programming
Linux: I know of very few Programmers who hate Linux. Linux uses a very wide range of programming language, and has fairly diverse community driven compilers.
Mac: There are only like, five official program languages you can use in Mac, and all are pretty much centered around Objective-C. While this does call for more native Mac applications, it can cause some problems for Programmers who want to switch to Mac.
Windows: Windows has a fairly large amount of supported programming languages, from Fortran to C#.
5. Graphics
Linux: Linux is great for graphics, but has few professional graphics programs. Albeit there are many great community based graphics programs out there ( Tuxpaint, GIMP, ect )
Mac: Not Surprisingly, Mac almost demands that you either Photoshop if you want to do graphics work. There are a few Image Editors for Mac, but nothing very technical or offering as much support as lets say, Paint.NET for Windows does. ( I would have to recommend SeaShore, it offers layering and brush support )
Windows: Windows can run Photoshop and a number of other image programs such as Paint.NET and Gimp.
FYI, My grandma is using Ubuntu just fine right now.
It’s not hard to learn linux. It gets more user friendly every day. When I started, I had no clue what I was doing, but I kept at it.
It’s a matter of apathy why Windows is so popular. I think people just resign themselves to it because Mac is too expensive and Linux is “too nerdy”
It sucks, but it’s the truth. I hate Windows. I hate using it at all, even at school. I preach, but for a good reason.
/rant
It's because they are cheep.
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