amicus_curious wrote:
> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1957816.iqYMQrqe9X@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Ignorance of College Students is Keeping Windows On Top of Mac
> >
> > ,----[ Quote ]
> > | The first 20 minutes of the class was completely wasted while a
> > | majority of the Windows Users had questions for the teacher on
> > | why they were getting errors from IE while opening the excel
> > | document (I'm not exaggerating this). I was all ready to
> > | go on my MacBook.
> > |
> The author is a smug sort of person, I sense, and yet another incidence of
> not understanding the environment due to a faulty point of view. He
> suggests that people try OSX, but that is not what people do. They try out
> computers, not an OS.
That is probably true when comparing say, a Dell Dimension running
Windows XP to a MiniMac running OSX, on a sales floor. On the other
hand, it is becoming more and more common for prospective customers to
walk in with a
Live-CD, insert it, power down the box, and boot it into Knoppix,
Ubuntu, or OpenSUSE, and make sure that the machine will be capable of
running Linux. In this case, the customer is trying the Operating
System IN the computer. The customer can then see exactly how much
faster an Intel Core 2 Duo would be, than his current Pentium 4M (you
don't see much difference with XP).
There are some stores who have tried to prevent this kind of evaluation
by putting barracades on their CD/DVD drives, to prevent them from
being opened. The solution to this is also pretty simple - shop at
another store.
Just because a machine is sold with Windows doesn't mean that it runs
Windows forever. Until about 2005, most Linux users would buy a new
windows machine, and convert the old machine to Linux. Since the
introduction of 64 bit processors such as the AMD-64 and Intel Duo,
more and more Linux users are looking for a machine they can convert to
Linux immediately. They spurn the DirectX-only graphics cards and opt
for the Linux-friendly OpenGL based cards. These days, most of the
higher end PCs are "Linux Ready", while the "Windows Only" machines are
more like "loss leaders".
These days, "Windows Only" machines are becoming increasingly rare,
especially for 64 bit machines.
Not much point really. Why exclude Linux when it could increase your
sales by even a few million units.
> The Apple and the Dell are absolutely identical from
> their point of view since they do the same thing in the same way. The
> configuration of the machine, whether it is an Apple MacBook, or a Dell
> notebook, or even some Linux notebook is only a vague measure of perceived
> quality to the buyer.
The very fact that you had to say "some Linux notebook" indicates the
nature of the issue.
If I could walk into CompUSA or Staples, and "test drive 3 computers,
sitting side by side, one running
Windows, one running OSX, and a third running Linux, would Windows
really win out 99% of the time?
Let's be really generous. We'll put Windows and Office on the Windows
machine.
We'll put all of the applications that are standard with Mac, plus
Office, on the Mac machine.
And then we'll take all of the applications included with SLED
Professional 10.1 on the Linux Machine,
We'll just install them all.
Now, we'll measure the first 1000 purchasing customers each Week.
For the first week, all three machines will be sold for the exact same
price and run the exact same hardware.
Each customer will be able be able get the machine they want
immediately, because the retailer can install the machine on-site using
preinstalled drives, so the inventory will automatically be balanced to
the demand.
The second month, the Mac will be running on a MiniMac, and the Linux
machine will run on an Intel Core2 Duo, we'll even let Windows run on
the Duo. The prices will also be adjusted to reflect the MSRP of the
different systems, making the Linux machine about $400 less than the
Windows machine, and the Mac about $100 more than Windows. Let's
assume the base price would be $1200 per machine.
Next, let's let demand set the price. The top selling machine will
increase the price each week until it's sales match those of the next
best seller, but the costs will not change.
How many thing that Windows would be the most expensive machine? Keep
in mind that about 900 million people already have Windows 2000 or XP
already. They didn't really have much of a choice. The choice was
made by the retailer, the OEM, and their employers or school board.
But now, they have the ability to buy something brand new, very
different - will they buy another machine running Vista, because their
XP machine is just so slow and horrible and buggy that they can't stand
it any more? Or will they look at this new Linux machine and say
"That's different, look at all those applications, this thing could be
a lot of fun, I'd like to spend more time on this".?
There are some who might even assert that the customer might say "That
Linux machine is kind of ugly, a bit plain, no animated paper clips, no
doggy dancing while I search, not even funny noises when I do something
stupid, on the other hand, this Mac interface is so artistic, so
responsive, and so elegant. And it only has one button, which I can
use with all these typewriter keys, this would much easier to use".
Perhaps they are right.
And then there are those who might say
"This Windows Vista machine looks so familiar,
so much like my old XP machine.
I'm 60 years old, why should I have to learn a new interface at my
age.
In fact, it's almost exactly like my old XP box.
Not many differences at all.
The 3D images are cute,
and the transparent pages are interesting,
though a bit hard to read at my age.
I suppose I should get a new Vista box,
but I could probably get a better price at some other store,
maybe even a different brand.
I think I'll just keep on looking,
no big hurry."
(keep in mind that X11 has had transparency/translucency since 1991,
and most people have chosen not to use it because it's not terribly
readable and it can be a bit confusing).
Microsoft is up against the law of diminishing returns.
Windows 3.1 offered CD-ROM and MS-Office
Windows 95 offered Plug-and-Play.
Windows 98 offered USB.
Windows 2000 offered stability.
Windows XP offered security through automated updates.
What's the compelling argument that will make people want to
spend $2000 on an overpriced Vista computer
and throw out a perfectly good and functional Windows XP computer?
Remember the "Innovations" Microsoft is introducing with Vista aren't
even new.
XP users already have Antivirus, Antispyware, google-desktop,
FireFox, and Open Office
available as free downloads. The only thing "new" is that Microsoft
must now be
trusted to provide updates to it's protection against viruses (they
don't even offer protection
against spyware - blocking spyware is a violation of the license),
and users now have
to deal with even more annoying license terms, activation codes,
automatic termination,
and they need 4 times the RAM to get the same amount of performance.
Eye candy is great for selling used cars to teenagers, but when you get
mature,
you want stability, reliability, security, performance, and a good
price. You want
an SUV because you don't have to stay home when it snows.you can take
nine kids
in the car pool, you can see above the other cars. You don't buy an
SUV because
it's cheap, or because it has a really classy style. In fact, most
people started buying
SUVs because they got bigger tax deductions, especially if they were
Amway dealers.
All that being said, I don't think ANYBODY, including me and Bill
Gates, knows how
such a survey would actually pan out. Given the extreme lengths to
which Microsoft
has gone to prevent Linux from being displayed on the retail floor,
one would think that
perhaps Microsoft has done such surveys, and realized that having
Linux or Unix
sitting right next to each other during an evaluation and purchased
decision, would
not be good for Microsoft.
I have done similar demonstrations in the corporate environment. In
1991, we
put a SUN IPC running SunOS 4.0, next to a Windows 3.1 machine.
Microsoft
provided someone from Redmond to try and create the best display and
pitch they could.
The Sun machine was just running some simple standard applications. We
did have
Applix Office for Sun on there, but we also had strip charts with
ticker symbols,
real-time displays of statistics, and real-time news feed displays.
All running
concurrently. Nearly every executive said almost the same thing, "you
can put
Windows on the user desks, but on MY desk I want one of those SUN
Machines.
Out of that one demonstration, we ended up getting orders for over 500
Sun machines.
But about 1000 Windows machines were ordered for the other people who
weren't invited
to the show. Quite simply, it was unanimous. When people were
spending their own money
on themselves (these executives were almost literally taking the cost
of the Sun out of their bonuses),
they chose UNIX over Windows.
In 1998, I was requested to create a Linux demonstration in which all
of the other systems being demonstrated were running Windows. Again,
we did the same kind of thing. I put together a server that did
everything that had taken the Windows server development team almost 3
months to accomplish, in about 20 hours. I also had a laptop running
on a little Compaq I had purchased used for $300. The Windows people
were impressed, but couldn't understand why Linux was better. That
became evident the following day when someone moved the router around.
My boss called me up to see if I could drive out and fix the box. I
asked him to read the inet address from ifconfig on the laptop and the
server, and within 15 minutes, I had everything working. It would have
taken almost 2 hours to drive out. The executives at the show were
impressed. Linux was even a contender for one of the call centers as a
result. Within a few weeks, we had some Linux servers in the computer
room, but next to the UNIX boxes, rather than near the Windows
administrators.
How many others have made similar demonstrations?
Just based on the few such demonstrations that I have done, about the
only time Linux doesn't get
almost unanimous preference, is when you are comparing something like
Windows XP to Red Hat 4.0
with a Gnome 1.x interface.
The other BIG Mistake I have made, once, was to get a bunch of "Cheap
Bytes" CDs for Linux, and
dropping them on people's desks. I did get several people who had
tried it on their machines at home, which unfortunately were "Linux
Hostile" at the time. I did help a few of them over the phone, and
once they got the machines working again, with Both Windows and Linux,
they did enjoy booting into Linux, but also continued to boot into
Windows. This was back in 1997.
Last year, IBM did a great little demo. They put CDs on 2000 seats.
The users were instructed on how to install VMWare, how to start the
image, and how to log into Windows. Within an hour, nearly all 2000 of
them were not only running Linux on their laptops, they could access
Lotus Notes servers, they could write a WAS application, and they could
deploy the was file and connect to an MQ/Chat server running a Linux
machine on Z-Series. With only one ZVM machine, the 2000 users didn't
even put 2% load on the machine. The demonstration made it very clear
that IBM could switch to Linux on Desktop in a very short time frame.
> Apple computers have an image of being finer designs
> with a high price that appeal to the artsy crowd. Jerry Seinfeld had an
> Apple computer as a prop on his show a few years ago.
Apple's are often used when they want to show off a really "high end"
machine.
This is probably because it doesn't look like Windows. It looks more
futuristic.
Ironically, most of the time, when we see Linux on TV, it's the hacker
trying to break
into some top security system, some really great 3D graphics in
real-time,
or some sort of transparent plasma display. Linux/Unix is so
futuristic, it's
often considered "impossible".
> Windows is seen as an
> expected item in the purchase and when it is missing, the user sees a
> differentiation in product quality.
The interesting thing is that when people actually see Linux, it's the
unexpected.
Some of it is just curiousity. Some of it is just interest in "new and
different".
But many, once they get some experiece with Linux, become almost
militant
about Linux.
> Whether that is good, bad, or
> indifferent is a function of how the product is presented. The computers at
> Wal-Mart that provide Linux are bottom of the line, minimal expense
> computers that the buyer naturally relegates emotionally to a lower quality
> level than something costing more at the same outlet.
Part of this is because Walmart customers had to buy these machines,
"sight unseen".
My dad bought one of them, and he really liked it. He has been using
it for about 5 years now.
He liked Linux so much, that he also put it on his laptop.
My son liked Linux so much he puts it on anything. He's put it on
Playstations, PDAs,
XBox, even an Ipod nano. His Thinkpad Laptop runs Linux and only
linux.
My Daughter is a bit more pragmatic, and uses a dual-boot system that
can run Linux or Windows,
but most of the time she prefers Linux. In fact, she didn't start
using Windows again until she got to
college and got marked down for papers she had written using OpenOffice
1.0.
> If a trusted advisor
> touts Linux, the buyer can be convinced to accept the substitution,
> otherwise, no sale except at distressed pricing levels ala Wal-Mart.
I have said it many times, and I will continue to say it whenever this
issue comes up.
Just because a machine is sold with Windows, doesn't mean that is all
it will ever run.
The U.S.A. market is nearly saturated with Windows. Figure that
Windows XP has been
around since October 2000, and that the industry has been selling 100
million PCs/year,
on average. Thats about 500 million PCs. Windows 95/98 were sold
before that,
at similar rates. That means about 1 billion PCs sold over a period of
10 years.
Some of these Windows 95 machines are now circulating in villages
around the sahara desert.
But they've been running Linux since about 1997.
There is very little point to buying a laptop or desktop with an Intel
Duo, or AMD-64 processor, if all you want to do is run Windows. There
is very little point purchasing a machine with an OpenGL graphics card,
if all you want to do is run Windows. At this point, over the last 6
months, there are almost no machines that won't run better on Linux
than when running Windows. Windows XP and Vista are 32 bit by default.
There are almost no 64 bit applications for Windows. Meanwhile, Linux
runs 64 bit kernel and thousands of 64 bit applications.
Microsoft may have dragged it's feet a little too long on this one. I
guess they were assuming that none of the OEMs would introduce 64 bit
machines until the release AFTER Vista. But HP didn't want to wait,
and the race to 64 bit was fed by Linux rather than Windows. In
effect, Microsoft is in almost the same position as Digital Research
was during the transition from 8 bit computers to 16 bit computers.
MS-DOS captured the market because they had offered the standards
established by IBM.
Well guess what. IBM and HP have set the new standard, and it's very
much oriented toward Linux. Microsoft gives HP a good price on
Windows, so they throw it in, but an HP Pavillion can be converted to
Linux in about 40 minutes. It's easier to install Linux and hundreds
of applications, than it is to install just one Windows application
that requires a reboot. The most difficult part, is clicking the
buttons to install all of the software.
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