I don't know if it's because I use Linux, or because I read a lot of tech news sites, but there seems to be a lot of propaganda and news around Linux, more so than in the past. I wonder why this is. Sure, Linux has matured and there are distributions around that are really mature and user friendly. As I mentioned before, I use Ubuntu, an amazing distribution. The only one where help is at hand if you don't know how to do something or worse still have done something stupid to your PC!
Word of mouth has a lot to do with it, so does product awareness. Lots of people have heard of Linux or Ubuntu (even if it's the same thing!) and slowly as awareness grows, so does demand. Enthusiasts are intrinsically curious. The fact that Linux is a free download further encourages experimentation. So whats changed?
Vista. It's just not better than XP. Even though the hype machine geared up for this new release, it came with more of a whimper than a bang. Complaints about the desktop effects not being available for all new Vista machines sold. The poor performance in copying files across a network (a stupid bug considering most households have more than one PC now!) and to top it off, security improvements mired by poor implementation. Everything didn't 'just work'.
I tell you what Vista's nemesis is, and it's Linux's greatest advocate, the Internet. Complaints flooded the Web almost immediately after release. Word of mouth, mediocre reviews and an over exaggeration in the benefits of Vista brought it to it's knees. Now Microsoft is hyping (and probably rushing) Windows 7 out the door. With an ISO leaking on the net, the hype machine changing up a gear and dissatisfaction with Vista, everything is riding on Windows 7 for Microsoft.
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Very nice blog, thanks for emailing me!
ReplyDeleteCompletely spot on with your post, however Ive always said that the biggest enemy for 7 would be XP and the userbase reluctant to move from it.
With XPM in 7 (and only available on the more expensive versions) coupled with the fact that there is no DX support in my opinion is a poormans option for upgraders to 7 who have XP software they cannot live without.
That being said, when you look at Wine and the compat that offers the user, I don't think it will be long before Wine makes XPM look a little silly and with Wine you don't need the latest CPU chipset for it to run (unlike XPM)
This could well be the "tipping point" and maybe when XP diehards realize that the way to get the best of both worlds is via Wine/Linux (IMO) it could see a migration away from the Windows platform in significant numbers.
Having said that the migration we are seeing now is worthy of praise....
Regards.