Submitted by “It’s amazing how many people who have Microsoft Windows everywhere look flummoxed when asked whether Windows is their “standard” for desktop computing. The reason they are thrown by this question is typically because they haven’t thought about it that way before. In all likelihood, they never actually made a proactive decision to select Windows, in the sense of looking at alternatives and making a conscious objective choice. So how did they end up with it?”
Aggressive Marketing
Backward Compatibility
Shady Business Tactics
Vendor Lockin
Being at the right place and the right time.
Spyglass being stabbed in the back
Netscape not knowing how to fight
Cutler and NT
Unix Fragmentation
Apple being Incompetent
Sun being incompetent
VB
Foxpro (bought from someone else)
Office (parts bought from someone else)
There is no one answer. Bill and Co are good at what they do. Really good. Its not making operating systems because for all of the resources put in to Windows at this point it should make Chuck Norris cry so we could use his tears to cure cancer.
Windows is like the English language, it has evolved and become a standard, through means much like British Colonialism. It’s had some good points and some bad points. I personally don’t like Gates, Balmer, etc but if they had not done it someone else would have and we might have a slightly better OS/Applications/Whatever but some bastards would still have gotten far too rich off of our backs and God knows how many other potential business that were pushed out of the market.
… if they had not done it someone else would have …
We didn’t end up with a monopoly in the auto industry, or large appliance industry, or even the sugar industry. So why should we assume that a monopoly in the desktop OS industry is assured?
We did end up with a monopoly in the auto industry – every car uses gas instead of the many alternatives. The sugar industry ended up with everybody using one kind of sugar when there’s hundreds of varieties out there.
There are many PC vendors – but the absolute majority supply only Windows. There is almost always a monoply in every industry. The difference here is that Microsoft only make people’s lives harder with new products, not the other way around.
Hogwash. The fact that all cars use the same kind of fuel makes it a standard. Standards are good.
The equivalent in the software industry, if there was such a thing, would be a standard API or ABI, not just one supplier. That is, if we had a standard ABI, you could install Microsoft Windows, or ReactOS, or some Widgetsoft Desktop OS and they would all let you install and run the very same game software you bought from a third party.
I don’t know how you can say that without tongue in cheek.
The use of gasoline in motor vehicles is without any doubt one of the worst forms of energy that could be used for motor vehicles. Do some basic research and you’ll see that the technology for much cleaner, more efficient, sustainable and cheaper alternatives exists and is in fact quite mature.
These are not “allowed” because of the monopolistic powers of the oil corporations influencing government policy. The government also has a part to play in this too, through the taxation income received on the fuel that would be lost. Yes, they could just tax the alternatives, but again look at the power of the corporations providing fuel for your vehicle.
You say it’s a standard for the auto industry. Microsoft Windows is a standard desktop OS in the IT industry. In some ways that isn’t true anymore, due to alternatives such as MacOS and Linux, but also in the auto industry hydroelectric and hybrid vehicles.
This doesn’t make either gasoline or Windows the right standard. Not by a long shot.
The crude oil companies, which effectively control the fuel supply, have a monopoly power. You only have to look at how they can unfairly influence fuel prices under false pretences to see this.
My statement had absolutely nothing to do with whether gasoline is good or bad. The fact that gasoline from any gas pump in America can be used in almost any car in America makes it standard, which is good. That is, I never have to go looking for a gas station that sells gas compatible with my brand of car.
Microsoft Windows is a standard desktop OS in the IT industry.
Yes, it is a defacto standard. But my complaint is that it is a monopoly.
It’s not a monopoly, people just like to call it that. People have a choice, such as any of the Linux distributions, MacOS, Solaris, hell even Amiga OS is out there and being developed.
It may be a large percentage, but nobody is FORCED to use Windows. Anyone who’s mildly supportive of Linux will tell you it’s far superior to Windows and that there is no need for Windows.
In what alternate reality is ~90% market share NOT a monopoly? The question is, does Microsoft abuse their monopoly on desktop PC operating systems?
People have choice, that’s NOT a monopoly.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/monopoly:
The problem is that so many other people are using Windows and Windows software. If you work with Windows users and need to regularly deal with their files then you have to run Windows software. If most of the large applications you’re running are for Windows, trying to get them running using WINE, or using virtualisation under Linux, doesn’t really make as much sense as simply using Windows itself. Software is something that locks a lot of people into Windows.
Additionally, in terms of what’s actually supplied with the majority of computers sold, I think Microsoft do qualify as a monopoly.
One reason Microsoft became so huge is that their products are bundled with the vast majority of PCs. Most people simply use whatever comes with their PC and never consider looking for alternatives. Any home user who walks into a typical computer shop will find every system running Windows, and that’s what they’ll end up using.
We did end up with a monopoly in the auto industry – every car uses gas instead of the many alternatives. The sugar industry ended up with everybody using one kind of sugar when there’s hundreds of varieties out there.
What an idiotic and fallacious comment. Everyone (or 95%+) does not drive a GM car. Again everyone does not buy their sugar from the same refining company.
Every one does use the internet and that in some way is the equivalent to gas in the auto industry.
The question is why we have this monopoly in the computer industry when we don’t have it in automotive manufacturing.
Argh, some people are reading my comment too fast. There is not a monopoly on the hardware but there is on the software. You can buy a car from many manufacturers (hardware), but they all use petrol (software). You can buy sugar from many comanpies, but they all use the same plant. Right, gettit? Good.
Argh, some people are reading my comment too fast. There is not a monopoly on the hardware but there is on the software. You can buy a car from many manufacturers (hardware), but they all use petrol (software). You can buy sugar from many comanpies, but they all use the same plant. Right, gettit? Good.
You still don’t get it there is not a single monopoly source of gas. It’s like saying there is a monopoly on programs because they are all made of bits it doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t enlighten.
Sugar – they all use the same plant – wrong in the UK you can get identical white sugar made from either sugar cane or sugar beet – different plants.
Again your analogies are stupid and fallacious. Furthemore they detract from getting any real understanding of how the MS monopoly came about. They may have been well intentioned but they are still stupid and counterproductive.
As you all know, I am not a big fan of Microsoft, or of Windows, however;
The computing industry would still be in the eighties without them.
The most important thing Microsoft has ever done, is move computing from the realm of the “white-coats” and make it easy enough for Joe User to get drunk on six tins of beers, sit down and write an abusive member to his mayor etc.
Some people claim they over-simplify things… maybe it just appears so when you build up more experience.
But, Microsoft should be commended for the attempts they have had at de-mystifying the whole experience.
As you all know, I am not a big fan of Microsoft, or of Windows, however;
The computing industry would still be in the eighties without them.
Do you meant with multiple alternatives and tons of differents computers and technologies?
No, I meant, your employer would be using big-iron, your desktop would be dumb, and if it broke, they guys in the white suits would need to take a look at it.
But, now you mention it, I used to hate the way my +4 would not run c64 tapes, and my c64 could not run my speccy progs.
So you mean no one could possibly have realized the value of desktop computing without microsoft? please.
Gates had a vision for a computer on every desk in every home I believe. This isn’t possible with massive economies of scale to drive prices down on components and software, not to mention drive competition.
Such a vision required a very smooth experience through the interface to the computer. Windows has made this possible for the vast majority of people, but not everyone.
To say that it means nothing because “someone else” would have done it really shows a clouded and biased perspective on one’s part. That’s like saying that Thomas Alva Edison isn’t a great man for invention the light bulb just because “someone else” would have.
Both Windows and the standard incandescent light bulb have significant negative impacts.
Gates had a vision for a computer on every desk in every home I believe.
Yes – an (IBM-type) Personal Computer with a Microsoft OS on it on every desk in every home.
It was Xerox and Steve Jobs who had the vision that computers should work the way they do – not even the Start bar was an innovation on Microsoft’s part. I’m not saying that Jobs or Apple are whiter than white, but that would merely be an exaggeration; whereas crediting Microsoft with technological (as opposed to business) vision is a gross misrepresentation.
If Gates could have made his millions by selling computers with DOS prompts or steering wheels, or going into snake oil (in the literal sense) instead, he would have.
Sure, I can see your point, but then again Bill Gates isn’t Microsoft isn’t Bill Gates.
I still see Microsoft paving the way for the inexpensive computing we see today, in part. There are others too, but Microsoft is definitely a key player in this.
I’m sorry, but as an user of different OSes in the eighties/nineties, I have to say that they were far more user-friendly, less buggy and enabled people to work more effectively (less maintenance/better accessibility/more intuitive interfaces). Comparing them with Dos/Windows 3.1/Windows 95 and 98, they were “making possible” for a far broader audience – the same kind of people that still can’t do much with Windows (and they weren’t dumbed down, attracting a lively mix of nerds and normal peoples).
Now your second argument is price. PCs in the eighties/nineties were always far more expensive than other computers (except Apple, but I hope you might have heard that computing wasn’t limited to these 2 at the time, even though your words express a blatant lack of any knowledge of these other systems) – a monochrome text-based PC was 3 to 10 times more expensive than other home computers.
The price of cheap (cheap like junk disposable PC that die in a few years) is still more expensive than these “alternative” systems in the late eighties/early nineties. Computer parts having dropped for *everybody*, you might understand that nowadays 300$ PCs would seem overpriced if the eighties main computing companies were still there.
[Double post, sorry
]
Edited 2007-04-28 01:05
If anything there was more competition and more rapid progress before one platform became dominant. That’s certainly true of the software market; Microsoft have done more to hold it back than push it forward.
As for Bill Gates’ “vision”, don’t you think just about all the companies creating home computers had a similar belief? In my experience most of them thought that home computers would change the world, rather than remaining specialist tools, or toys for hobbyists.
I remember articles predicting the mass popularity of the home computer back in the late 70s, if anything some of them were over optimistic. I remember a prediction that home computers and the internet would be a more popular form of entertainment than TV by the year 2000. Imagining a computer on every desk wasn’t radical thinking for the 1980s.
Except Microsoft didn’t invent anything as important as that. To be honest I have a hard time thinking of anything at all significant that they actually invented. They may have popularised ideas from other sources, but that’s only because their products happened to be bundled with a popular hardware platform.
The reason that people talk about someone else filling their place, is that there were dozens of other companies around at the time who could easily have done so. Including companies who actually did invent important technologies, but never had Microsoft’s luck in selling them.
Microsoft didn’t even write MS-DOS, it was purchased from another company and simply tweaked a little before it was supplied to IBM. It was little more than a clone of CP/M anyway, nothing in any way revolutionary. Yet people act as if IBM would have scrapped their PC if they hadn’t found Microsoft to write software for it…
To be honest, this vision that is regularly attributed only to Gates was very optimistic in my view. That said, Thomas Alva Edison didn’t truly invent the first electric light either. Before him came many important people on the path of inventing the light bulb, include Humphry Davy, Joseph Wilson Swan and Charles Francis Brush.
I suppose much like Microsoft’s so-called inventions and in many cases a lot other inventions they’re based on the previous work of other people and as such cannot truly claim to be the “inventor”.
One difference is that there were other perfectly good products on the market well before Windows. Microsoft weren’t the first company to create a truly practical GUI, if anything their offerings were actually inferior to many competitors.
In my opinion Microsoft don’t even deserve credit for improving on an existing idea. Rather than comparing them to Edison; improving the electric light to make it a more practical product. I’d compare Microsoft to any generic light bulb manufacturer; one who came years later, after the product was already tried and tested, and used by many people. Who simply mass produced a pretty mediocre product based on another company’s fully functional design.
Apple are perhaps a better comparison with Edison. They took the work carried out by Xerox and other pioneers, changed/improved it in quite significant ways, and were the first to turn it into a product that actually sold. Really they were the ones who showed that there was a market for a GUI home computer, and to a certain extent they paved the way for the others who followed them, including Microsoft.
I think you’ll find yourself in a spot of difference with a lot of people on that one.
Really? I’d have thought that even Microsoft’s supporters would admit that early versions of Windows were inferior to contemporary products like Amiga OS.
I don’t think many people would even argue that the first two releases of Windows compared well with Apple’s Lisa OS, or even the earlier GUI on the Xerox Star.
In my experience, the consensus of opinion is that Windows didn’t really become usable until version 3, and didn’t compare at all well with competitors until Windows 95.
To my knowledge, the lightbulb hadn’t been invented a few times already before Edison introduced it.
What kind of money driven company leader doesn’t dream about everyone buying their products? What kind of vision is that really?
The internet pretty much made microsoft what it is today. Not the other way around.
One pf my former employers (a major airline) was using networked Macs and Solaris workstations long before MS Windows had reliable networking.
Business workstations predate Windows.
I agree. MS is partly responsible for the democratization of computing, along with IBM and even Apple (for popularizing the WIMP paradigm invented by Xerox).
Some people seem to think that, because we are critical of MS’s tactics in the past decade, that we “hate” the company and all it’s ever done. That’s simply not true. I would *love* for MS to be a responsible corporate citizen that doesn’t try to abuse its monopoly…
Now, this is an interesting topic to split off into. Right now, Microsoft is rather easily the majority. Just what would being a ‘responsible corporate citizen’ involve — not just for Microsoft, but for any company who gets in that position? That is, what can a corporation do at that point to do some good in the world with their position, without threatening their own survival?
I’m not talking about some “good in the world”, I’m talking about stopping their anti-competitive behavior.
A good place to start would be to release a Linux-compatible version of MS Office (one that fully supports ODF, too).
A good place to start would be to release a Linux-compatible version of MS Office (one that fully supports ODF, too).
I think it’s a matter of numbers. There’s 1 Mac user for every 10 Windows users; so Microsoft sells Mac software. However, there’s only 1 Linux user for every 25’000 Windows users; the profit doesn’t justify the expense.
If Linux gained a full percentage point of the market, then maybe we would see MS Linux programs. But not until then.
Uh, no. Market share numbers for Mac and Linux are actually quite similar. Mac may have a point or two more (i.e. 4-5% vs. 2-3%), but the difference is *nowhere* as great as you suggest.
Desktop Linux has about 2 to 3% market share, so that should be enough (according to the bar you’ve set).
And where does that number come from? I have worked in many, many companies (about 10), and I have many friends who run computers. I sure don’t see all of these Linux desktops. I run Linux on my laptop. and obviously the guys and gals in my LUG do (besides usually some windows also), but that is about it. Everywhere else I go is Windows. Let me know, I’m intrigued.
Those figures are from a 2005 IDC report, and I doubt the numbers have gone down since…note that Linux usage is more widespread in some geographical areas than others.
How easy would it be for Microsoft to maintain multiple versions? We’d need at least Debian-based, Red Hat/Fedora-based, Suse, and Mandriva.
It would be quite easy, actually. Look at such projects as OpenOffice, Firefox, Google Earth or Crossover…it’s easy to go cross-distro if you have statically-linked libraries.
It would be helpful if Microsoft would allow their OS’s networking to talk to other platforms, to support some of the other standard protocols which exist, etc.
At it stands, many of their technical decisions seem to be made with the retension of their existing customer base in mind rather than emplowering that same customer base…
I would love for that too. The corporate ecosystem is terrible, but probably a lot worse at a lot of places besides Microsoft. Sadly for Microsoft though, almost anything they do can be looked at as an abuse of their monopoly. The fact that they have/had a monopoly in one area causes them to be severly limited in what they can do w/o people crying foul.
Really, it’s a poor reflection of the state of things in the world, or maybe more specifically in some cases — the US, and less so on Microsoft itself.
Well, that’s because they do all that’s in their power to retain that near-monopoly. If they simply accepted that it’s okay to share a market with others (and stopped trying to marginalize Linux, for example), then perhaps attitudes towards them would change.
I don’t disagree with the marginalizing Linux.
But you’re talking about something much more specific here. I’m talking more broad. Any new feature they try to implement in Windows seems to be looked at as trying to abuse their monopoly. Creating a new product. Etc.
But, Microsoft should be commended for the attempts they have had at de-mystifying the whole experience.
I think the most important thing Microsoft has done was lower the bar of entry for hardware manufacturers. Before Windows 3.1 (and especially, before Windows 95), would-be entrants into the PC field either had to code their own GUI OS (Amiga, Mac; expensive but user-friendly) or license a text-driven OS (Unix, MS-DOS, CP/M; cheap but difficult to learn and use). Additionally, because Microsoft designed Windows so that so many parts were interchangable (and not tied to one particular set of hardware, like Mac or Amiga OS), it was cheap for a company to shop around among readily-available parts, or make parts for Windows — and the better Windows did, the bigger your market was.
Even today, thanks to Windows, just about anyone can run locally-run computer-building businesses out of their basements, ordering parts from TigerDirect or NewEgg or somesuch; that would have been considered crazy talk in 1985, when computers were still the domain of Radio Shack, department stores, mail-order outlets and a few other specialty stores, and when your computer broke, you probably had to replace a single monolithic chunk of plastic, instead of just the broken part.
If Amiga or Apple had allowed third parties to make hardware and PCs, they would probably be the kings of the PC market now (and we might look at Microsoft like we look at Apple now — and Windows might now just be another BSD ripoff, like Apple is today — and we’d probably be complaining about the monopolistic tactics of Apple or Amiga). Of course, Apple has finally come around to use these standard parts.
You might say that open-source is doing for the software industry today what Microsoft did for hardware. It’s too bad that it’s almost irrevocably tied down to copyleft licenses; we could be doing so much better without them.
“Even today, thanks to Windows, just about anyone can run locally-run computer-building businesses out of their basements, ordering parts from TigerDirect or NewEgg or somesuch”
Going from hardware to software, from plugs and pins to APIs and protocols, I can see this paradigm of interchangable extending up to the OS level as with the free operating systems.
Surely it’s IBM who deserve the credit for this? Without them designing the PC with off the shelf components, inadvertently allowing other companies to create compatible clones, this market wouldn’t have existed.
If IBM had picked a different OS for their PC then things would likely have been no different. Any company producing an OS, who aren’t also selling the hardware to go with it, are going to sell it to anyone who’s buying.
This isn’t anything new, CP/M and UNIX were running on various different computers before MS-DOS existed. Incidentally, Atari used CP/M with Digital Research’s GEM GUI on the Atari ST, rather than writing their own GUI/OS. If IBM had gone to Digital Research rather than Microsoft, chances are that’s what we’d have run on our PCs. Whether that would have ultimately turned out better than Windows is something we’ll never know.
Anyway, I think you’re essentially giving Microsoft credit for being in the right place at the right time, not for doing anything innovative.
You’re not right about that one in its specifics. The CEO Digital specifically said that “No one would want to have a computer at home.” It was also Bill Gates and Microsoft that aggressively pushed for a cloning market.
To be honest, the IBM PC division was a bunch of third-rate engineers (for instance, they were going to attach the keyboard controller to the NMI pin of the 80286 because “it’s just another pin”). Frankly, Microsoft and Gates definitely had a vision for computing. They were also really aggressive as businessmen. Apple had a different attitude in that they expected people to pay for the “joy” of using a Macintosh. The Macintosh division went for a monopolistic profit-maximizing price, whereas Microsoft aimed at profitting by expanding the market.
How is that error on his part relevant (I seem to remember hearing something similar from IBM as well)? Digital were certainly willing to provide their products for home computers. They offered CP/M, DR-DOS and GEM for the IBM PC, and supplied Atari with their OS/GUI. Clearly they would have offered their OS to clone makers if they’d been in Microsoft’s position.
I think you’ll find that the companies who pushed most aggressively for cloning were the hardware companies who wanted to do the cloning. I believe it was Compaq who first went to the expense and effort of reverse engineering the IBM PC’s BIOS. It was also Compaq who fought IBM in court when they tried to prevent cloning. Microsoft had little to do with it.
Of course Microsoft weren’t against it, it didn’t matter to them who made the hardware, the same would be true of any other company in their position.
What do you believe that vision to be?
“the most important thing Microsoft has done was lower the bar of entry for hardware manufacturers.”
This is very true. There was no way for any of the other suppliers to have won, because they insisted on locking their OS to their hardware, and the problem was the market demand was so great this meant there was no way for them to sell all the machines people wanted to buy. They just could not physically make all the machines people wanted
If you remember, at the time, Apple was supply limited. It just could not make enough. It priced at levels to maximize returns from what it could produce, but this meant that it resigned itself to supplying a tiny proportion of the market.
Microsoft on the other hand, could supply all the machines any hardware company could make.
The effect was to segment the market into two chunks. One segment was for OSs which were not tied to hardware. The other, and it turned out to be tiny by comparison, was for OSs which were tied to hardware.
The reason the second category shrank was that people were going to buy computers, and the suppliers of hardware linked OSs in effect refused to sell to them. They never actually said no, but that was the market consequence of their behaviour.
Microsoft mainly won because it was the only one who could or would supply. Gates’ genius was to see that you can’t have it all, and that the OS was plenty. Jobs weakness was to think all that mattered was having it all, and the result was being a huge fish in a tiny pond.
Microsoft weren’t the only company to sell their OS to different hardware manufacturers. Digital Research were selling CP/M before Microsoft bought DOS, and later on supplied their own DR-DOS and GEM GUI. Then there was UNIX…
A software company wanting to sell to as many customers as possible was hardly visionary genius, or even anything unusual.
I wonder how well Microsoft’s OS would have done on the market if it had competed on a level playing field, rather than being bundled with the industry standard IBM hardware…
That’s rather like saying I wonder how well Intel’s x86 would have done on the market if it had competed on a level playing field, rather than being bundled with the industry standard IBM motherboard…
Sell a computer without an OS, force the consumer to purchase the OS at retail price without the bulk discounts of OEM Windows, and see how quickly you go out of business. Even the monolithic chunks of plastic that the Windows/Intel model replaced included default operating systems; it’s one of those things you really can’t do without.
Yes, but my point was that the success of Microsoft’s OS was primarily down to being picked by IBM. Not because the product was superior, or even because it was supplied/marketed differently. It was a matter of luck and being in the right place at the right time, not due to the “visionary genius” of Bill Gates.
If IBM had gone to DRI and bundled CP/M with all their PCs then I don’t think that Microsoft would have had a chance, not even if they’d actually released a superior product. 95% of us would probably be running GEM XP today if IBM had made a different decision.
I just think the credit Microsoft get, and the image of Bill Gates as a great computing visionary and business genius, is primarily revisionist history.
It was a matter of luck and being in the right place at the right time, not due to the “visionary genius” of Bill Gates.
No, AFAIK he managed to sold something completely not existed (DOS) to the IBM. The same situation as with Basic. It is an art of conversion from exaggerated promises to $$$.
Edited 2007-04-28 13:07
For a relatively tiny company like Microsoft, just being approached by IBM was a massive stroke of luck. There were plenty of companies IBM could have gone to who actually did have a product.
According to some of the stories, it was purely a personal issue with Gary Kildall of DRI that prevented CP/M from being the PC’s standard OS. After all, DRI had a good track record, and CP/M was the standard business OS at the time, featuring a large selection of software.
It was the obvious choice and really Microsoft shouldn’t have even been in the running. I doubt that Bill Gates had anything to do with any behind the scenes politics that brought IBM to his door. Of course in business being willing and able to lie convincingly didn’t hurt his chances…
“
”
That statement implies that Microsoft invented most of the technology they employ in Windows – which we all know isn’t the case (in fact, if memory serves, the very GUI itself was stolen from Apple)
“the very GUI itself was stolen from Apple”
No, what happened was, Apple licensed it to them. The terms of the license permitted the subsequent development of the Windows GUI. Apple was surprised to find they had signed an agreement which permitted this, and sued, and lost. They had actually licensed it in a moment of inattention.
Now, whether it would have made any difference, is another matter. Maybe someone who recalls the detail better can comment on what Apple’s claims covered – would other suppliers have been able to supply GUI based OSs if they had won?
There’s no doubt what Apple would have liked. It would have liked to be the only hardware manufacturer who could deliver a gui based OS. Everyone else should have been limited to text. However, given that they could never meet demand for more than a few percent of the market, probably the result if they had realised their ambition would be that we would all be using some sort of text interface today on the OS!
I’m not sure it would be any less usable. Text is a bit like gaff rig versus bermuda in sailing. If it had received the same development effort as gui’s have, the results in terms of usability for ordinary people might be quite surprising.
You mean we’d have ended with some OS that encourage you to create instead of being a passive consumer?
Scary… Fortunately, thanks to Microsoft, everybody is convinced that computing is only for nerds, that normal people can’t understand it (why, it’s “normal” to see Joe user’s computer trashed every 3 month, and Joe User would almost always think it’s his fault), that except for games, computers are done for writing letters (I rule out Internet uses – they haven’t been created by MS).
The eighties had computers made by users for users. Video creation/editing, 2D and 3D animation, drawing, music – all those were standard on alternatives computers – and non-MS computers introduced many Joe Users (not nerds – people that never had any knowledge of computing) to these tasks.
Going Microsoft set back computing for 20 years – even now, Windows programs for these task aren’t as intuitive, simple, attractive and productive as they were on, for example, any old Amiga.
These non-MS computers even encouraged people that didn’t have any tech skills to learn programming – now, they are some of the best coders, sometimes (sadly) even working for Microsoft.
Of course, we still have the occasional lamer that touts MS Office ease of use. The ones that have their kicks with Publisher…
Was that all computing was worth for?
Make this test : write down what percentage of your time is creating (audio/video/graphics and so on)? Compare that with the time you’re playing games / watching videos / surfing the net / doing office tasks / maintaining your computer.
You might be the exception. However, what do you think about the vast majority of Windows users Microsoft OSes has produced?
Computing had the opportunity to change lives – by empowering people. That’s far from the result if you judge what Dos and Windows have made of their users.
Well said, sir!!
Microsoft did nothing of the kind. While PC users had to suffer DOS and a pretty worthless GUI, users of other platforms, like the Amiga, Acorn (RISC OS), or Mac, already had something that was ready for the masses. It was well into the 90s before Microsoft actually caught up with where their competitors were in the 80s.
The only reason why Windows was the introduction to the GUI for so many users was that it was bundled with the industry standard IBM compatible hardware, not because it was in any way revolutionary. Microsoft do not deserve any credit just because IBM handed them that monopoly position.
If anything Microsoft helped to mystify computers and slow down their acceptance, because of them a great many people were introduced to computers running DOS, with all its user hostile problems like memory management issues. With a more innovative company producing the OS, the IBM PC might well have been bundled with a decent GUI OS since the mid 80s.
The computing industry would still be in the eighties without them.
You seem to be confusing Microsoft (the creator of the Windows platform) with IBM, the creator of the x86 line of PCs, and the company which actually made the decision to create relatively open low-cost hardware.
Windows was only one of the potentially unifying graphical software environments in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s with a common device driver model and other potentially unifying elements; the same result would have occurred had PC vendors, hardware makers, and ISVs gone with OS/2 or some other OS.
Windows *was* the beneficiary of a number of different parties deciding (or being coerced into) supporting one single platform, but Windows doesn’t really have any native qualities that make it unique in that regard. Except perhaps for a cut-throat creator who is willing to play outside the rules and pay off the government to allow them to continue doing so.
Edited 2007-04-29 22:41
Apple almost killed itself with obscene markups.
Commodore had good stuff. But no one to market it.
IBM bailed out on OS/2.
etc…
Microsoft had no serious competitors and the whole market up for grabs. They just needed to fight off the little guys.
IBM didn’t bail out on OS/2 until the mid 1990’s, well after the point where Microsoft Windows was seen as being unstoppable.
They had very serious competition for a few years, but as many others have indicated it’s very hard to continue to compete when the dominant player in the market is able to cheat and get away with it..
This article’s title really is a misnomer, as it just states the obvious of why we stay with Windows, as all it says is that ‘everyone uses Windows because they use programs that which don’t have equivalents that do the exact same thing on other operating systems.’ It’s a bunch of fluff, but does anyone really expect anything substantial from The Register?
if you really want to read about how computers ended up the way they are, a much better and more interesting article is: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/total-share.ars/
Edited 2007-04-27 19:08
It’s a bunch of fluff, but does anyone really expect anything substantial from The Register?
~Emmm… did you actually read the title of the Register site ?
See the bit that says “Biting the hand that feeds IT”….
the site is a satire site on computing news, it will report stuff, but with a tongue in cheek outlook
Back in the early 90’s there were basically 3 desktop platforms left. When Commodore went into voluntary liquidation and left Amiga in the lurch, then there were two. MacOS prior to OSX stunk like rotten eggs. So then there was one.
Everybody who had a computer wanted one to be like their friends’ and neighbors’ so that if they had trouble with it they could get help. The problem is that computer literacy in the internet age is a lost art.
When I got my first computer (a Commodore 64) you were presented a “ready” prompt from Commodore Basic at the first power-on. Programming was what you did with a home computer (barring the game cartridges you plugged into the back).
Now most people couldn’t make their own software if they tried and the complexity of the existing software is so terrible that it takes a team of programmers to make something competitive.
We are stuck with Windows because the teams of programmers that CAN beat Microsoft’s team get stomped out of existence by the “800 lb. gorilla” in Redmond or have to give away software for free to try to break the monopoly. (As Linus Torvalds and Sun Microsystems are finding out with Linux and OpenOffice.org .) What’s worse, the best programming languages (such as D and C#) are being written such that they only support Windows (or Intel processors at least).
Even if we dumped Intel and AMD’s instruction sets, .NET allows the Microsoft OS market to jump to other non-PC compatible hardware. So we’ll have to see how this pans out. I just hope that people get away from the Microsoft problem (and if we do get away, then I hope we get better leadership than what we would have ousted).
… the best programming languages (such as D and C#) are being written such that they only support Windows
D and C# are the best programming languages? That’s more than a little subjective.
Back in the early 90’s there were basically 3 desktop platforms left. When Commodore went into voluntary liquidation and left Amiga in the lurch, then there were two. MacOS prior to OSX stunk like rotten eggs. So then there was one.
Are you rewriting (or misremembering) history?
On x86 hardware, OS/2 had a very strong position at the height of its 32-bit life (between 1993 and 1996), and it was both a strong retail seller through 1996 and had a very strong presence in certain areas of corporate computing, mainly in shops which were somewhat tied to IBM in other ways. I think Sears *still* uses OS/2 on their service kiosks in stores, for example, and most of the hobbyists I knew in 1992-1994 had at least tried OS/2 on their systems. It was as popular then as Linux is now, or perhaps more so (since OS/2 as a product wasn’t as fragmented as Linux is now).
Outside of the x86 space, MacOS 6/7/8/9 were excellent and very easy-to-use operating systems (MacOS software installers were typically easy to use, the adding of a new device driver was as simple as dragging a new Control Panel or Extension into the appropriate system folder, and it had a fairly solid foothold in both the corporate and home desktop markets as well as in schools.
We used them at Northwest airlines quite heavily in flight dispatch (most dispatchers had a pair of 20″ monitors on their desks), and the SOC wrote a fairly slick Hypercard stack to control most of their commonly-accessed functions.
I also had a lot of friends in the early and late 1990’s who had Macs and who loved them, and many of them are still Mac users today (albeit on MacOSX).
The majority of PC users don’t make the connection that they are “Running Windows”.
The concept of hardware/software is pretty much lost on consumers. You turn your PC on, and it turns on, and that’s it.
Nobody thinks about what software their TV, Cellphone, or CableBox is running. And PCs are exactly the same way for most people. If Dell suddenly started shipping Kubuntu (because KDE is more ‘Windows-like’), the majority of their customers would not notice.
There might be some complications if someone went to the store to buy a new program, but with the amount of software included on todays retail PCs, I wonder how many people actually do this.
Because it is still easier to get a logitech mouse working on Windows than Logitech, that is why I am and will be using Windows, tried linux several times and always come back because it just works, now it might not work as good as linux but still.
1) Economics – PC’s were cheaper than other platforms. Windows dominated PC’s
2) Social network effects – more people with windows = more windows software = more software to “share” with your windows using friends = more windows users, etc, etc
It’s only recently that this cycle can be broken because of:
1) Economics – most computer hardware is PC based (even Mac) with similar prices. Other OS’s which are “comparable” to windows run on PC’s.
2) Less of a network effect – Many new applications are being deployed as a web application, making the platform irrevelant. Existing software that is not suitable for the web has been around long enough for suitable substitutions to be created on the other platforms.
#2 is becoming more true by the day.
That wasn’t always true. In the early days of the IBM PC it was actually significantly more expensive than many comparable products. Despite that it quickly became the industry standard in business.
That’s something that happened long before a decent version of Windows, and was well on its way to happening before cheap clones were produced. I think that was primarily due the the IBM brand name, the “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” effect.
Of course cheaper clones helped it enter the home, but even in the late 80s an Amiga or Acorn was comparable in price, and offered superior features. Despite that people still picked the computer that was running DOS, an incredibly primitive OS compared with the alternatives.
I think it’s natural that people would want to use the same computer at home that they use at work, partly due to the social network effect you mention. As soon as the IBM PC became dominant in the workplace its success in the home was almost assured. Something that had very little to do with the qualities of Microsoft products.
That wasn’t always true. In the early days of the IBM PC it was actually significantly more expensive than many comparable products
True, but this was before the clones, and before windows became a viable gui (comparable to a Mac or Amiga)
1. Microsoft made it ultra cheap and “compatible” compared to Mac and UNIX offerings of the time.
2. Mac users are pretentious assholes.
3. Windows users are belligerent assholes.
Edited 2007-04-27 22:40
Side issue, has to be the worse article yet – I some times wonder when I submit an article from my blog and gets turned down because it isn’t up to standard, and then osnews.com turns around posting garbage from The Register and The Inquirer – it confuses me.
Anyway, regarding today, in terms of replacement for Windows:
1) MacOS X is more expense; case inpoint, top of the line consumer Macbook $2899 (incl GST) vs. the HP Pavilion dv6209TX for $2599, which includes more hard disk space, better graphics card with dedicated memory, better DVD writer, expresscard slot, remote control, memory card reader etc. etc.
It isn’t just a matter of a few bucks more for the same product, but a few bucks more for an inferior product in terms of specifications.
2) Linux and UNIX in general (*BSD/OpenSolaris) has a great graphical user interface, what lets it down it down is the lack of hardware support and third part commercial software.
Software such as Quicken, MYOB, Photoshop Elements (stripped down consumer version of Photoshop) and Macromedia Homesite.
The hardware issue can’t be really addressed apart from continued focus on supporting the existing standards out there (UVC for webcams, for instance) and encourage end users to use vendors who are willing to disclose specifications (Realtek for example).
With software, however, that will eventually come with time – I keep saying this one thing; software development is beginning to plateau, the features being added to existing products are few and far between, the net result is most releases are nothing more than grand unified bug fixes with a few features.
This is where opensource software will pick up; OpenOffice.org I don’t see as the campion for the opensource cause, KOffice has alot more potential when you take to account desktop integration, cohesion between the different applications which make it up.
Although GNOME has a large vendor support, I still prefer KDE and the focus on delivering quality integrated software rather than simply integrating software because of vendor/distributor pushing – such as the use of Firefox for the default browser instead of Epiphany, and the pushing of OpenOffice.org as the “GNOME Office Suite” rather than developing a native GTK+ office suite where all the components can integrate and work with each other as with the case of KOffice.
Edited 2007-04-28 03:56
I have not ended up with Microsoft. Why? Because I have loked around, and I have chosen the OS that’s best for my needs. It was never Windows, and it won’t ever be Windows. Why? In the end things haven’t REALLY changed from 3.11 up until now. On the contrary, I have the feeling it’s getting worse.
I used a mix of Solaris, Windows NT, and MacOS 7/8/9 on my desktop at my former workplace for years while using a mix of OS/2, Windows, BeOS, Solaris, and Linux at home.
These days, I use a mix of OS/2, Linux, and Windows here at home, and while I do use a Windows XP workstation at work, most of my actual work is done under either Solaris or OS2200 (a mainframe OS), and much of my programming is done using NEdit under Cygwin.
Windows dominates office applications for obvious reasons; many corporations declare them to be the office standard and refuse to support anything else.
When a product reach “critical mass”, nobody can afford to switch to other product without suffering critical losses. There are too many Windows out there, trying to switch means re-write all the hardware drivers and software applications.
The reason MS can dominate is because they bulid Windows on-top of MS-DOS (market share leader) and MS-DOS is a clone of CP/M ( market share leader before MS-DOS ).