[SpamCop-Geeks] Re: Are you running a GENUINE copy of WINDOWS?

[Pete Stephenson]

In article <ctk6hc$onf$1 at news.spamcop.net>,
 Bert Driehuis <driehuis.fcnzpbc2005 at playbeing.com> wrote:

> You're right. Most users need a Mac.

Hear, hear.

> I'm consistently underwhelmed with the user friendliness of Windows. The 
> fact that most Windows users have a sense of achievement doing simple 
> tasks tells more about their expectations than it does about Windows.

Indeed. While I admit, Windows and the Mac OS have several distinct 
advantages over each other (there's several on both sides, but neither 
-- IMHO -- makes one far superior to the other).

I've found that Windows XP is actually pretty decent, for a Microsoft 
product in terms of interface. The "Activation" and other silly nonsense 
is hugely annoying, but the interface isn't that bad. It's different 
from the Mac OS, which I'm used to, but those are mostly details.

> I will not stand for blind bashing of Windows either, but the major sins 
> against software engineering principles, not to mention lack of quality 
> control and being heavy on legal do deserve criticism.

Agreed.

> There really is something wrong if buying a software product is no 
> longer fun. Think about it.

Indeed.

Unfortunately for the computing world, there's a few big "givens":
1) Mac OS X -- an excellent, extremely powerful system -- runs only on 
Apple hardware, which is quite a bit more expensive than "generic" PC 
hardware. This reduces its availability to the average business or home 
user, as they already have hardware...why buy new stuff if what they 
have works?
2) Microsoft's market dominance is enormous. Like it or not, they're the 
"standard" for end-user GUI environments.
3) For all it's advantages, Linux is not a "ready for primetime" 
end-user OS. Yes, many use it as a desktop OS, but it doesn't have the 
out-of-box "it just works" that Windows or the Mac OS have.[1]

Due to these conditions, Microsoft is left with practically no real 
competition in the desktop environment. Apple doesn't have the critical 
mass to release OS X for x86, as it would decimate their hardware sales 
(and would likely cause the company to become highly unstable 
financially). Now, if Apple's iPod sales were to be enough to support 
the company financially, I could see the lessening the role of their 
hardware department and focusing on their OS-and-other-products 
department. If Mac OS could be installed on x86 machines and co-exist on 
a dual-boot PC with Windows, I think that it would be widely accepted.

Alas, it seems that nothing is going to change significantly in this 
arena for the next few years. If Linux can make itself user-friendly 
enough to successfully compete in the desktop PC market, that would be a 
huge boon.

[1] When I built my PC, I simply inserted the Windows XP disk, 
restarted, installed it, and It Just Worked(tm). Same with the Mac OS on 
my G5. Installing Linux (first I tried Fedora Core 3, FreeBSD, and 
finally settled on Debian) was a multi-day, multi-CD-R-writing, 
much-hair-pulling experience. The tinkering necessary to just get a GUI 
(and have Debian play nice with my graphics card) was completely beyond 
the realm of your average home user.

-- 
Pete Stephenson
HeyPete.com