Re: Poll finds user discontent with Windows

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

John Verity wrote:

>>A survey shows 58% (plus or minus *ten* points--ouch) of people at Giga
>>Information Group's Emerging Technology Scene conference would switch away
>>from Windows "if they had the chance."  Giga' Rob Enderle says
>
>
>SO, WHAT IN HELL IS STOPPING THEM FROM BUYING, SAY, AN APPLE MACINTOSH,
>OR A UNIX MACHINE, OR WHATEVER???

I would love to ask these people the same question.

What would their excuses be?  Probably their prior investment in Wintel
hardware and software.  Probably Microsoft's obnoxious hold on PC
manufacturers.  Probably their data files that can only be read by
Microsoft Office.  Maybe their need to interface with the rest of the
world, which expects data in formats that can only be read by Microsoft
Office.  Maybe the aura of MS invincibility spread by the MS PR machine.

Individually, these arguments are weak.  Together, I still don't think they
justify the reluctance of a large organization to give the competition a
chance.  If these people truly are fed up, they should put their money
where their mouths are.  Part of MS's success in "restricting choice" has
been by restricting the perception of choice (generally through FUD).
That's unfortunate.

These people are presumably IT folks and are certainly aware of--and
hopefully familiar with--Unix, but I wonder how many average home users are
even aware of its existence.  My father was confused when I said something
about using a "Unix computer."  He thought there was nothing other than
Windows and MacOS, and he's been using a computer and surfing the Internet
for several years now...



I have no personal investment in Wintel hardware, nor do we have any where
I work (okay, so we have an aging 486 and a Pentium that AFAIK isn't even
plugged in--I suppose those count, but not for much compared to the other
20 or so machines we have).   We do indeed buy both Apple and Unix systems
(DEC and SGI).  We do not feel as tied to one particular vendor as most MS
users seem to.  We need either MacOS or Windows for word processing and
Photoshop (we use MacOS), but most of the data processing and molecular
graphics software we use runs on more than one commercial version of Unix.
The comparative interoperability of competing versions of Unix (as compared
to MacOS or Windows) is a big plus.  SGI may be falling flat on its face,
but we can start buying AIX or Solaris system to run the same programs if
necessary.    In that respect we have much more choice than people who have
already made the mistake of committing themselves to Windows.


--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/), Cornell Biochemistry Department

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
-Edward Abbey