Re: Poll finds user discontent with Windows

[Steve Cohen <stevecoh@mcs.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???
>
>
>
>   ...---... ...---... ...---... ...---... ...---... ...---... ...---...
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>   John W. Verity   140 Eighth Ave. Apt. 5R   Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215-1728
>
>                               718-622-5680

Mac - peceived incompatible with work machine.  No more reliable than Windows.

Unix - for 90% of them, who's kidding whom?  Utter technophobia.  Lack of
knowledge.  Not preinstalled.

Need I go on?

Face it.  Microsoft's ease of installation and general ease of use still
wins.  For now.  But we need to be able to see the glass half-full aspect of
palls like this one.  The wall is cracking.  More and more people are becoming
aware of Window's general unreliability (as it bites them).

For another example see David Gelernter's otherwise mostly pro-Gates piece in
Time:

http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/time100/builder/profile/gates.html

"But the Microsoft Windows world view is dead in the
water, and Microsoft has nothing to offer in its place.
Windows is a relic of the ancient days when e-mail didn't
matter, when the Internet and the Web didn't matter,
when most computer users had only a relative handful of
files to manage. Big changes are in the works that will
demote computers and their operating systems to the
status of TV sets. You can walk up to any TV and tune in
CBS; you will be able to walk up to any computer and
tune in your own files, your electronic life. The questions
of the moment are, What will the screen look like? How
will the controls work? What exactly will they do? and
Who will clean up?

Microsoft? Maybe. On the other hand, being the
biggest, toughest frog in the pond doesn't help if you're
in the wrong pond. Some people have the idea that
Microsoft is fated to dominate technology forever. They
had this same idea about IBM, once admired and feared
nearly as much as Microsoft is today. They had essentially
the same idea about Japan's technology sector back in
the 1980s and early '90s. It isn't quite fair to compare
Microsoft to a large country yet. But Japan was on a roll
and looked invincible--once. (Or, if you go back to Pearl
Harbor, twice.) "