For those who continue to bash Microsoft - A Question

In2Photos wrote in post #3248291
Aw yes. And Minidisc was better than CD and DIVx better than DVD, and SACD better than DVD-Audio...But yet none of them won out either.

And what do Beta-Max, Minidisc, and SACD all have in common? Sony! I wonder who is going to win the HD-DVD blueray battle

Are the examples you are showing an attempt to point out how the superior format lost because of non technological reasons? Does that not re-enforce the point Tony-S was making about how windows, an inferior technology, was able to achieve market dominance not because it was better, but because IBM dropped the ball? What is it exactly you are trying to say here?

Comparing divx to dvd is more apples to fishsticks. DVD is a medium, divx is a format. The format that DVDs use is called mpeg2, divx is mpeg4 and it IS winning out. Not so much as in beating mpeg2, just replacing it. Almost any video you download off the interweb now is mpeg4 and both blueray and hd-dvd players are required to support it. A good portion of $40 off the shelf walmart dvd players sold today also support divx. My archos plays mpeg4 and my p&s samsung camera records video natively to mpeg4 as well.

Sathi wrote in post #3248545
And what do Beta-Max, Minidisc, and SACD all have in common? Sony! I wonder who is going to win the HD-DVD blueray battle

Are the examples you are showing an attempt to point out how the superior format lost because of non technological reasons? Does that not re-enforce the point Tony-S was making about how windows, an inferior technology, was able to achieve market dominance not because it was better, but because IBM dropped the ball? What is it exactly you are trying to say here?

Comparing divx to dvd is more apples to fishsticks. DVD is a medium, divx is a format. The format that DVDs use is called mpeg2, divx is mpeg4 and it IS winning out. Not so much as in beating mpeg2, just replacing it. Almost any video you download off the interweb now is mpeg4 and both blueray and hd-dvd players are required to support it. A good portion of $40 off the shelf walmart dvd players sold today also support divx. My archos plays mpeg4 and my p&s samsung camera records video natively to mpeg4 as well.

The point I am making is that who says it is a superior format? The people who lost the battle. In most of those cases Sony may have had the superior format but wanted way too much money for anyone else to use the technology. So what is a superior format, one being used or one sitting in the trash bin?

While Divx may have also had a better image format it was the idea that killed it. People didn't want to buy into the crap that Divx (and their supporters) tried to pull. And while current players may support the format again the initial idea behind Divx was the problem, not the technology.

Oh, and Sony will probably lose the HD blueray battle too.

A Honda Civic has inferior technology and reliability to many other vehicles, yet it's still a popular car.

In2Photos wrote in post #3248596
The point I am making is that who says it is a superior format? The people who lost the battle. In most of those cases Sony may have had the superior format but wanted way too much money for anyone else to use the technology. So what is a superior format, one being used or one sitting in the trash bin?

Gotcha. And you do have a good point, in a way it being dominant in of itself makes it superior. Windows could be inferior in 95% of things, but if it was that 5% that won it then that is all that counts. And I guess that goes towards why I recommend windows for most people.

The reason the thread sounds so negative towards windows is it was setup to compare an aspect of windows that is weak against another OS where that aspect is strong. The security of windows is poor, no getting around that. But there are also things windows does way better than anyone else. Like with anything else I suppose it is a decision based on need, patience, and of course money.

cosworth wrote in post #3248614
A Honda Civic has inferior technology and reliability to many other vehicles, yet it's still a popular car.

I'm sorry but that's a bad analogy.

In2Photos wrote in post #3248121
Thanks for the history lessons. But that still doesn't really answer the question as to why Linux and Apple only have 10% market share, which is the question that was asked.

Did you bother even reading my last post? Windows is dominant because it is dominant, and that's almost impossible to change. Our children are learning to use Windows in school. Our computer stores sell millions and millions of machines---all loaded with Windows. The average man or woman on the street has no idea whatsoever what GNU/Linux is, despite the fact that it could easily do everything Windows is doing for them, for free. With truly fair competition, Windows wouldn't hold anything near its current market share, or else it would have been forced to develop an awful lot better an awful lot faster.

And yes, for those who doubt, whatever your seconds of intuitive thinking may have told you, Unix based systems, and particularly free systems, are inherently more secure. OpenBSD, for instance; in the past ten years, TWO remotely exploitable security holes have been found in the default install, and that's with thousands not only looking at the OS from the outside, but looking at its source code for security holes. Microsoft's lucky if they go a week with only two remotely exploitable security holes...

I get ticked off when windows price is included in a laptop.

Maybe I don't want to run it at all. Maybe I already stole it... or maybe I want to run linux.

It sucks.

Sathi wrote in post #3248733
Gotcha. And you do have a good point, in a way it being dominant in of itself makes it superior. Windows could be inferior in 95% of things, but if it was that 5% that won it then that is all that counts. And I guess that goes towards why I recommend windows for most people.

The reason the thread sounds so negative towards windows is it was setup to compare an aspect of windows that is weak against another OS where that aspect is strong. The security of windows is poor, no getting around that. But there are also things windows does way better than anyone else. Like with anything else I suppose it is a decision based on need, patience, and of course money.

Not sure why you think this thread was designed to bash Windows. I didn't start it for this reason. In fact I am a Windows user, both at home and work. I also used Unix and Mac at school.

bieber wrote in post #3248760
Did you bother even reading my last post? Windows is dominant because it is dominant, and that's almost impossible to change. Our children are learning to use Windows in school. Our computer stores sell millions and millions of machines---all loaded with Windows. The average man or woman on the street has no idea whatsoever what GNU/Linux is, despite the fact that it could easily do everything Windows is doing for them, for free. With truly fair competition, Windows wouldn't hold anything near its current market share, or else it would have been forced to develop an awful lot better an awful lot faster.

And yes, for those who doubt, whatever your seconds of intuitive thinking may have told you, Unix based systems, and particularly free systems, are inherently more secure. OpenBSD, for instance; in the past ten years, TWO remotely exploitable security holes have been found in the default install, and that's with thousands not only looking at the OS from the outside, but looking at its source code for security holes. Microsoft's lucky if they go a week with only two remotely exploitable security holes...

Sorry I must have missed that one while I was sick last week. But I will make sure to keep an eye out for all your posts. Then when I quote someone else I will try to make sure you didn't already answer in this thread or another one.

mikez wrote in post #3248745
I'm sorry but that's a bad analogy.

Elaborate.

In2Photos wrote in post #3248834
But I will make sure to keep an eye out for all your posts. Then when I quote someone else I will try to make sure you didn't already answer in this thread or another one.

When the same argument has been answered multiple times, by multiple people, and you keep repeating it without bothering any type of refutation, one has to wonder...

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #3248808
I get ticked off when windows price is included in a laptop.

Maybe I don't want to run it at all. Maybe I already stole it... or maybe I want to run linux.

It sucks.

What is really bizzare is often the linux option or the no OS option is more expensive than to have windows pre-loaded. Some people say it is because major vendors get $$$ from companies to pre-load all that useless trial crap and it helps defer the cost of the hardware. That is hard for me to believe for some reason though..I wonder how much it costs someone like Dell for a basic end user copy of windows?

bieber wrote in post #3248861
When the same argument has been answered multiple times, by multiple people, and you keep repeating it without bothering any type of refutation, one has to wonder...

Or maybe because you haven't provided the answer I am looking for.

While it is obvious that Microsoft has cornered the PC market into providing its OS onto every PC being sold that doesn't explain why other's are not moving in. Intel had the market wrapped up just like Microsoft but along came AMD with enough grit to knock them down. Surely if Linux was everybit as good as you say it is then they should have some chance of getting into the market more. Perhpas by building their own machines, as Apple does. Maybe they don't want to. Who knows?

In2Photos wrote in post #3248934
Surely if Linux was everybit as good as you say it is then they should have some chance of getting into the market more. Perhpas by building their own machines, as Apple does. Maybe they don't want to. Who knows?

That would take a unified entity; what you're referring to as "Linux" is the entire free software community. There are machines with GNU/Linux pre-installed, and people buy them (hell, Dell's offering Ubuntu soon), but it's still a very niche market, mainly for the same reason that Macs are. AMD and Intel don't matter to consumers. If you replaced the Intel CPU in the average computer user's computer with an AMD CPU, there's no way he could possible tell what had happened. If you remove his familiar Windows interface, he'd say "WTF IS THIS??" In order for Microsoft to start to slip in market share, people have to, for starters, actually be aware that there are alternatives, and then they have to understand that it's not going to be unbelievably hard to learn just because it's not Windows. The best prospective for growth, really, is new computer users, because they don't have to unlearn the Windows way of doing things.

Of course, all this said, I honestly could care less, were it not for the threat Microsoft posed to free software. If we could just have our system and use it, that'd be great. But Microsoft and others feel the need to brandish patents around, to fund biased "studies," and on and on with their anticompetitive activities. Meanwhile, hardware makers not only refuse to release free drivers (which isn't a big deal, as we would gladly write them ourselves), but refuse to release even the simple information we need to write the drivers. ATI cards don't fail to work on Linux based systems because the developers are lazy, they work because the developers are forced to reverse engineer the cards just to have working drivers for hardware that they've paid for. The enemy isn't Windows, it's just all those pesky corporations that can't stand to let us just be on our own. You wouldn't be hearing the outcry from free software types there is today if we were all just left alone...

cosworth wrote in post #3248844
Elaborate.

You're comparing cars which cost way more than computers. I can understand couple hundreds but in thousands? Civic is a popular vehicle because it's reliable and the interior is superior any most car at its price range.

bieber wrote in post #3249003
That would take a unified entity; what you're referring to as "Linux" is the entire free software community. There are machines with GNU/Linux pre-installed, and people buy them (hell, Dell's offering Ubuntu soon), but it's still a very niche market, mainly for the same reason that Macs are. AMD and Intel don't matter to consumers. If you replaced the Intel CPU in the average computer user's computer with an AMD CPU, there's no way he could possible tell what had happened. If you remove his familiar Windows interface, he'd say "WTF IS THIS??" In order for Microsoft to start to slip in market share, people have to, for starters, actually be aware that there are alternatives, and then they have to understand that it's not going to be unbelievably hard to learn just because it's not Windows. The best prospective for growth, really, is new computer users, because they don't have to unlearn the Windows way of doing things.

Of course, all this said, I honestly could care less, were it not for the threat Microsoft posed to free software. If we could just have our system and use it, that'd be great. But Microsoft and others feel the need to brandish patents around, to fund biased "studies," and on and on with their anticompetitive activities. Meanwhile, hardware makers not only refuse to release free drivers (which isn't a big deal, as we would gladly write them ourselves), but refuse to release even the simple information we need to write the drivers. ATI cards don't fail to work on Linux based systems because the developers are lazy, they work because the developers are forced to reverse engineer the cards just to have working drivers for hardware that they've paid for. The enemy isn't Windows, it's just all those pesky corporations that can't stand to let us just be on our own. You wouldn't be hearing the outcry from free software types there is today if we were all just left alone...

I guess I will just leave you alone then. And thanks for the insight.