[PLUG] Rumors that Windows 7 will kill Linux...

[Paul Heinlein]

On Mon, 16 Mar 2009, Quentin Hartman wrote:

> Some good responses in here, but most of them (including the original
> suggestion that 7 will "kill Linux") are missing a crucial point. The
> platform is beginning to matter less and less as each of them are
> overcoming their shortcomings, and none of them are likely to ever
> "kill" any of the others. All three of the big platforms (Windows,
> Linux, OSX) are roughly equal when it comes to core functionality.

The big exception is MS Office. My intuition is that, broadly 
speaking, MS Office addiction drives Windows sales, at least in the 
business environment. You can get Office:mac, but it's not 100% 
compatible with the Windows version.

There are speciality applications that will always tie certain 
businesses to certain platforms -- but MS Office is the de facto 
standard for production of business documents. As long as that's the 
case, Windows sales will remain relatively level.

As long as internetworking is not 99.5% accessible or reliable, 
locally run applications will have a large influence on OS choice. 
Google Docs and its successors will all face the internetworking 
bottleneck. Unless my bedroom, plane seat, remote conference room, and 
all places in between have reliable, fast internetworking connections, 
I'm going to rely on local applications, not cloud apps.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/