Technologizer has an interesting article about why Windows Vista failed, and it provides 16 reasons why this is the case. A few of those reasons reveal a certain lack of understanding, but a more pressing issue is that while listing these reasons individually is interesting, Vista's failure in the marketplace can be explained in a much more compact fashion.
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Member since:2007-02-17
Excuse me, but you have GOT to be kidding, surely?
Install Windows 7 from the install CD. Then install Kubuntu Karmic (KDE 4.3) side-by-side (perhaps dual boot) on the same machine. Then try and do stuff with that machine.
The bare Kubuntu KDE 4.3 installation will absolutely spank the bare Windows 7 installation for functionality (and beat it for performance, but that is not the point here).
Having noted that fact and thereby introduced an element of objective truth into the discussion ... carry on.
Edited 2009-08-11 12:30 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
If it's going to spank Windows 7 for functionality, then why does the entire linux install base still add up to less than a percent?
....
It's functionality. People choose applications to get stuff done. The operating system is merely an underlying component to this end result.
Morglum
Edited 2009-08-11 12:35 UTC
Member since:2006-03-26
Why do dickheads complain about a lack of bundled software with Windows and then complin that IE shouldn't be bundled with Windows. You can't have your cake and eat it too!
Edited 2009-08-11 12:52 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
But nobody cares about bare installation functionality. The only comparison anybody cares about is Windows 7 with all your favourite Windows software installed vs Kubuntu KDE 4.3 with all your favourite Linux software installed.
Perhaps on your computer, but certainly not on mine.
Member since:2009-07-28
I'd agree about the KDE functionality spanking only IF you were talking about KDE 3.5
The 4 Series stripped out SO MUCH functionality that KDE 3.5 contained. And that's the original point the poster was trying to make. Windows Vista didn;'t deliver where XP had thrived (in some casess breaking previously working functionality). Likewise KDE 4 broke/didn't include a lot of the functionality KDE 3.5 had.
4.3 doesn't come close to the customization options 3.5 had. When the 4 series finally "catches up" with 3.5 let me know. Then and only then I might come back. Til then I'll keep enjoying E17 with ecomorph.
Member since:2005-07-06
Slightly off topic, but why would anybody want to install a pre-release of the worst Linux distro in exsistence?
Kubuntu ships with broken KDE packages in its final releases. Now you want him to install even a pre-release of that cr#p? Surely everybody will then prefer Win7 instead.
That one is good, however: http://home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/
Member since:2005-11-05
Lemur2 wrote: "Excuse me, but you have GOT to be kidding, surely?
Install Windows 7 from the install CD. Then install Kubuntu Karmic (KDE 4.3) side-by-side (perhaps dual boot) on the same machine. Then try and do stuff with that machine."
No I'm not kidding. I've used Linux as my daily desktop for nearly eight years and so I think I'm able to form a view that isn't entirely kneejerk.
People forget that open source applications are plentiful on Windows, too. In fact the more well-known ones - Open Office, Firefox - seem to put more into getting things right on Windows that they do on Linux these days. If you then throw in stuff like Google's many applications, Gimp, Pidgin, Vlc, Filezilla, Putty and Thunderbird, among others, you can have a very capable machine whose underlying OS happens to be Windows 7 - even if all those apps aren't pure open source, but then they aren't when run under Wine on Linux either.
The only rational position to take towards operating systems is that of an Angry Agnostic, imho. These are very complex systems, as is IT generally, as is the world. No one can possibly predict what will happen next, let alone in ten years' time. No one can work out what unintended consequences will produce - often the most influential determinant of all. Texting on phones is the prime example. When it first turned up, no one realized how important it would turn out to be.
Therefore I think it is best to keep an open mind, use what is best at the time and be prepared to change if necessary. I realize these views are probably a little challenging for the black-and-white brigade on here with their fingers hovering over the mod buttons much like a disapproving suburban curtain-twitcher, but that's just not my problem. One example: system-wide colour management and photographic tools. These are important to me and Windows 7 at the moment provides the superior platform. Tomorrow it might not, but today it does.
FWIW, the KDE 4.3 I was referring to is KDE 4.3 on Ubuntu so presumably Kubuntu packages. Since this seems to have buggered up my Ubuntu install nicely, with frozen dialogue boxes every time I open a gtk app, I am most likely swapping over to the latest SuSE 11.2 KDE 4.3 milestone. This should also allow me to synchronize my Google calendars, something that KDE 4.3 on Ubuntu 9.04 isn't able to do.
Edited 2009-08-12 13:37 UTC
Member since:
2005-11-05
Most of the reasons given in this article for Vista's poor reputation would have passed most users by. Vista would have come pre-installed on their PC and as for the rest, most people don't follow computing very closely if at all.
Vista had two problems in my experience. First it was slow and clunky and a resources hog (given the average PC's resources at the time). Second, it acquired an awful reputation by word of mouth. Ask almost anyone, even those who had no real interest in computers, what Vista was like and the reply would likely have been "crap" or "OK" at best.
Once a word of mouth view like that is cemented into the marketplace, you are stuffed. Microsoft had no place to go save get out of the whole vibe as fast as possible. It will be interesting to see whether a similar fate befalls Apple, in this case not because their OS is below par but because of the company's high-handedness and obsession with lock-in.
It's a tipping-point thing: there will always be a minority who disagree, but if something is sufficiently foobared then at some point that view crosses over into a majority and then it becomes received opinion in every bar in the land. Corporations ignore this at their peril.
FWIW, I am using Windows 7 RC and it is very good. I think it presents a real challenge to desktop Linux because, again in my experience, neither KDE nor Gnome can hold a candle to it. KDE 4.3 still looks a bit ragged and unfinished (imho, of course) and with limited functionality, while Gnome looks like the DE from yesteryear which in many ways it is. Of course that's only a part of the story, but Windows 7 makes "Why use desktop Linux?" just that that little bit harder to answer.
Edited 2009-08-11 12:16 UTC