Windows 7 has been out and about for little over a week now, and as it turns out, Microsoft's new baby is doing relatively well. That is, according to the figures by NetApplications: Windows 7 already reached the 3% mark this weekend, and is already closing in on the 4% mark.
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Member since:2008-12-26
There are ways to route around this problem:
- Exchange mails can be accessed with IMAP
- Calendar: use some kind of mobile device.
Member since:2009-02-19
Funny you mention that, actually. I do access my exchange e-mails from Thunderbird on Linux, and I do basically all of the calendering from my iPhone. It works, but it's not optimal: for instance, a lot of extra hassle was required to get access to our LDAP address books in Thunderbird on Linux, when they where auto-discovered in Outlook (note: this is not Thunderbird's fault, it's Microsoft's). It's also annoying to get an even invitation in Thunderbird, and have to get my iPhone out, log into it, and do the calendering from there.
It's pretty much required to have a Windows install around here, basically because we make heavy use of exchange and Sharepoint, and people don't want to worry about some of their co-workers not having good access to those platforms. Sure, you can work around it, but people don't want you to have unreliable or partial access to a platform that performs mission-critical functions. To make full (or most convenient) use of Exchange and Sharepoint, you pretty much need to be using Windows (and even IE specifically for Sharepoint, it's my impression).
Member since:
2009-02-19
It can't possibly be worse than having to reinstall Ubuntu every 6 months. Which you know you do. "
Not to sound like a broken record here, but I'm gooing to say what I've said before: that problem effects Linux and Windows both. Pretty much any self-modifying software installation (i.e. any one that includes and update agent) will rot over time. Windows does -- at least, all the Windows installs I've performed have -- and Ubuntu does too -- again, in my experience, anyway. One difference is that it's a lot easier to re-install an Ubuntu (or Slackware or Red Hat or whatever other Linux) installation than Windows, because you don't have to worry about re-registering the damned thing, and because you can put the OS installation on a separate partition from the user data (home directories) pretty conveniently. And because you can have all your software back and updated in maybe an hour and a half, over three synaptic sessions. But those points are kinda minor: suffice it to be said, pretty much every OS I've used rots over time, it's sortof a fact of computing life.
And you don't have to re-install Ubuntu (or other Linuxes) every six months. I'm still using 8.10, and it's working fine for me. It's not like Ubuntu implodes every six months, and you have to re-install it or you won't have an OS. If you install an LTS, you can leave it for however many years it's supported.
Who cares what your PREFERRED solution is. I demonstrated that you aren't locked-in to Windows by virtualizing legacy applications. That enables you to run older Windows applications and brand-new Linux applications side-by-side without any kind of lock-in. Upgrade your Linux box as many times as you like. Whatever. The "lock-in" argument is BOGUS. "
It really isn't. My office uses Microsoft Exchange for mail and calendering; that puts Windows on a lot of desktops in my division, that would otherwise be either Linux or OS X (we maintain a Linux cluster, and most of us are pretty comfortable with Linux). That's pretty much exactly what Lemur2's talking about, and it really does happen: Microsoft uses and has used deliberately non-interoperable platforms to attempt to lock in users, and it works out in the real world.
This happens on the desktop, too, obviously. Windows stays the dominant platform in part because it's already the dominant platform. It has a massive user base, and a prohibitive migration cost.