5 ms·

I wonder where the tipping point comes in? That is, the point where there's a substantial enough non-Windows marketshare that ISVs can't go with Microsoft's pr

by sadiq 19y ago

I wonder where the tipping point comes in? That is, the point where there's a substantial enough non-Windows marketshare that ISVs can't go with Microsoft's proprietary development solutions and practises due to the need to go cross-platform or neglect a large chunk of the market. Once you hit that point, the value of Windows (that is, it's ecosystem) starts to plummet. Any other ideas for what could happen? edit: I guess we've already seen the effect of the second paragraph in the proliferation of web-based applications.

TrevorJ 19y ago
As far as the web-based apps observation, if you are doing word-processing the online tools make the user experience pretty much OS-agnostic as it is. Personally, I'd love to see the day when bandwidth is to fat that we can start keeping the processing hardware on the other end of the pipe too. Can you imagine being able to yank extra processing cycles off the pipe from any machine you happen to be using on demand?
mhb 19y ago
I wonder where the tipping point comes in? Can't we gauge this by the number of viruses targeted at the Mac?
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  No, because that assumes that mac and windows are equally exploitable. Given mac's core, they are not.
  - thorax 19y ago
    I figured the hackers around here would understand that these things are more a function of popularity, with one of the variables being the core security design. Thinking you're "safe" using any popular software is pretty much living in denial. Apple software is certainly not immune to this: http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/QuickTime-evil-pink-box-flaw-hits-Second-Life/0,339028227,339286011,00.htm http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/QuickTime-evil-pink-box... Software systems are so incredibly complex and market forces and technology changes require lots and lots of new code to be written. Today we can secure a lot of problems discovered as harmful "yesterday", but every new day brings new clever tricks that chip away at our old assumptions. It's a cycle that no one is immune to as long as technology keeps moving.
    - run4yourlives 19y ago
      I didn't suggest that mac's were immune to threats, that would be stupid. Given their BSD base, though, mac's are inherently more secure than windows boxes. I think the difference is great enough that you can't use virus penetration as a measure of system popularity.
      - mhb 19y ago
        In that case, I didn't suggest that virus penetration be the metric, but attempts at penetration. Although it is likely that there is a correlation between attempts and the perceived vulnerability of the system, you would also expect a correlation between attempts and expected total success (which goes up with market share).
tx 19y ago
Hm... they say Apple now captures 25% of all revenue from PC sales, I wonder if that includes corporate sales. Because if it does, it means that Apple currently holds over half of new home/personal PC sales.
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  No, it doesn't. For most corporations, apple is what the kids use to listen to music.
henning 19y ago
If applications like Skype or last.fm's clients are any indication, people will use high-quality cross-platform frameworks like Qt instead of exclusively choosing Apple's proprietary platform over Microsoft's.
wumi 19y ago
the US economy. When nobody wants to pay $1200 for a laptop. (And I don't mean hackers, designers & film editors)
demallien 19y ago
I think the tipping point has already been reached. My partner has a MacBook, so when I bought her a Garmin nuvi GPS for Christmas, I was expecting to have to fire up Fusion on my own MacBook fairly often to update it, load maps etc. Imagine my surprise when Garmin released Mac support for their products just before Christmas. If you go to the peripherals section of any electronics store these days, it is rare to find a device that doesn't support Mac. We're also starting to see an improved support for Mac by games software producers...

by sadiq 19y ago

TrevorJ 19y ago

As far as the web-based apps observation, if you are doing word-processing the online tools make the user experience pretty much OS-agnostic as it is. Personally, I'd love to see the day when bandwidth is to fat that we can start keeping the processing hardware on the other end of the pipe too. Can you imagine being able to yank extra processing cycles off the pipe from any machine you happen to be using on demand?

mhb 19y ago

I wonder where the tipping point comes in? Can't we gauge this by the number of viruses targeted at the Mac?

run4yourlives 19y ago
No, because that assumes that mac and windows are equally exploitable. Given mac's core, they are not.
- thorax 19y ago
  I figured the hackers around here would understand that these things are more a function of popularity, with one of the variables being the core security design. Thinking you're "safe" using any popular software is pretty much living in denial. Apple software is certainly not immune to this: http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/QuickTime-evil-pink-box-flaw-hits-Second-Life/0,339028227,339286011,00.htm http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/QuickTime-evil-pink-box... Software systems are so incredibly complex and market forces and technology changes require lots and lots of new code to be written. Today we can secure a lot of problems discovered as harmful "yesterday", but every new day brings new clever tricks that chip away at our old assumptions. It's a cycle that no one is immune to as long as technology keeps moving.
  - run4yourlives 19y ago
    I didn't suggest that mac's were immune to threats, that would be stupid. Given their BSD base, though, mac's are inherently more secure than windows boxes. I think the difference is great enough that you can't use virus penetration as a measure of system popularity.
    - mhb 19y ago
      In that case, I didn't suggest that virus penetration be the metric, but attempts at penetration. Although it is likely that there is a correlation between attempts and the perceived vulnerability of the system, you would also expect a correlation between attempts and expected total success (which goes up with market share).

tx 19y ago

Hm... they say Apple now captures 25% of all revenue from PC sales, I wonder if that includes corporate sales. Because if it does, it means that Apple currently holds over half of new home/personal PC sales.

run4yourlives 19y ago
No, it doesn't. For most corporations, apple is what the kids use to listen to music.

henning 19y ago

If applications like Skype or last.fm's clients are any indication, people will use high-quality cross-platform frameworks like Qt instead of exclusively choosing Apple's proprietary platform over Microsoft's.

wumi 19y ago

the US economy. When nobody wants to pay $1200 for a laptop. (And I don't mean hackers, designers & film editors)

demallien 19y ago

I think the tipping point has already been reached. My partner has a MacBook, so when I bought her a Garmin nuvi GPS for Christmas, I was expecting to have to fire up Fusion on my own MacBook fairly often to update it, load maps etc. Imagine my surprise when Garmin released Mac support for their products just before Christmas. If you go to the peripherals section of any electronics store these days, it is rare to find a device that doesn't support Mac. We're also starting to see an improved support for Mac by games software producers...