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It's written by a author who has very little clue that Microsoft's primary customers are large enterprises, and not the "average consumer". "Users have embrace

It's written by a author who has very little clue that Microsoft's primary customers are large enterprises, and not the "average consumer". "Users have embraced the productivity of simple and mobile… And there’s no going back!" - Does this even make sense? I work for a large bank with around 50,000 employees - and it is absolutely essential that we are provided with an operating system which is familiar, supported, stable and able to run the thousands of applications already being used internally. The company will never ever - at least in the next 50 to 100 years - switch from Windows simply because it does not make any business sense to do so and will come at an immense cost to shareholders. And let me add that I use a Windows 8 mobile, and it is one of the finest mobile operating system I have ever used. Apps run in 512MB RAM as smoothly as my wife's Android Sony Xperia which is almost four times as costly (and four times or more as powerful). I have never been satisfied more with an OS.

smacktoward 13y ago
In my experience enterprise customers tend (after a time lag of several years) to get dragged kicking and screaming into using whatever their employees use at home. Enterprise IT said time-shared mainframes were just fine. Employees bought their own PCs and liked them. Eventually enterprise IT was buying PCs. Enterprise IT said text-mode interfaces were just fine. Employees bought their own GUI systems and liked them. Eventually enterprise IT was buying GUI systems. Enterprise IT said desk phones were just fine for everyone (except top execs, of course). Employees bought their own cell phones and liked them. Eventually enterprise IT was buying cell phones. Enterprise IT said BlackBerries were just fine for everyone. Employees bought their own iPhones and liked them. Eventually enterprise IT was buying iPhones. Etc., etc., etc. Of course, the larger the enterprise the longer the time lag. But it's rare to see a business that planted its flag on "X is just fine" not eventually hauling that flag down.
- radmuzom 13y ago
  Yes, but unlike most programmers, people (restricted to bank employees in my original example) 1. Love windows, even though they may use an Iphone. 2. Find it very productive to get work done. That is because it IS a brilliant operating system for all categories of users (including programmers). 3. Have jobs (a lot of them) because of Microsoft Office. As of today, there is simply no alternative - anyone who claims otherwise is lying or has an ulterior motive. And no one cares that you can write Python macros in OpenOffice/LibreOffice.
  - smacktoward 13y ago
    And 25 years ago they had those jobs because of Lotus 1-2-3. Until they started demanding Office. And 35 years ago they had those jobs because of VisiCalc. Until they started demanding 1-2-3. Etc. 50-100 years is a long time, is my point.
cbr 13y ago
50 to 100 years ?? That's an extremely long time frame. If you said "10" I might be on board, but will Windows really exist in 50 years? The cases where we've seen really long-lived software is custom enterprise back-end systems. Windows might live to 2063 supporting something custom that's never worth the effort to port to a new platform, but this is very different from an operating system used by thousands of people. Are new internal tools at your company written for Windows or are they browser based?
- radmuzom 13y ago
  Both. We were using IE6 till around 8 months back, because a lot of internal tools depended on IE6 behavior. Now you can imagine why I made the 50 year comment (agree that 100 might be too much).

smacktoward 13y ago

In my experience enterprise customers tend (after a time lag of several years) to get dragged kicking and screaming into using whatever their employees use at home. Enterprise IT said time-shared mainframes were just fine. Employees bought their own PCs and liked them. Eventually enterprise IT was buying PCs. Enterprise IT said text-mode interfaces were just fine. Employees bought their own GUI systems and liked them. Eventually enterprise IT was buying GUI systems. Enterprise IT said desk phones were just fine for everyone (except top execs, of course). Employees bought their own cell phones and liked them. Eventually enterprise IT was buying cell phones. Enterprise IT said BlackBerries were just fine for everyone. Employees bought their own iPhones and liked them. Eventually enterprise IT was buying iPhones. Etc., etc., etc. Of course, the larger the enterprise the longer the time lag. But it's rare to see a business that planted its flag on "X is just fine" not eventually hauling that flag down.

radmuzom 13y ago
Yes, but unlike most programmers, people (restricted to bank employees in my original example) 1. Love windows, even though they may use an Iphone. 2. Find it very productive to get work done. That is because it IS a brilliant operating system for all categories of users (including programmers). 3. Have jobs (a lot of them) because of Microsoft Office. As of today, there is simply no alternative - anyone who claims otherwise is lying or has an ulterior motive. And no one cares that you can write Python macros in OpenOffice/LibreOffice.
- smacktoward 13y ago
  And 25 years ago they had those jobs because of Lotus 1-2-3. Until they started demanding Office. And 35 years ago they had those jobs because of VisiCalc. Until they started demanding 1-2-3. Etc. 50-100 years is a long time, is my point.

cbr 13y ago

50 to 100 years ?? That's an extremely long time frame. If you said "10" I might be on board, but will Windows really exist in 50 years? The cases where we've seen really long-lived software is custom enterprise back-end systems. Windows might live to 2063 supporting something custom that's never worth the effort to port to a new platform, but this is very different from an operating system used by thousands of people. Are new internal tools at your company written for Windows or are they browser based?

radmuzom 13y ago
Both. We were using IE6 till around 8 months back, because a lot of internal tools depended on IE6 behavior. Now you can imagine why I made the 50 year comment (agree that 100 might be too much).