4 ms·
One of Microsoft's greatest accomplishments in the original "OS war" was to confuse users to the point where they didn't understand the difference between an OS
by tolmasky 17y ago
One of Microsoft's greatest accomplishments in the original "OS war" was to confuse users to the point where they didn't understand the difference between an OS and a computer. Most people didn't, and still don't, quite understand what a PC is vs. what Windows is, and this was brilliant. How can a competitor compete with your OS when users don't even know OS's exist? Most people have no idea they can install anything other than Windows on their PC, so to most people having anything else run on their computer means "buying a new computer". Google's goal is to make browsers the dominant platform in whatever way possible and completely commoditize everything "under" the browser, from the hardware all the way up to the OS in the same way that Microsoft's goal was to commoditize everything under the OS. It makes sense to me that a good goal for them would be to not make these things distinct and instead once again heighten the confusion. Google wants a very limited number of brand names that are tied to getting things done "browser", "googling", "apps", "chrome", etc. Then in Google's ideal world, when users go buy their next computer, and the salesperson says "this runs google chrome os", they will hear "this runs chrome" (which they have installed on their windows machine and use for most their work), and will thus say "oh ok then I can buy it".
- endtime 17y ago>One of Microsoft's greatest accomplishments in the original "OS war" was to confuse users to the point where they didn't understand the difference between an OS and a computer. How, exactly, did Microsoft bring that about? Did your mom know the difference before Microsoft came about, and then they made it too confusing and she forgot?
- tolmasky 17y agoMost other OS vendors made it a thing to differentiate the OS from the computer, and still do. Apple wants you to know what Mac OS X is, and Linux obviously does as well. Microsoft worked very hard to blend the experience. In fact, they continue to do it today. Notice that their ads are "I'm a PC", NOT "I'm running Windows".' Also, the point is not necessarily whether people are somehow born knowing the difference between the hardware and the OS, but rather that it is beneficial for some parties for people to be educated on this subject (such as Apple, and Linux), whereas it is not beneficial for others (Microsoft), and hence Microsoft can perpetuate this by simple inaction. I think its a clear win for Google if people start being further confused about the difference between browsers and OSes, since their whole goal is to convince people that the browser is the OS.
- freetard 17y agoBut apple ads are "I'm a Mac", not "I'm runninx OS X" so they don't care either.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]