Neowin.net

...wasn't that aquired by Apple?

Agreed. Microsoft should now know that they can't afford to take so much time and money to deploy their next operating system. They can get away with it this time (Vista) but with increasing competition they should be planning a lot more strategically and efficiently to keep their well-earned market share.

Right now, when a general consumer walks into a computer store they pretty much have a choice between the different versions of Vista. A handful will offer a choice betwwn Vista and Mac OS X. It'd be interesting to one day see a store with 4 or 5 different OS's on the shelf, all from different vendors, and for the sales associate to say that each has its own pro's and con's and the end consumer has to decide what is best or more appealing for them personally (put the 'personal' back in 'personal computer'. Each OS has to compete on features, end support, and of course, price.

You'll never see a boxed, retail version of Linux that will succeed unless (1) its easy for the average user to learn and understand (2) and reliable technical support is available.

Of course, there are lots of emerging technologies that bring rivals together as well, such as Parallels allowing Macs to run Windows software and Mac software at the same time in OS X. This makes for personal computers and corporate environments to become much more mixed and not just black and white.

A mixed environemnt isn't always the best, either, because the more complex your environment the higher your IT and support costs can be.

But choice is a good thing.

Agreed. This move is good for everyone. For Linux users like myself, we get better hardware support thanks to the increased recognition of Linux. For Windows users, they get better products and lower prices.

Agree as well! This was how it was supposed to be, and I hope one day is reality. Such limited competition sucks.

I just wish that all the software that I use on Windows box would be made available for *nix as well. I dabble with *nix when the mood suits me but I can't see permanently switching anytime soon because of my software requirements.

They are not willing to learn and understand how to use Windows properly much less an entirly new operating system.

Excelent post C_Guy.

Duly noted

good for you.

I don't understand why everyone feels the need to announce that they are using Ultimate, like that makes you a god or something. Congratulations, you have a ton of features and crap your never going to use. Try sticking with the topic at hand.

I think this is very good news for everyone involved. I look forward to future releases, just got into using Linux. Hopefully this will lower prices and create the competitiveness that is needed in the OS field. They just need to make certain parts of Linux easier to use so that the common user can benefit from it.

I doubt that. One company can't control the market too long, I could call it history. Sooner or later Microsoft will be defeated by Mac OS X, later Mac OS X will be defeated by Linux or vise versus. Or there even could be some other way.

Microsoft maybe could win in USA. But if you take Europe and or let's say my own country. 80% really would tell you what is Linux, Unix and that they have Shell or Linux as second OS or that they have server. We are buying PCs not with Windows OEM, but with Linux inside. Mostly Ubuntu, SuSE or Baltrix.

David, what country are you from? (Just curious)

The thing is: you can't place very Linux user in a convention center!
Ubuntu alone has 8 million users

In total, I thought there were over 30 million people using Linux at home.