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 A story on slashdot today had a bone-headed comment. Read on for my response.
Common misconception amongst everyone in the open source movement, or just anti-MS zealots in general. If Microsoft is focused on making money, they are focused on their products. They cannot, at gunpoint, force consumers to purchase their products. In order to make money, they must provide a product that appeals to the largest number of people possible. That is focusing on the product. While it may not be technically superior or as stable as other OS's (Linux, Mac OS X, name it), it still does what most people want while the other operating systems don't. That is why those OS's don't have the market share.
No, the reason that those OS's don't have market share is not because the operating system doesn't do what consumers want. The reason Windows has a huge market share is a combination of two factors:
- cheap hardware
- Everyone else uses windows, so it is installed by default on nearly every x86 PC sold
If there was a $600 Mac and everyone was using Macs, people would ditch Windows and x86 faster than John Kerry switches opinions.
Microsoft made computing mainstream
That's giving them way too much credit
and gives most consumers exactly what they want. Isn't that kind enough? They're a business, what else are they supposed to do?
Well, for starters:
- Make a more secure OS
- Make patches that don't break more things than they fix
- Stop gouging users for a bloated Office suite
- Cease and desist illegal anti-competitive behavior
There is nothing wrong with trying to make money. Let's just keep it legal.
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