Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. Same for many SE Asian, Eastern European, African and LatinoAmerican countries as well.
Had the OS been too difficult to pirate, educators and local institutions in these countries would have certainly shifted to Linux and the like. The fact that Windows could be pirated easily is the main factor that led to its ubiquity and allowed it to become a household name. Its rapid popularity in the '00s and early ‘10s cemented its status as the PC operating system. It is probably the same for Microsoft Office as well (it is still a part of many schools’ standard curricula).
The fact that Windows still remains pirateable to this day is perhaps intentional on Microsoft’s part.
Absolutely, and Microsoft knows this. You could even upgrade a pirated version of Windows to a legit copy when they did the upgrade drive for 7 I believe it was. Did it myself. And they completely turn a blind eye to OEM key reselling, which is why you can get legit windows keys for less than $10 these days.
They’ve also never done anything substantial against pirates, all they do is pester about buying a key and warn about the risks. The “worst” they do is stop you from using windows update which some see as a feature. When they could just completely lock you out and/or report you to the police.
The money is in server for Microsoft, but they’re losing that battle slowly but surely since they can’t make windows actually work properly in a container setting. I have customers that love Microsoft but despite their best efforts at making containerized windows workloads work it just sucks major ass. And virtually everybody is coming around to realize just how insane of a paradigm shift containers are.
And losing that battle is why 12 will likely move to subscription. And I’m willing to bet money that, in 10 years time, will be considered the starting point for Microsofts dramatic loss of market share in the home PC market. From 90% or so now down to like 50 ish %. But maybe some smart guys at Microsoft will nip that in the bud.
Although I mostly agree with you, this is not true:
The “worst” they do is stop you from using windows update
The worst they do is practically force you to buy a windows license with most laptops and even some pre-built tower PCs.
Yes there are some vendors/manufacturers who don’t force you or ask, if you want an Ubuntu/Mint/Pop_!OS or smth. but most just don’t give a shit.
in my country vendors are forced to offer a free OS/no OS option.
most new laptops here come with linux preinstalled lol
I would argue there’s nothing to snip in the bud, since the home PC is a dying breed anyway. It is increasingly only used by hobbyists and professionals. Some people will use a laptop issued from work but the choice of OS in those cases is seldom theirs. Other than that it’s all phones, tablets, consoles, TVs etc.
The PC market itself is shrinking.
PCs are expensive and unpractical.
I wanted a PC, bought a tablet. Ideally, I’d want a SFFPC plus screens that I could easily move. I’d settle for a SFFPC with a dedicated graphics card if I couldn’t move it. I’d also settle for a notebook that would allow me to easily swap HDDs/SSDs. However, none of those things are possible and/or have a good cost-benefit, so I got a tablet.
Notebooks are too clunky compared to tablets because they are attached to a keyboard and to a screen. If those parts were removable, they would be more successful. Tablets would also be more popular if you could use them as PC screens (some from Lenovo already come with this featur).
Manufacturers are moving in the opposite direction, soldering memory, and making as hard as possible to change parts.
13 or so years ago, whenever the first iPads were coming out, that was my first thought. Why don’t they take their laptops, and have the screen removable that it instantly turns into an iPad? Or a windows computer that does the same thing. Microsoft did it with the surface, and it worked pretty well. Still wasn’t quite what I had imagined, but pretty much was. Apple could have made a killing doing something like that, I’m still convinced (if it was PC based when docked though, not their cell phone/iPad OS).
I don’t disagree with PCs being on a strong downward trend. But the point of Windows on PCs has always been familiarity such that it’s what’s prefered and feel easiest for servers. Without their domination of home PC no company would be running Windows Server these days. And the last people to stop using PCs at home are bound to be tech people that have some say in what type of servers to run.
That said Microsoft has been divesting from their reliance on Windows Server so it’s not like they’ll die from this. But it’s going to mean we’ll hopefully be rid of Windows Server soon!
Wait fr?
Yes. It’s even extreme in some places. For example, more than half of Australian households reported in a 2022 survey that they never accessed the internet from a desktop PC that year (source; also, paywall warning). In Hungary, desktop ownership dropped from 47.5% in 2014 to 39.2% 2019. It’s safe to assume the downwards trend has continued into 2023.
Japan dropped from 81.7% in 2013 to 69% in 2022 (this is for PC ownership in general and doesn’t differentiate between desktops and laptops) and Germany dropped from 64.5% (desktops) in 2006 to 42.9% in 2022.
Even African countries, which had depressingly low computer ownership to begin with, have seen a stagnation at around 7.5% (yes, it’s that low) between 2015 and 2019.
These are just a few examples, but you’ll see a similar trend everywhere you look. Looking at these statistics reminds me of this Apple ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfR_Jj4grZE
Edit: WTH, Spain?
Wow that’s just crazy. I thought it was going the other way
Your data shows desktops, but it doesn’t show laptops. It’s not news that laptops are more common than desktops.
I thought we were talking exclusively about desktops. My bad.
But not all of the data shows desktops only. The ones I linked for Japan and Africa are for computer ownership in general.
They won’t go subscription for most users. They know with 100% certainty that their home market share will crumble if they did, and that would lead into business share.
Linux has become too easy to use and thanks to an awesome hard push from Valve with the Steam Deck, gamers don’t even need windows anymore, with the exception of some online games with brutal anti cheat software baked in.
I’m not sure I buy that 12 is going to be subscription based. I think that would be the straw that broke the camels back. I think we are peak subscription at this point, it’s getting hard to justify this ever growing faucet of money outflows to these friggin subscriptions. Cell phones are quickly becoming PC replacements too. Maybe not in our lives, but for a lot of the common folks that just want to browse and email, absolutely they are. This is why you are seeing Apple’s OS and Android increasingly becoming more PC-like. The next battlefield, I think, is going to be Android vs Windows. Android is currently free, which isn’t going to bode well for a 12 subscription model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft
Ignoring unauthorized copying
… Bill Gates said “And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”
The practice allowed Microsoft to gain some dominance over the Chinese market and only then taking measures against unauthorized copies. In 2008, by means of the Windows update mechanism, a verification program called “Windows Genuine Advantage” (WGA) was downloaded and installed. When WGA detects that the copy of Windows is not genuine, it periodically turns the user’s screen black. This behavior angered users and generated complaints in China with a lawyer stating that “Microsoft uses its monopoly to bundle its updates with the validation programs and forces its users to verify the genuineness of their software”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
… the documents identified open-source software, and in particular the Linux operating system, as a major threat to Microsoft’s domination of the software industry, and suggested tactics Microsoft could use to disrupt the progress of open-source software.
Windows being easy to pirate wasnt the reason for it’s popularity. It had market share because they allowed for it to be preinstalled on machines for virtually nothing. They allowed it to be preinstalled on machines for virtually nothing because the OS wasn’t the flagship product.
MS Office has always been the major flagship product for the company. This was true in 1994 and still is today. Office is so important to their revenue streams that it’s fairly common knowledge and has been mentioned by former employees that OS development would focus on compatibility with Office programs, not the other way around.
Specifically if you look at the years around Office XP and 2003, that suite is used very much as a CVS. They deprecate their operating systems using Office.
I think Windows is successful because it was defacto preinstalled on all computers. Even people in third world countries are buying computers whole, not a basket of parts to assemble.
Also software. You’re not going to assemble a computer, install Linux, and then not be able to run anything on it. You want to run all the software that was built to run on Windows, which was built to run on Windows because it came installed on every computer, etc. (Remember Linux back then really couldn’t run all that much. No office? No games? You’re toast.)
Not true at all. You’re thinking the past 20 years instead of the past 35 years. Windows was already “the” OS around the world well before you could just pirate a copy online. They cut deals and made sure if you bought a pc it has windows on it. They made sure the countries you speak of had dirt cheap cd keys without piracy. Microsoft in the late 80s/90s had a lot of moving parts that went into making sure the only OS you’d be using was windows. Even after they got in trouble in 1992-94 and in 2000-2001.
Piracy or not. Windows was almost anyone’s only choice.
Even though Linux is still somewhat popular in tech circles, consider that windows would have a significant market share for providing high value entertainment and a wide variety of tools to office workers. Microsoft Office is the dominant documentation and accounting suite for office workers around the world.
Now, combine that with the way that Microsoft has bundled their OS into many laptops and retail computers worldwide and you see why they’re big.
Essentially anybody looking to do any paperwork related work will have to interact with Microsoft’s system of software in one way or another. If Bill Gates was a deity, he’d probably fit right in with the god of tax collectors, taxing people for paperwork and bureaucracy.
The past 20 years is what’s relevant for all countries apart from Japan, China and those in North America and Eastern Europe when it comes to PCs.
I don’t think any cost above ₹200 (~ $2.5) would have been justifiable for an OS in third world countries in the '00s, and the “dirt cheap CD keys” were certainly more expensive than that anywhere.
I’m afraid you’re simply making things up. Microsoft donated computers with windows to all the third world countries. Literally the only way any schools had PC’s in third world countries was because Microsoft delivered them there, and any business’ that got computers used windows because they had office use applications and it was the only OS that anyone had previous practice with using, because of the donated computers.
It’s hilarious that you think Microsoft’s charity is what brought computers to the third world. Do you even hear yourself?
Of course it has. Maybe try pulling your head out of your ass.
Unbelievable. You genuinely think the rest of the world wouldn’t have had computers had your god Microsoft not been so benevolent as to donate a few machines to a few schools for PR
Stay happy in your pathetic white saviours’ world, I guess. There’s no point discussing anything with you
Oh shit. You’re dumb AND racist. Lol. You poor fuck.
I don’t think they think it. I think they got computers slightly faster, because a large corporation drew on the resources its home country had stolen from those places to leverage a monopoly.
Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. … Had the OS been too difficult to pirate, educators and local institutions in these countries would have certainly shifted to Linux and the like.
While i somewhat agree with your overall statement, this part is just wrong. Linux in the late 1990s and 2000s was very different from today, where you just plug in a CD/USB and select your region. Linux back then was very nerdy, you had to choose your hardware first to make sure there was a linux driver and the installation process was very difficult, especially before plug&play where you had to know which IRQs and slots you had to use for network, sound and videocard to avoid conflicts. I remember trying to install Linux from a CD, only to work my war from one error message to the next because it did not like my videocard, soundcard or both.
Also, what would you do with a linux pc at home or at work if it could not run word, excel, duke nukem 3D, TTD, programs you knew from work/school or software you could pirate from your friends?
PTSD…
I once destroyed a CRT monitor by misconfiguring X11.
Nowadays Linux just works to the point where my 72 year old mother is able to deal with Pop_OS without issue.
But man, those early days of unstable drivers, slow dial-up internet, and navigating through Usenet and IRC for decent support was a nightmarish labor of love.
The silky smoothness that we have now was built on caffeine and the backs of millions of greybeards.
(For the record: “Greybeard” is a nerdy term of endearment that I’ve seen adopted by people identifying all across the rainbow. Kinda like dwarfs on Discworld).
Greybeard is also the name for an experienced DRG player
Linux’s development would have accelerated a lot had there been more demand. There wasn’t enough demand because pirated Windows was getting the work done.
In the 90s there where a lot more OS available to compete agains windows, who already had existing software (sometimes better and more capable) to compete with windows: MacOS (Popular in print, layout), BeOS, OS2/warp (tried to replace windows), Amiga OS (best for video editing work at the time), Atari, Novell Netware.
It’s not exactly like people where desperate for another OS at this point in the late 90s/early 2000s.
I don’t think that necessarily holds true for OSS. The average user with no development experience wanting to use an open source project doesn’t mean it will always develop faster.
I remember trying to get wireless working and having ndiswrapper wrap the windows drivers and having it fail epically
Same with Photoshop, Maya etc. These corps know that letting consumers pirate their software will create more legit end users. Since people will get used to their software and won’t easily switch when they enter the professional workforce where these corps don’t condone piracy and actually audit businesses. At least in Western nations they even audit small businesses. Like my friend used to work at a small engineering firm in the Netherlands and Autodesk came by to audit the CAD licenses.
How do those companies audit businesses that they don’t know are using their software? Do they have a special force built just to track creative releases from indie makers?
at work we once bought licenses from Autodesk and one day, when we realized that we didn’t need it anymore and we could use a better alternative, they sent us a letter where they assumed that we stopped paying because we started to pirate. They basically threatened us to allow to run some malware on our computers to check compliance, or someone could tip us off to local authorities. They even tried to bribe the person who read the letter by ending the letter with something like “in case of piracy, the whistleblower could be rewarded financially”. It was a regular mail, so we just ignored it.
That’s very common with Microsoft products too. Their vendors get to use @microsoft.com emails (distinguishable by an extra “v”) so they frequently pose as “auditors” to pressure businesses into buying licenses.
It’s a grey area because a business with all licenses in order would not care either way, but software being what it is it’s hard to stay compliant all the time even if you try, and that’s when the vultures descend.
For example say you appoint a new CTO and they realize your company of 200 PCs uses pirate Office copies, so they buy 200 genuine licenses, but they’re cut short of actually installing the matching Office version because Office is a piece of malware-acting crap and is actually very hard to completely purge from a domain install. So they end up holding correct licenses but using technically pirated versions. This is where a genuine audit would not care (you paid for the newer version and are using the older, crappier version; due to their fault, I might add? you do you Microsoft got paid) — but an unscrupulous vendor would try to scare you into paying more to “fix it”.
windows is largely successful because of oems.
the major OEMs basically get paid to put windows on the systems they sell. they get the licenses at a deep discount, then top that off with the money coming in for the preinstalled garbage.
…and they knew it from the beginning.
Even the MPAA and RIAA know piracy fuels culture and makes golden hits into platinum hits and boost sequel album sales and auxiliary items (toys and lunchboxes).
They can’t help themselves because to the execs and shareholders, it feels like lost sales and theft. And the DRM market capitalizes on those feelings.
Not really. Offices were one of the major early adopters of computers and windows is perfect for them with plethora of features they offered right out of the package.
Windows GUI was groundbreaking, their text processing and excel was a game changer, and windows doesn’t allow you to delete your own boot partition with a sudo command so it was pretty idiot proof.
Once windows had the majority of marketshare, it was pretty obvious that whoever was buying PCs (back in the day it was more that a dad got a PC from his office or bought one which was similar), got it with windows.
yup ADOBE is exactly the same.
they do it on purpose for the exact same reason you are mentioning.
Yup, when I was talking with a few different Microsoft representatives, they just straightforwardly stated that they don’t focus at all on punishing or pushing consequences for “obtained/purchased windows instances via any existing alternative/not supported ways” when it comes to private/home users.
They surely and happily will put the idea of buying a key or official upgrade from their certified resellers locally or online on the table.
It is quite a different story with larger organizations and companies.
—
Of course all this info is based on just a few talks during the last decade and with incoming subscription (ugh) model a lot will change, I guess.
For private individuals and small institutions, yes, they would definitely use linux if windows was 100% impossible to pirate.
For corporations and bigger institutions, no, they would 100% continue to use windows just because of the control they can have on their devices, group policies, single sign on, and so on. It’s possible to do that on Linux, but not as easily. They’re already paying 15 dollars / month to microsoft just for AAD/entra/[whatever they call it this week] or even more to have office integrated with that and $200 for a permanent license for a single PC is a drop in the bucket
group policies, single sign on, and so on. It’s possible to do that on Linux, but not as easily.
It is just as easy, if you have a sysadmin who knows what they’re doing. Which is the case for Microsoft too, you need someone knowledgeable for the implementation and management anyway.
This is where Windows being “free” and everywhere comes in, everybody buys Microsoft without a second thought.
Linux is designed to be able to do group policies like that very well
Remember, Linux originates back from the terminal days, and the vast majority of servers run Linux. If any OS is made to function well in large organizations, it’s Linux. Windows is popular on desktop for reasons other than better group policies.
When I was working IT in a place that produced transcripts - so we had loads of typists all using Windows and MS Word loaded down with a thousand macros - the IT department made all of the servers linux based, and all our production was stored on samba shares. The only reason they hadn’t transitioned the entire workforce to linux was resistance from management.
I imagine there would’ve been resistance from users too, but all of the inertia was due to familiarity and had absolutely nothing to do with technical barriers. The entire IT team was frothing at the mouth to be free of Microsoft’s arbitrary BS. Windows caused us no end of headaches.
In fact, because every typist needed a browser open at all times to research legal terms and other details, I had a number of people complain their computer was running slowly. For every one of them, I installed firefox and made it the default browser and told them they’d need to login to all of their online accounts again. Every single one told me I’d “fixed the computer” and it “works so much better now”.
I think it is the other way around; easy pirate versions appeared becuz windows was popular, providing access to those who can’t afford.
Or Windows just works on so much different hardware. You can build a PC with the weirdest mix and match of hardware, and Windows will just… work. Also I bought a Microsoft sidewinder wheel from 1998 from a thrift store for $8, plugged it into my Windows 10 PC, and it just worked. Nothing special was needed. 1998 hardware literally plug and play on Windows 10 (and I’ve tested it on 11, and it works the same).
You can install MacOS on non-Apple hardware, but you need to buy very specific hardware, and download very specific hacks, to make it work.
Even Linux only works on specific hardware. This entire thread has people talking about how broken Linux is on their setups. The suggestions are to buy specific hardware and run very specific versions of Linux.
From a private end user point of view yes. But in enterprises Windows and Office is successful. Lots of money is going to Microsoft here.
Windows and Office were successful in enterprises precisely because they were popular and the familiar choice among staff. They got popular from piracy.
it’s a bit disingenuous to think that corporations are using windows just because employees are familiar with that. Unless the work is only using a web browser, you need programs and stuff, you don’t simply switch to Linux. Especially when “familiar with windows” for an average employee it just means “know where the icons are, and open Facebook in a browser”.
A corporation would surely love to save $100k if they could just have a windows skin on Linux and force employees to watch a 1-hour video on training to use the new system. But then if they need to run [PROGRAM X]? and if they need to run [PROGRAM Y]? And what if some quirk of running [PROGRAM Z] on Wine introduces some bug that causes slowdowns and monetary loss?
They intentionally choose windows, and they will pay whatever Microsoft tells them because:
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they can have support from less specialized (=cheaper) techs
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they can control everything of their computers from a centralized position. If they want, they can force push the goatse image as the wallpaper on each single employee and nobody could change that.
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it works well with the programs they use, and they are in a configuration that can be supported by techs
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