What are the odds that OS X and/or the Linux market will eventually achieve a greater market share?

By roosevelt
in General Discussion

 Share

Recommended Posts

Mentor

roosevelt

Posted
Posted

Hi,

I want to start off this thread with a very simple question.

What are the odds that OS X and/or the Linux OS market will eventually achieve a greater market share than Windows?

In the last few years there has been a lot of buzz about Macs and the varieties of Linux OS. I am not so sure if we can actually pick a side and stick to just one OS for the rest of our lives.

Listed below are some reasons why I have trouble sticking to just one operating system.

Windows
???????
- Microsoft Office is Awesome! Free versions like Libre/OpenOffice type suites are ok but compatibilities vary.
- Gaming is Awesome!
- Docking Station support from different manufactures are awesome!
- Overall cost compared to Apple is pretty low (talking about the overall laptop/comp package that an average PC user buys)
- Since more than 70% of the market uses Windows, .NET applications give you access to a wider range of market. This is an advantage for the businesses.
- Adobe Suite is well supported!
- Development support for ASP/Sharepoint is great because most of the big organizations use those over open source alternatives. More job opportunities for me :)

Mac
???????
- Love the look and feel of OS X.
- Runs other OS flawlessly via Parallels/VMWare? so, I?m not limited to just the native OS and its apps.
- The Apple Store has some badass productivity apps
- Very rarely experience any kind of crash or freezing
- Adobe Suite is well supported!
- Businesses can generate a lot of money for certain games/apps even though the market share is less than Windows (very interesting!)
- Support for development (iOS, OS X, even .NET if you are running parallels/vmware, etc?)

Linux
???????
- Free! duh!
- Extremely well support for web development (e.g. Apache, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python and even GCC, etc?)

I switched completely to a Mac as my primary workstation and currently using Parallels to take care of my Windows and Linux development needs. But I am more concerned about how the job market might look like in the next decade or two.

Some of the open source technologies are giving serious competition to the .NET framework or the content management frameworks created by Microsoft. And companies nowadays are using both Open-source and .NET solutions.

Microsoft has a lot of manufacturers (e.g. Dell, HP, Lenovo). So, I don?t think these guys will just wake up one day and ditch Windows from their products. Similarly, I am not so sure why Apple is not working with other Manufacturers like Dell, HP, etc? to ship OS X :). Wouldn?t that give Apple some serious advantage over Windows?

I'm curious if you actually settled for a single OS for the rest of your life. What?s your reasoning?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Proficient

Obry

Posted
Posted

Linux I never see growing much on the desktop - it will always stay in the server room - no reason for most users to use it. Chrome OS is a living proof - you need the ecosystem that nobody but Microsoft really has. On the application development front, with the next version of .NET you will be able to run in on OS X and Linux so that's not going to be a Microsoft exclusive platform anymore. Of course it will probably always be best supported on Windows. Things like SharePoint etc will slowly start becoming less relevant as well as sever OS's with the growth of cloud services and Microsoft has been positioning to become a leader in that area for quite some time now with Azure. That being said, I don't know how bright of a future Windows has long run. I guess we'll see how well Windows 9 does (MS will have to pull another Windows 7 type of release to recover from 8). That being said we might see more growth for iOS and Android than desktop Linux and OS X... Just my $0.02

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

Linux? Next to none. It has no market, and it's rather disorganized, and constantly forked, which pretty much limits mass market appeal. Linux will remain a tinker toy with these conditions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Veteran

TDT

Posted
Posted

Short answer, none.

 

Long answer:

OSX - runs only on dedicated hardware (I won't mention hackintoshes) and it's very expensive, like all Apple products. Also, not all Windows apps have OSX versions or quality replacements.

 

Linux - way too many distros out there, 99% of them are ugly, there's little apps and games selection, etc.

 

I don't see myself sticking to only OSX or only Linux (and I tried, many times, even made it a few months without Windows). A virtualized OS doesn't cut it, and multi-boot is inconvenient, I hate reboots. While I do see the pros in all OSes, there's no way they'll catch up or get over Windows's market share. Ever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Veteran

TDT

Posted
Posted

Look at it this way... if Windows ME, Windows Vista and Windows 8 didn't wreck Windows' dominance, nothing will. :laugh:

Not fair, Vista was fine, it laid the path to 7. Obviously, not perfect, but not as horrible as people seem to think. And Windows 8, while I hated it since it's RC days, I really like it now, with ClassicShell. Faster than 7, and no Metro. Perfect. :)

  • Ian W and Dick Montage
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Max Norris

Posted
Posted

Well asuming we're talking about the desktop/laptop workspace, just need to look at history to give you the answer. Even with some serious dumbassery on Microsoft's part over the decades the marketshare really hasn't changed. You can quote benefits of one OS over the other, you can complain about Metro or Vista or WinMe, but it really didn't matter in the end.. great forum rant material, no impact on market share at all, and all the negative buzz about the 8.x series is about to be erased with 9. Linux/OSX gaming didn't do much for their respective markets either, Steam confirms that on a monthly basis. I'd say the odds are slim to none. Tablets may or may not be interesting, obviously Android is killing it there, with Windows appearing on lower priced devices now *shrug* time will tell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Noir Angel

Posted
Posted

If the push to make games truly cross platform continues I can see Linux gaining some popularity, especially if Microsoft continues their trend of trying to bastardise their products in a way that makes them jack of all trades but master of none.

 

Steam machines marks the first time any company with any real clout have tried to put Linux in the public and commercial sector, I would like to see Valve offer PC makers incentives to load Steam Linux onto OEM PC's so it has a real chance to compete with Windows. For the average home user's needs Linux is now at a level where it could be used daily by a basic level surfer just fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Veteran

xWhiplash

Posted
Posted

Short answer, none.

 

Long answer:

OSX - runs only on dedicated hardware (I won't mention hackintoshes) and it's very expensive, like all Apple products. Also, not all Windows apps have OSX versions or quality replacements.

 

Linux - way too many distros out there, 99% of them are ugly, there's little apps and games selection, etc.

 

I don't see myself sticking to only OSX or only Linux (and I tried, many times, even made it a few months without Windows). A virtualized OS doesn't cut it, and multi-boot is inconvenient, I hate reboots. While I do see the pros in all OSes, there's no way they'll catch up or get over Windows's market share. Ever.

 

The only thing keeping me on Windows is Visual Studio.  Everything else I have found OS X editions, or better alternatives.  I could say the same thing about Windows too.  Transmit is by far the best FTP program I have ever used.  While I use and like FileZilla on Windows, Transmit is by far the best.  I also prefer Versions to any SVN client on Windows.  Coda is by far my favorite program for web development (HTML/PHP + CSS + JS).  Visual Studio still wins for ASP.NET.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Veteran

blank

Posted
Posted

OS X would be popular if apple opened it up, and allowed for it to be used on non apple hardware.

 

The way windows is going (down and ugly), i'd switch to it in a heartbeat.

 

linux, meh. I always want to love linux, but, there just isnt much quality out there as in decent beautiful looking programs, and after all these years it just assures me that it'll never be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Praetor

Posted
Posted

Listed below are some reasons why I have trouble sticking to just one operating system.

Windows

???????

- Microsoft Office is Awesome! Free versions like Libre/OpenOffice type suites are ok but compatibilities vary.

- Gaming is Awesome!

- Docking Station support from different manufactures are awesome!

- Overall cost compared to Apple is pretty low (talking about the overall laptop/comp package that an average PC user buys)

- Since more than 70% of the market uses Windows, .NET applications give you access to a wider range of market. This is an advantage for the businesses.

- Adobe Suite is well supported!

- Development support for ASP/Sharepoint is great because most of the big organizations use those over open source alternatives. More job opportunities for me :)

Mac

???????

- Love the look and feel of OS X.

- Runs other OS flawlessly via Parallels/VMWare? so, I?m not limited to just the native OS and its apps.

- The Apple Store has some badass productivity apps

- Very rarely experience any kind of crash or freezing

- Adobe Suite is well supported!

- Businesses can generate a lot of money for certain games/apps even though the market share is less than Windows (very interesting!)

- Support for development (iOS, OS X, even .NET if you are running parallels/vmware, etc?)

Linux

???????

- Free! duh!

- Extremely well support for web development (e.g. Apache, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python and even GCC, etc?)

I switched completely to a Mac as my primary workstation and currently using Parallels to take care of my Windows and Linux development needs. But I am more concerned about how the job market might look like in the next decade or two.

 

well, i use not only those but even more OSs than i wanted to. And TBH, none of them can do FOR ME what Windows can, some fall at very near 100% but it's not a complete alternative. Since i work in a very specific scenario and deal with very intrinsics problems / solutions, i can say that using Apple Hardware (like a Macbook Pro) with VMs is just a waste of resources and time.

 

Why?

 

Because in the end of the day i've had to use that Windows app that just works in Windows (like RSAT or using an RD Gateway - both are Windows only and there is no alternative whatoever) or the Apple keyboard is so different that even a simple character insertion like the "@" provides a mental knot or even the fact that running Windows VMs while using Apple hardware for doing a specific task just proves that the host OS failed to provide the user all it could for productivity, costing me more because resources are allocated for 2 or more OS (cpu, RAM, HDD, etc.). And i've seen KERNEL PANIC in OSX, the "rainbow ball" syndrome (once it starts it just doesn't stop), performance degradation over time and so much more. 

 

Oh and some of my clients do use Linux (paid enterprise one - SUSE). Support is great if you care to pay the high prices and sometimes expect for lots of hours of support because the complexity of the environment (Windows, SuSE + RHEL servers), making those Linux interventions much more expensive then the Windows ones.

 

So, IMHO if you use an OS for more then 50% of your time, stick with that OS.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Proficient

nosense

Posted
Posted

The problem with osx is that windows\office\windows server has a strangle hold on the IT\Office workplace.  Walk into any school\medical building\work place and it's mostly windows pc. Heck when I'm using my mac laptop at school\work, I have to use windows VM on top of osx just to get real work done. It's funny one of my teachers at school is the biggest mac fan boy and trashes windows any chance he gets. But when his on his macbook\ipad his RDPing into his windows workstation. I've own many mac book pros\mac airs\ g5 mac books and my next laptop will be a windows laptop. 

 

Don't see linux making big in roads as a workstation anytime soon, but linux servers is a different story. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Grand Master

Gerowen

Posted
Posted

Two things are true about Windows remaining dominant.

 

1) Familiarity.  People, particularly the less tech savvy ones, have been using some version of Windows for literally their entire lives, and to change to something different is uncomfortable because they know how to get things done in Windows, and like the old saying goes, "If it aint broke don't fix it."

2) Marketing.  Microsoft has deals with PC vendors so that the vast majority of PCs sold in brick and mortar stores sell with WIndows pre-installed, so the user is never given the option to run anything other than Windows unless they choose to install it after they take the computer home, and at this point, refer to point #1.

 

Personally, even though I'm an avid Linux user and love everything open source, I don't see it gaining much ground against Windows because it's pretty well established as is.  Microsoft would have to screw up pretty bad to get regular Joe user to start seriously looking for alternatives like OSX/Linux.  One of the challenges I face with people is breaking them out of the Windows mind-set.  If you want to make a spreadsheet you can't just install Microsoft Office because they don't make it for Linux, use OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Kingsoft Office, etc.  If you want to listen to music you can't get Windows Media Player, you need Ryhthmbox, VLC, Totem, etc.  People get so used to one thing that anything other than that is totally alien to them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing