Is using Windows Dumb? It will be.

That was a real question, asked by someone considering buying a new computer. It surprised me: I've been seeing more people asking if they should consider Mac or Linux (mostly Mac, very little Linux), but this question goes way beyond that. It made me pause; the answer is complicated.

It's certainly not "dumb" to buy a Windows machine today. I have to quickly qualify that by saying that I think most people would be better off with a Mac, except (of course) those that need certain Windows only apps on a daily basis. Even those folks could use VM software to run the Microsoft stuff but I wouldn't recommend that right now unless it's casual use.

I'll also add that if you are an experienced XP user, you may really hate Vista. But that doesn't make it "dumb". It's just different. Well, slower, more annoying and possibly more frustrating, but if you aren't installing it on old hardware or hooking up hardware that it doesn't have drivers for, you probably won't see any of that. You may find Vista to be "just fine".

Now yes, I do believe that Vista will become like Microsoft ME - an unloved orphan. But that's later, and if you are smart enough to be asking that question now, you'll be smart enough to dump Vista before it becomes embarrassing. Maybe you'll buy a Mac then, maybe it will be Linux or maybe Microsoft will pull a rabbit out of its hat and actually recover its position.

Not that I think that's going to happen. I think Microsoft is fading away and that owning a Windows operating system indeed WILL be dumb someday. It's not now, but it will be.

So why not buy a Mac now? Sure - why not? But Macs could be "dumb" in five years too. There's a lot of stuff going on that could change computing as we know it. Research in battery technology meets research in lowering power requirements and maybe everything is portables. Virtualization could change everything. A lot of things COULD happen, but I see one that is almost certain.

The Great Move to the Living Room

Social changes may move the great mass of "computer use" (web surfing, email) to the living room as TV sets begin to offer these features. Real "computers" may only be found in use in offices or by hobbyists. For a great many people, that almost certainly will be the case - and I doubt that the OS will be Windows or Mac.

I see this as inevitable. I almost always bring my laptop when we watch TV. It's not that I'm still working, but that we want to look things up. Let's imagine a 60 inch screen with The Simpsons playing in the middle and I'm doing an web search in the upper left hand corner while my wife uses her own keyboard and mouse to answer some email down on the right. That's coming, and when it does, why do I need a computer? Well, I do because I have a business to run out of my house, but a lot of people would need only the TV.

Would it be dumb to own a Windows computer then? You betcha, and that's another reason I see Microsoft getting weaker. Those TV's need an OS, but it sure doesn't need to be Microsoft. Poof - a giant part of Microsoft's business disappears almost overnight.

Apple has Apple TV but that doesn't begin to match what will come. Apple is constrained from opening that up to what people want because the business model for that needs it closed. TV manufacturers aren't hemmed in by the need to sell through iTunes - they can put in a Linux OS and two or three wireless keyboard/mouse ports and give us basic computing at the sofa. I'm sure you can see this as easily as I can - I can resize my browser window and have it under that Simpsons window, I can run X apps.. how long before games that are now in specialized systems like Xbox follow? Not long, I think.

I'm NOT talking about WebTV. I'm talking about a fully integrated system to the point where an ad on a TV show is clickable, where all video input ports are just another window to be managed..

So is buying that Windows machine dumb? No.. it will just seem so in a few years.

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Wed Feb 11 16:27:03 2009: Subject:   TonyLawrence


I'm not talking about this - http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11663862 - either, though that's getting closer..





Wed Feb 11 16:34:21 2009: Subject: Into the living room   jtimberman


Good comments Tony. I would like to add something about the living room though.

I have a Vista-based HTPC in my living room, running games and Media Center for entertainment, but I've been a PC gamer most of my life. I don't see that going away any time soon. I think Media Center truly is the killer application for Vista, because all the stupid DRM and proprietary media formats "just work", sadly enough. Windows 7's going to improve on the Media Center platform, too, from what I've tested. So I wouldn't count Windows as irrelevant quite yet. At least, not for entertainment hobbyists.



Wed Feb 11 16:42:10 2009: Subject:   BruceGarlock


Although I have no experience with it yet, Windows 7 *has* to be the magic in MS's hat, or they are all done. From what I have heard, it is a polished up Vista and what MS should have shipped instead of Vista.

While I despise most of MS, and what they do; it is the competition which forces other companies to put out serious products. Mac's and OS X are so far ahead of MS, but they probably only did that because they had to. How else would you get someone to switch? Apple had to do a better job to lure customers away from MS. So, in a way, it has actually been MS that has forced Apple to do a better job, which in turn is forcing MS to come up with something better than OS X. Will they? I doubt it. If Apple's 'Snow Leopard' does what it says it will do, which is basically make every current machine run faster, on the same hardware, then MS will have to ante up, and play the right card. From what I have heard, Windows 7 is less hardware intensive, which is another *must*.

If MS is at all smart, they will ship Windows 7 to current Vista customers for a mere shipping cost. Coming out with 5 or so pricing schemes is ridiculous, confusing, and greedy; especially in todays economy. MS really needs to bight the bullet, and ship this out for free to have any saving grace with those poor folks who have been tortured with Vista.

Oh, and Microsoft: Please come out with a "Manufacturing Friendly" version of Windows! There is nothing more annoying than running into issues with our production machines, which rely on Windows, and to have to go through the upgrade nightmare because a PC dies, and we have to upgrade Windows, because the new HW only works with newer MS OS's. I have pulled chunks of my hair out with these issues for years now. We still have a few machines running Win2k, just fine, but if the HW dies, then what do we do? We have to hope that the SW vendor has been keeping their SW updated to work with newer versions of Windows, or we are pretty much out of luck. Or, if they have since gone out of business, then we are in for a new retrofit for the machine, which will cost a lot of money, when the original setup worked just fine. Only the PC died.

Anyway, although I love competition which ultimately puts pressure on companies to get things right, or die. Thankfully Apple was around, or the MS monopoly would have continued to put out junk, and people forced to deal with it.

--Bruce Garlock



Wed Feb 11 17:15:30 2009: Subject:   jtimberman


Bruce, unfortunately Microsoft OS's are progressively slower on equivalent hardware. They always have been and always will be.



Wed Feb 11 19:28:43 2009: Subject:   TonyLawrence


I don't think the TV makers are going to want the bloat or the expense of Windows. Of course the gamers aren't going to jump instantly, but as these systems become the majority as I think they will, the game software will follow the herd.



Wed Feb 11 21:38:15 2009: Subject:   BrettLegree
http://6weeks.ca

My "media box" used to run XP. It worked well enough - but I wasn't playing games on it. Mostly it is used to play different media files (and mostly video) on a large LCD TV.

After a few random crashes... (and believe me, I know how to look after a Windows machine) voila it is running Linux now (Ubuntu, if you must ask - hey, it works).

It plays everything I throw at it, without exception. I have a DAAP server on it so iTunes on my Macbook Pro can see the music share no problem. I didn't even bother to change the large storage drive from NTFS because ntfs-3g just works. When I buy a larger drive later this year, I'll format it to ext3 (or 4, maybe) and then move my data to the larger drive, and repurpose the current one.

It just works so well for everything that I can see what you're saying come to pass. The computer that is doing the job right now is overkill for the job, too (my old gaming PC). I might swap out the mobo / CPU for something a bit quieter at some point...



Wed Feb 11 22:08:53 2009: Subject: Panasonic   Ubersoldat
http://monocaffe.blogspot.com

Interesting you bring this up, since I have a Panasonic 42 Viera which uses a stripped down version of Linux. All my computers run Linux, so you can't imagine my surprise when playing around on the TV's menu I find some information about licensing, and to my surprise it was GPL and more surprising, it was using Linux.
This made me ask the question, how long until the put a hard drive, a network card and a fine looking UI on a TV with Linux behind?

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Take Control of Your Domain Names

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Wed Feb 11 22:11:30 2009: Subject:   TonyLawrence


I'm thinking not so very long..



Wed Feb 11 22:36:23 2009: Subject:   BrettLegree
http://6weeks.ca

That's just it - probably not long at all. Throw an Atom back there (even a dual-core one), 1 or 2 gigs of memory, a 500 gig drive...

(Even the few games I do play these days work via wine so other than the TV tuner I guess I'm already doing this.)

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