[tyingq]

The corporate version of Windows 10 is different, which is where my experience lies. Good observation though.

At a higher level, Gates seems more credible than Larry or Sergey to me. Totally biased by my history, but I'm pretty strong on that point. Gates mellowed out and seems more broadly interested in "greater good".

[laumars]

Gates has done good work since leaving MS but I wouldn't say he mellowed out towards the end of his time at Microsoft. He was still very much proactively trying to control 3rd parties. Whether it was IRC via Microsoft Chat (which was actually a pretty cool idea but it didn't belong on public IRC servers), MSN, IE Vs Netscape wars, then IE Vs HTML wars (eg ActiveX, Silver light, etc). The whole Java wars (which did eventually give us .NET so some good eventually came of it, but it took years before .NET matured). MS Office Vs open standards (eventually we got a compromise with OOXML but it still feels like the battle was lost given every other office suite used the non-propriatory ODF).

And this is all without going into how he tried to destroy Linux, control UNIX, successfully destroyed competing DOS platforms (eg DR DOS), blocked OEMs / shops from selling PCs with competing OSs (or was it machines without Windows preinstalled? I forget now), ruined EeePCs and their form factors (by selling With dies at a loss), etc.

I think the only reason Gates didn't try his luck with data collection was because it simply wasn't a thing back then.

That said, I do still respect the guy even though I disliked his products and how he monopolised the market. Which is more than I can say about Balmer.

[lsh]

Yeah, for some reason I'm ambivalent about Gates and always have been. Microsoft hasn't been run by him in a long long time though.

[lsh]

That's interesting! I had a hell of a time turning off all the nasty intrusive bits for my friends and parents. I should take a look at this version.

[tyingq]

Yeah, personally, I think Windows for home users is a dying market. My wife and kids use either ChromeOS or OSX. Everything has moved to the web for younger people. Fat client apps are increasingly the exception. Very niche...like "I need Adobe tools, Photoshop, etc".

Office 365 is accelerating that. No need for local Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.

[derefr]

Windows Is For Games™. Despite the existence of things like SteamOS, I don't think your average e-Sports player is going to run anything besides Windows any time soon. Windows Home/Pro is essentially "the firmware for a custom-built Xbox."

[TeMPOraL]

Currently, Windows 10 is also the only non-bullshit OS for tablets - one that makes it a productive device, instead of purely consumer one. Alas, tablets ain't very popular anyway, so I doubt this impacts Windows numbers much.

I'd guess Microsoft gets most Windows sales from regular people buying regular laptops with Windows preinstalled. Most of them probably don't even know there is something else other than Windows.

[tyingq]

Interesting. I am now curious about the demographics. How many Windows 10 users are there soley for either games or Photoshop, or Illustrator, for example?

I instinctively feel like ChromeOS and OSX (and mobile OS variants) are going to kill Windows desktop off. But I'm also aware I might be off base.

[pjmlp]

Maybe on US.

Around here ChromeOS is a kind of rare animal hardly seen on any consumer shop, and when it appears it is usually tied to some promotion to get rid of those in stock.

OS X is everywhere on northen Europe big cities, but go south or to the country side where many people dream to go over the 500€ barrier and it too becomes a rare animal.

[wor3q]

Even if you are over 500€, there is no 'just buy a Mac' attitude.

Maybe it's because a computer is a significant expense, so people value price/performance more,

or maybe because schools have Windows PCs and nobody is used to OSX from young age.

[wor3q]

Windows still has almost 90% market share, so it's not going to be killed anytime soon.

For gaming, it's pretty much only choice, Macs have no hardware to handle them, and for Linux, I've tried switch many times, and it always been a hassle.

I've ended up with Ubuntu for work and Windows for everything else.

[Zekio]

Pretty sure a recent update to Wine allows you to run Photoshop in Wine on Linux

[gowld]

1. Gates was bad at Microsoft

2. Gates left Microsoft.

3. Gates is good now.

4. ???

5. Microsoft is good now.

Unless there is some weird "conscious uncoupling" thing that made them both better, what could step #4 be?