[onetimeuse92304]

I have decided a long time ago that Windows is no longer an operating system to do work o. I have one that is relegated to being a game console and its days are numbered, too.

There is only so much BS I can take. Microsoft is driving off professionals with their sheer ineptitude at product development.

[porphyra]

It's kinda the opposite imo. In terms of game consoles, Proton/Wine is showing that you can have a successful commercial product (Steam Deck) that's all about gaming on Linux and most AAA games just work out of the box. However, lots of professionals are still using Windows for all sorts of business activity, Microsoft Office, and so on. Many industries with specialized software (CAD, engineering, etc) are still completely locked to Windows with no indication that this is ever going to change.

[DEADMINCE]

proton is steam only though.

[npteljes]

>Microsoft is driving off professionals with their sheer ineptitude at product development.

I wish that was the case. For one professional they drive off, they keep 1,000,000 whose employer decides their OS for them. Same as hospital software and baby clothes: it's not the end user whom they primarily sell to. Their best version of Windows, the LTSC, is not even available to normal customers.

[onetimeuse92304]

It is the professionals, power users who in the end shift markets.

Corporations are nothing else than collections of directors and managers who have their own preferences which definitely influence their decision making.

More and more companies allow using MacOS. Small companies allow MacOS and then grow into large companies that still allow MacOS.

It is taking time, but don't underestimate the power of power users.

[npteljes]

What I experienced is that the level of reaction from the professional users is much lower than mine. While I was alarmed even back in the mid-2000s that Microsoft wants to validate files for authenticity before using them (later evolved to Trusted Computing that we know of), even IT people around me didn't mind too much. So what I'm stating is not that power users can't shift a market - although debatable - but that even the power users don't care to a point to change their OS.

The second thing is what Microsoft got better at PR over the years. They, I think, very successfully respond to shifts in the market with products like WSL, which lessen the direct power user need to actually change the OS.

Furthermore, the IT job market just shifted so that the employers have more powers now, not the employees. This means that push for change from below, like for the 4 day work week or a user-favorable change in the computing environment is less likely to happen.

I do, however, see the changes that you point to, but I think that they are small, and I think that they will plateau before reaching market domination. Microsoft will be god damned to hold onto the moat that they dug, whether that be the Windows platform, the Office file formats, the email server software, the gaming libraries that they built, or anything else. Better technology or viable alternatives won't budge them, it will be either mismanagement, regulation, or a more aggressive competitor.

[ThrowawayTestr]

>its days are numbered

I will bet you everything I own that Windows will still be the dominant OS in business environments for at least another decade. Until the Chromebook generation enters the workforce in large numbers and starts demanding the simple web interfaces they're used to, no IT admin is going to install Linux on his machines.

[cies]

You cannot compete with the best for free --- I forgot who

Yet still they make money on windows. The lost phones and servers already. Maybe Valve manages to take a bit of their gaming dominance.

That said MS office is still better than libre office.

[xyst]

> servers

Some companies I have worked at still used Windows Server 2012. MS is probably making bank on those extended support licenses.

[onetimeuse92304]

> You cannot compete with the best for free

Except I paid for my Windows license.

[ranger_danger]

I think they meant that a free competitor (Linux) cannot compete with Windows.

[cies]

yup

[Keyframe]

Friend, with proton in Steam you can also run games on Linux just fine now (if you moved to Linux, on MacOS - god help you).