[rbanffy]

Microsoft has a handful big clients - Dell, Lenovo, HP being the top three. They are the ones that make Windows be the default operating system on everyone's computers and they need to be happy, not the person who buys the computer. When the computer becomes unusable, they'll just get another from the same brands and everyone, except the user, are happy.

Corporations don't run Windows. They run Outlook, Excel, and Teams. Windows and generic PCs (or thin clients and VDIs) is just the cheapest way to achieve that goal.

[orev]

Corpos definitely run Windows. There are many highly technical people and advanced software that need Windows. Not every company employee is just a pencil pusher or bean counter.

This myopia in tech is so baffling to me. Windows has been around over 40 years and tech people still act like it will go away “any day now” just because they don’t like it.

[rbanffy]

Corporations will continue using Windows the same way they'll continue using mainframes (at least mainframes are interesting machines). If Dell, HP and Lenovo decide tomorrow to ship all laptops with Fedora by default, very few people will install Windows. Or notice it's a different OS. They'll just think that Windows 12 no longer has ads.

Corporations will continue to corporate. Active Directory is a powerful thing. SharePoint is another dependency that's hard to get rid of, even more so when it becomes the file server where all Office content is stored.

[josefritzishere]

I have been waiting for this day since the move to SFF and thin clients. They've been threatening to do all compute in the cloud... at which point the OS, local or otherwise becomes irrelevant.

[rbanffy]

In fact, the thin client that drives my desk at [company] runs Linux with the Citrix client to connect to a VDI that exists somewhere in a datacenter we own, because regulations.

[neonstatic]

> They are the ones that make Windows be the default operating system on everyone's computers

I've got to disagree. Macs are a fantastic option as long as the software needed to do actual work is available. That's the real bottleneck and it's not something Dell, Lenovo, or HP have any power over.

[rbanffy]

They still ship a lot more computers than Apple. For most of the world, Apple is a niche product. I use it, and I love them, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking corporations will start buying Mac Minis to replace their desktops and thin clients anytime soon.

[neonstatic]

I am not fooling myself and I do not care what corporations would or would not do - I simply state that the reason there is such a pressure to use Windows is not due to Dell and other providers, but software providers - mainly Microsoft.

[Sharlin]

That… does not follow. Corporations simply aren't going to start buying Macs for all of their millions of rank-and-file corporate drones. Even if they wanted, and they don't, they're tied to the Windows ecosystem in all sorts of ways, even though the software lives on someone else's computer these days.

[neonstatic]

Thanks for saying the same thing I have said? Do people even read before they post? Seems like the moment Apple is mentioned some folks just turn on a downvote + disagree autopilot, even when they agree?