[johnchristopher]

Windows independent of Office is worthless. There's virtually no reason to use Windows apart from the Office infrastructure built around it, or the entrenched base Visual Studio developers.

Windows is still wanted and needed by a lot. We have been hearing windows is dead and linux is that for 15 years now and that ship is still on the drawing table.

It's somewhat popular as a gaming platform, but as Linux starts to be reshaped into a first-class gaming operating system, that will quickly become a non-factor.

It is the only PC gaming platform.

[astrodust]

PC gaming is an increasingly tiny share of the overall gaming market. Mobile has put an enormous dent in that in the last few years, and consoles continue to gain ground. Android is Linux, so Linux gaming, in a sense, has become a pretty big thing. Just not on PC type computers. Not that Valve isn't working to fix this.

I don't know that Windows is wanted so much as it's needed by many, but only because the applications they use are tied to it. This group includes those in industries where they use specialized software that's not ported, or where it has been ported but other tools in their workflow haven't.

It's interesting to note that Pixar uses Maya on Linux even though that's a company created by Steve Jobs. Google uses Linux internally for workstations. It's not that Linux isn't ready, but that it's nearly impossible to buy a Linux laptop or desktop from a major vendor. Dell has maybe one consumer model in their entire lineup.

For the "Facebook and YouTube" crowd, which is arguably over 50% of the users out there, Linux is probably fine. Android shows how it can be cleaned up and made far friendlier than Windows ever was.