Todd Walton wrote:
But, I don't think it's so much of a locking in, software-wise. Anybody who wanted to could find suitable replacements for everything, or just give up some nifty feature here and there, and break Microsoft-free.
Careful about web browsers. There are still lots of "IE-only" e-commerce sites. I had to load up my Windows machine for a PA state government interaction recently.
Admittedly, the 10% of users using Firefox has finally made people sensitive to other browsers. But, if that percentage falls again, everybody will go right back to IE-only.
The real issue, I think, is consumers who just don't care. The people who make the buying decision, or influence the buying decision, go with Microsoft because they don't see a problem. Microsoft is what they do, and there's no apparent reason to change. It's not so much a software lock-in as a mind lock-in.
Absolutely. Out of 30+ CS students I taught last year, exactly *1* used the main Unix system. Everybody else was Windows, Windows, Windows.
The problem is that we teach *Windows* and *Office* for 6+ years of secondary school, now. That's a real inertia to overcome.
And, let's face it, all OS's have a learning curve. If you've already climbed the Windows learning curve, it takes quite a bit to move you off of it.
-a -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
