"Contorer wrote that end users stuck with Windows, despite the operating system's shortcomings, based on the high costs of abandoning heavy investments already made in APIs.
"'The Windows API is so broad, so deep and so functional that most ISVs (independent software vendors) would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system, instead,' the e-mail reads.
"'It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO (total cost of ownership), our lack of a sexy vision, at times, and many other difficulties,' the e-mail said. 'Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, (but) it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move.'
Link:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040422231316209
Thats not gonna be too much of a big deal shortly... there are several things in the industry now related to MicroSoft, that are going to help Linux quiet abit..
- Allot of apps will in the next few years need to be swapped to Win64, and will require substantial code changes anyway. (see below.)
- Microsoft themselves are going to break allot of their own backwards compatability, in fact they have already done so.
--- Win2003 already breaks some software from win2000/XP.
--- win XP service pack2 breaks more software.
--- Windows Longhorn will break huge reams of existing software... it is to "innovative" to be backwards compatable.
And you think that is the end?? Microsoft knows that in order to keep people upgrading, they know they can make it different, as long as they make it seem easier then reworking the programs to run on linux...
But how long is that arguement going to last??? after Longhorn, microsoft are going to have to change everything even more to justify to people how upgading to whatever new they come up with is worth it..
Eventually developers are going to get sick of rewriting their apps each time MS come up with something they think people just have to have.... eventually they will realise that this is just more microsoft FUD and that in the long run, writting apps for a totally open API is simply better, particularly if the alternative is re-writing their apps every 5 years or so.
regards
Franki
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