08.08.09
How Vista 7 Hype Gets Generated and Why GNU/Linux is in a Good Position
Summary: More on the reality behind Vista 7 and where GNU/Linux stands
SO MANY reporters are missing the point that the reality behind Vista 7 will not be known until people are forced to use it. At the early stages — before release, that is — only enthusiasts get to assess the operation system. They tend to be close to Microsoft, so of course all reviews will be improved, by selection. It was more of less the same with Windows Vista (in late 2006). Vista was hailed as the operating system that would soon take over the world. Similarly, Microsoft only releases Vista 7 to fans right now. Should paying members (subscribers) of the Microsoft network be expected to hate the software? Is that an unbiased population whose convictions and hardware are representative of the global population? Of course not.
Our reader Neighborlee says he can vouch “that windows 7 is junk at the moment.”
“I’m not willing to pay almost $200 for privilege of running this supposedly faster OS, not a chance.”
–Neighborlee“It can’t even detect my ACPI hardware,” he writes, “so I’m essentially left with none. Computer won’t shut down after X number of minutes. It IS faster than Vista as such, but it does have some problem spots to be sure. I’m not willing to pay almost $200 for privilege of running this supposedly faster OS, not a chance.”
As we showed before, Microsoft seems to be silencing [1, 2, 3, 4] those who complain about Vista 7. There is a huge marketing budget which kicked in last year and some prominent bloggers were bribed.
According to Microsoft, GNU/Linux is outpacing Mac OS X on the desktop (globally) and even US-oriented numbers suggest an increase in GNU/Linux usage, with the usual caveats.
The problem was that a large portion of the website visitors that are counted come from the USA and other English speaking countries. This means that worldwide data was more representative of the USA than of the rest of the world. The problem is that the OS market share is currently very different in the USA than the rest of the world: the Mac OSX market share is much higher, but the Windows and Linux market share are lower.
In Brazil, for instance, GNU/Linux adoption is extremely high (and growing fast). █
