04.18.13
Windows is Dying, Say Pundits, Which is Why Microsoft Tries to Make GNU/Linux Hard to Install and Run
Survival instincts?
Summary: In addition to filing an antitrust complaint against Android, Microsoft is committing antitrust sins when forcing OEMs to make hardware Microsoft-dominated
The Vista series, starting with Windows Vista, has been crushing the Windows franchise. Microsoft repeatedly extended the life of XP, now a 12-year-old system, in order to keep GNU/Linux at bay (Microsoft also used corrupt business practices to achieve this).
The other day we saw Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols saying that Windows is pretty much finished. To quote:
Windows: It’s over
You can think Windows 8 will evolve into something better, but the numbers show that Windows is coming to a dead end.
Vista 8 is indeed a dead end as Microsoft already leaps to vapurware, or imaginary replacements. ZDNet has this piece titled “What really signed the PC’s death warrant? Microsoft’s decision to support netbooks” (to keep GNU/Linux down).
“Some of the reasons for the collapse of the the PC market go a lot further back than the reception of Windows 8,” argues the author. By bribing to keep GNU/Linux out of netbooks Microsoft devalued Windows, which had already seen its value deflating after Vista came out.
There is a shameless attempt at spin, blaming hardware rather than software and given that Microsoft’s hardware is rejected as much as its software, this distraction does not hold water. We covered this before with examples.
One reader of ours asked: “Which real reviewer actually praised Microsoft Surface?
“It’s DOA like Vista 8 is.”
Indeed.
The Microsoft boosters too acknowledge Microsoft’s defeat, but their new strategy is to just discredit the opposition, as we shall show in a later post. Here is what the booster says:
The tablet market will grow this year by 38% to 150 million units, but Microsoft won’t be a beneficiary, says a new report from ABI Research. Windows tablets, BlackBerry tablets and “unidentified OS implementations” currently make up only 3% of the total market, and don’t show signs of significant growth.
The ABI Research report says that an estimated 150 million tablets will ship in 2013, worth an estimated $64 billion. The total number of tablets will grow by a projected 38% over 2012, and the total revenue will grow a projected 28%.
Realising that Linux is unstoppable and the demise of Windows to minority userbase imminent, Microsoft filed an antitrust complaint through a proxy. ECT has an analysis of it here. The overview says “Microsoft has “tried forcing people to license Android from them to try to kill Android, and they’ve tried putting out their own mobile OS to try to kill Android,” said blogger Mike Stone. “Both initiatives have failed on every level. People are still buying Android devices as fast as they can be made. All that’s left is to follow in Apple’s footsteps and sue sue sue. It stinks of desperation.””
“Other people may turn to Windows in such a scenario.”Well, the latest antitrust violation is Microsoft’s, which according to yet more articles like this one is suppressing GNU/Linux adoption.
It is about UEFI restricted boot. “UEFI BIOS and Secure Boot work perfectly well with only Linux installed according to the experiments I have conducted on my own PC,” writes Jamie Watson this week. It has become complicated due to Microsoft’s dirty trick. Yesterday after an in-place distro upgrade I had to resolve a GRUB issue before I could boot again, so I know the feeling of discouragement through complexity, I nearly gave up and installed everything from scratch. Other people may turn to Windows in such a scenario. Some might simply stay with it, no matter how fed up they are. This is Microsoft’s last hope. █
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