IDG, Gartner, InfoWorld, and ZiffDavis announce "Dark Day for Windows"

[hm_murdock]

November 20, 2004

REDMOND, WA, Today, Microsoft founder and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced today that he was heading to the Seattle Apple Store to buy a Power Mac 970. He cited deficiences in Microsoft's operating system software, Windows, and decided that Apple's UNIX-derived Mac OS XI on new IBM-designed PowerPC 970 hardware was clearly superior.

This is only one in a rash of dramatic "switcher" stories away from Windows. Operating systems like Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS XI and OS/2 Warp 4.5 are gaining tens of market share points per day based on current trends. ZiffDavis' ZDLabs tested the newest release of Red Hat Linux, 9.0 and announced Windows Longhorn "dead before its time" based on their findings with Red Hat 9.0. Red Hat's newest release is able to run Windows games, as well as a new rash of Linux native games on a new graphics subsystem called "Crystal"... an Open Source X11-compatible version of Apple's Quartz 2.0 framework.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled Quartz 2 as part of Mac OS XI (Eleven) at MacWorld Expo recently. Of Mac OS XI Jobs says, "Mac OS XI will empower users in ways they never thought imaginable. They can truly break free the shackles of Windows when they try a new Mac."

After years of floundering in the market, Apple struck back last year with sweeping product changes based on new processors and hardware with lower than their normal prices which caught the eyes of PC buyers. Lower prices with comparable and higher speeds boosted Apple's market share to nearly 20% by the first quarter of 2004.

Dell, Apple's biggest competitor has been looking to embrace the PowerPC Open Platform with a new line of computers running Linux. The new Dell Generation line use either a low-cost IBM PowerPC 750fxe running at 1.8 to 2.5GHz, or a big iron PowerPC 970e at 3.5 to 5GHz. Dell will ship YellowDog Linux on the machines with KDE4.5 and Apple iWorks Pro for Linux in time for Christmas.

How is Linux creator Linus Torvalds handling the news? In a recent interview, he told Maximum PC magazine, "I think it's wonderful that people are finally waking up to the joy of real, reliable computing. Apple, Dell, and all the 'UNIX guys' are finally winning the victory they deserve!"

In conclusion, analysts are saying this will be the first Christmas in over two decades that will have a technology company other than Microsoft win big. Apple and Red Hat seem to be the heroes of the day, and it seems that at long last, a computing world without doors, Windows, or Gates might be possible.

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Jimmy James: Mac Commando ]

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Jimmy James: Mac Commando ]

[TB]

.......Now we just have to sit back and watch it happen. Two years seems just a bit optimistic to me though

[psyjax]

Wow Jimmy, you should forward that article to steve Jobs  

Say, "it could be like this Steve, if only..."

heh... maybe he'll get his fuckin act together and deliver like he used to.

[pkd_lives]

Very good 10 points for cheering my day up.

Although I don't think Linus would ever truly talk up Apple or Dell.

[Calum]

i don't think linus torvalds would say that, but i don't know him. i don't know steve jobs any better really but i have a hard time believing he will allow apple to really pull its finger out to this extent.

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Calum: Linux Commando ]

[lazygamer]

Could a Mac fantatic here tell me the story of Steve Jobs? Im rather clueless...  

[hm_murdock]

Steve and Woz founded the company back in the day. Woz was a tinkerer, a classic hacker. Steve had a vision of computers for people. He finally made the Mac and declared it the "computer for the rest of us" then John Sculley (I think) kicked him out of his own company.

Jobs went off to start NeXT and ended up making expensive workstations until he came back to Apple, and now, he seems to just TRY to keep Apple as a specialty, boutique kinda brand. They've come out with a lot of nice stuff, but they keep their prices so damn high and they let their marketing department control their hardware decisions. If the engineers controlled the hardware (and made some badass stuff based on the *best processor for the job* instead of the processor that Apple Marketing has decided on) and then let the marketeers sell the stuff, and they offered it for a competitive price, I think we'd see a huge jump in user base.

As for Linus, I just kinda made it up. I figured that was kinda out of character, but if something like that happened, I dunno. He doesn't seem to be anti or pro anybody. He's just Linus.

[lazygamer]

He's very neutralic, I respect that. You see, he woulden't of been charismatic enough to lead the revolution if he wasn't like this. People don't change easy, that is why he is still soft spoken today.

I wish there was a trash talking fanatic who was a major Linux celebrity though.  

[Pissed_Macman]

quote:Originally posted by Jimmy James: Mac Commando:
November 20, 2004

REDMOND, WA, Today, Microsoft founder and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced today that he was heading to the Seattle Apple Store to buy a Power Mac 970. He cited deficiences in Microsoft's operating system software, Windows, and decided that Apple's UNIX-derived Mac OS XI on new IBM-designed PowerPC 970 hardware was clearly superior.

This is only one in a rash of dramatic "switcher" stories away from Windows. Operating systems like Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS XI and OS/2 Warp 4.5 are gaining tens of market share points per day based on current trends. ZiffDavis' ZDLabs tested the newest release of Red Hat Linux, 9.0 and announced Windows Longhorn "dead before its time" based on their findings with Red Hat 9.0. Red Hat's newest release is able to run Windows games, as well as a new rash of Linux native games on a new graphics subsystem called "Crystal"... an Open Source X11-compatible version of Apple's Quartz 2.0 framework.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled Quartz 2 as part of Mac OS XI (Eleven) at MacWorld Expo recently. Of Mac OS XI Jobs says, "Mac OS XI will empower users in ways they never thought imaginable. They can truly break free the shackles of Windows when they try a new Mac."

After years of floundering in the market, Apple struck back last year with sweeping product changes based on new processors and hardware with lower than their normal prices which caught the eyes of PC buyers. Lower prices with comparable and higher speeds boosted Apple's market share to nearly 20% by the first quarter of 2004.

Dell, Apple's biggest competitor has been looking to embrace the PowerPC Open Platform with a new line of computers running Linux. The new Dell Generation line use either a low-cost IBM PowerPC 750fxe running at 1.8 to 2.5GHz, or a big iron PowerPC 970e at 3.5 to 5GHz. Dell will ship YellowDog Linux on the machines with KDE4.5 and Apple iWorks Pro for Linux in time for Christmas.

How is Linux creator Linus Torvalds handling the news? In a recent interview, he told Maximum PC magazine, "I think it's wonderful that people are finally waking up to the joy of real, reliable computing. Apple, Dell, and all the 'UNIX guys' are finally winning the victory they deserve!"

In conclusion, analysts are saying this will be the first Christmas in over two decades that will have a technology company other than Microsoft win big. Apple and Red Hat seem to be the heroes of the day, and it seems that at long last, a computing world without doors, Windows, or Gates might be possible.

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Jimmy James: Mac Commando ]

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Jimmy James: Mac Commando ]

I give it five stars.
*****

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by Jimmy James: Mac Commando:
Steve and Woz founded the company back in the day. Woz was a tinkerer, a classic hacker. Steve had a vision of computers for people. He finally made the Mac and declared it the "computer for the rest of us" then John Sculley (I think) kicked him out of his own company.

not quite true. Sculley replaced Jobs, but was not the one who kicked him out. Jobs has a lot more balls than Sculley and that could never happen. As i understand it, whoever was the CEO of Apple at the time just gave Jobs his own office in a different building from everybody else, with no real job description and Jobs left by himself to form NeXT. Also, Woz was out of the game a year or two before due to injury (wasn't he?) and Jobs being a paranoid megalomaniac (which is a condition, not an insult), was really wasting resources at Apple at the time, shaking everything up so frequently that nobody had any long term goals, and generally ruining morale.

am i close?

[hm_murdock]

I know that Woz had some problems and he actually left the industry for some time due to that, and that after he came back, he was quite... trying.

As for Jobs, I honestly thought it was Sculley who kicked him out. Who was right after him? Was it the French fellow who started Be? The guy who's name I can never remember! Gah!  :mad:

[Calum]

oh yeah! that's right! i can't remember his name either...

[Kintaro]

Sorry Calum but its only 1.9k as opposed to your sig, which is much bigger!
[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: X11 / BOB: The croc hunter ]