The market and OS's

[turn 5]

Do you think the market would benefit from multiple OS's?

Like it or not Microsoft has a monopoly on the OS market,however OS X and Ubuntu appear to be gaining popularity.Weather or not they will ever be mainstream choices however is still a tough question to answer.

Personally I think it would greatly benefit everybody especially the consumer.

BTW Nice to see you all again.

[Scotty]

For many a home user, as long as the game makers continue to ignore Linux, windoze will still be the first choice.

There is other factors. Most people I know use a computer for going to their fav sites, playing the odd game and emails. They havent really explored the virtual world, so most havent even heard of Linux. And they have heard of Apple because it is occasionally advertised on tv.

So I guess, as long as M$ continue to advertise and every pc advert mentions Windoze, Linux doesnt stand much chance.

Where have you been hiding anyway?

[ndmmxiaomayi]

Drivers has always been a big issue with Linux. Either it's too obscure, or you find one that doesn't work despite having the documentation says otherwise.

Apple bypassed the drivers by locking down the OS. It's a well known fact that Macs is only guaranteed to run well on the chipsets specified by Apple. It will take one great hack for me to use a Mac on my AMD chip.

Market will definitely benefit from a healthy competition, not monopoly. It's always great to have alternatives too. Otherwise, it's very easy to lose to nature.

[turn 5]

Where have you been hiding anyway?

At the center of the Earth.

[Sharagoz]

Personally I think it would greatly benefit everybody especially the consumer.

What happens today if an unknowledgeable windows user send a word document to an unknowledgeable linux user?

At this point in time I think the average consumer is best served with microsofts dominance.
However, if the OS makers can come to a more widespreading agreement on file/document/protocol standards I think it would be great for the market if the user base were more equally distributed between the major OS'es.

[Pietzki]

At this point in time I think the average consumer is best served with microsofts dominance.
However, if the OS makers can come to a more widespreading agreement on file/document/protocol standards I think it would be great for the market if the user base were more equally distributed between the major OS'es.

i was going to say the exact same thing, couldn't agree more!

(yeah i know, bit late eh?)