Windows reputation is declining, so the operating system might be the actual crisis. Linux with modern desktops (e.g. Gnome 3) might fill the gap, but the market is far from broad adoption. Promoting and improving Linux desktop and apps would be a long endeavour, but betting only on Windows which degrades to a cloud and AI advertising surface might be fatal.

▲

p_ing 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Windows 11 has 1 Billion+ installs. That's not a decline and hardly a crisis. That's a huge install base.

▲

nirava 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

While that's true, I also think these things tend to happen as a gradual build up to the tipping-point effect where the zeitgeist shifts so suddenly that a massive player is suddenly irrelevant.

Microsoft is structurally incapable of making Windows better. Intel is intrinsically incapable of making x86 better (enough to matter). x86 hardware manufacturers are in a price race to the bottom, and there's no way around that.

Apple doesn't have any of those problems. Instead, more and more young people can afford and aspire to get a Mac. They want to buy software that works on the mac, and they'll want to write software for the Mac. The network effect compounds.

▲

fsloth 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This.

Ofc a huge chunk of that is in companies but I'm fairly sure there are at least two windows 11 machines per one mac in consumer segment as well.

▲

halapro an hour ago | parent [-]

It's just momentum. You buy windows because you have windows. You buy windows because there's not really much of a choice. You have windows because you're not going out of your ways to reconfigure hundreds of laptops at your company just for your employees to be less comfortable with Linux.

Now introduce a choice… and things might change.

With the vast majority of software nowadays living in the browser, your OS matters less and less, especially for a business that buys machines for its employees.

▲

fsloth an hour ago | parent [-]

As OS matters less that’s probably not going to entrench Microsoft less. Their relationship with OEM:s is not market based but a two way relationship.

At this point I would not be surprised if MS started to subvent the PC manufacturers to favour Windows over Linux if that ever comes to that.

▲

bigfishrunning an hour ago | parent [-]

> At this point I would not be surprised if MS started to subvent the PC manufacturers to favour Windows over Linux if that ever comes to that.

I've always assumed this has been happening since the 90s.

	▲	fsloth 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I would have expected MS has charged some fee for Windows but honestly no clue. I'm sure there are readers with actual insight here :)

▲

theshrike79 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

There's an anecdote about flies and shit there somewhere =)