Windows - still the only way to go?
With an almost total dominance of the desktop and server operating system market, you'd think that Microsoft Windows was the only choice. In actual fact, there's never been a better time to buy an alternative OS.
27 May 2007
Whether you believe that Microsoft’s market-leading position is well-deserved is a moot point. Windows is the operating system installed on by far the majority of PCs. For many people, the idea of a PC without Windows is like – well, air without oxygen.
You’d think that, with around 90%-95% of the market, any remaining players would be weak and marginalised. But it’s a big market – there are estimated to be over a billion PCs in the world, so even that 5%-10% is worth fighting for. And the fight seems to be making Microsoft’s competitors stronger.
Unix, in its many guises, has been around for far longer than Windows, but in the form of Linux – and loose brand which people can rally around – it has inspired millions to ‘try something different’.
Anyone who tried Linux perhaps five or more years ago was in for something of a shock. All of those many things which made Windows such a comfortable operating system were suddenly missing. Without proper plug and play, configuring a system was a nightmare. Applications were thin on the ground and nowhere near as polished as their Windows counterparts. Even installing an application was difficult and beyond most users – none of this ‘just press install and sit back’ malarkey. Download a tar file, use a command line to expand it, log in as administrator, compile the application... well, you get the picture.
Today, it’s a different story. Anyone who installed Linux five or more years ago, and tries again today, is in for a different kind of shock. It pretty much just works.
Take Ubuntu Linux. This has rapidly become one of the most popular Linux distributions, and with pretty good reason. Installation is a snap – just a few clicks and you’re up and running. You can even try it on your normal PC, without installing it, by booting from the CD. If you like it, installing it is easy.
It looks good, it’s robust, quick and is pretty easy to use. Downloading and adding supported applications is also very easy – it’s done over the Web, directly from Ubuntu’s desktop. For many people who need Office, the Web and e-mail, Ubuntu will give them everything they need – with very little hassle and very little need to become a Linux guru in the process.
It doesn’t have the 3D glitz of Windows Vista, but it’s streamline and efficient. It has many Windows-lie features – including automatic updates, which makes maintenance easy.
Michael Dell likes Ubuntu Linux so much that he runs it on his own laptop – and is now going to offer it on Dell PCs and laptops.
Of course, for large organisations, the success of Windows isn’t just about how easy it is to install and use – but how manageable it is. How easy it is to support. This is truly Microsoft’s ace card. Microsoft offers the widest and best infrastructure and infrastructure management available, period. There’s no getting away from it – Active Desktop, Group Policies, remote administration... all of these make Windows controllable, regardless of geography and size of network. Well, many Linux distributions simply can’t compete on those terms.
Coming close, though, is Novell’s SESE Enterprise Linux – all of the power and stability of Linux, with manageability and support that’s close to Windows. It comes from a company which is used to managing enterprise-wide networks and has a solid track record. Its customers include Wal-Mart and Peugeot Citroen. Of course, one of the key advantages of Linux is its low cost – and opting for a high-powered solution such as Novell’s does erode that cost advantage. It’s also a major change – as we said, most people use Windows as easy as breathing air. Linux may be easy to use, but it is different. There’s a cost associated with making that change – retraining all of your users.
But, with many companies wanting to more tightly control cost of ownership, it’s likely that more and more will at least evaluate Linux.
Even today, though, Linux remains a ‘close but no cigar’ OS. It’s not quite as easy to use as Windows, with not quite the ease of management.
Outlook and Exchange is also a powerful and entrenched combination, with a leadership that doesn’t look set to change any time soon. There is a challenger, though. Zimbra is a calendar, e-mail and document management tool which runs on Windows, Linux and the Mac OS. It comes from the same stable as Ubuntu and is starting to gain a toehold in the market. It can work with Outlook, Thunderbird, AppleMail and so on – and also has a powerful Web-based client.
Finally, there’s that long-time outsider, the Mac. Times change, and today a Mac is really a PC that’s running Unix. It’s this that makes it such an interesting choice: the power and stability of Unix with the ease of use of a Mac. And pricing is less of an issue too. True, there aren’t many really low-cost Macs, and you can’t build one yourself – but if you compare like-for-like, the Mac usually comes out equal or top. Application support is very good – you can get many applications, including Office, as native Mac applications. It’s happy on Windows networks. Best of all, it’s currently the only hardware platform on which you can run each of the three major operating systems without (and with, for that matter) virtualisation.
Talking of virtualisation, with Parallels, not only can you run Windows within the Mac OS, you can also run Windows applications seamlessly on the Mac desktop: the best of both worlds.
The coming release of the Mac OS is fully 64-bit – without the 64-bit hassles of Windows (lack of drivers, application support and so on).
The downside is that it’s not an OS which is designed to be enterprise-managed: it simply lacks the tools and features of Windows, which are now so advanced and tightly honed that it’s hard to see anyone surpassing them. It’s great for the home, fine for the small office, but at sea in the enterprise.
For now, Windows pretty much owns the enterprise – mainly due to its manageability and administration features, which simply lead the market. But it’s a close-run thing and getting closer.
The alternatives to Windows are real alternatives, though they’re not without compromise.
Microsoft isn’t standing still: it has always been competitor-savvy and strong to respond. While its competitors improve, so will Microsoft. Although Vista wasn’t the leap ahead that many had hoped (and Microsoft had promised) don’t be surprised if there’s a Vista update, within a couple of years, that again pushes Windows firmly ahead.
