My last post seems to have touched a nerve among readers who think I’m jumping on the “Windows is dead!” bandwagon, even though I’m the first to roll his eyes when some naive writer spins that tale. I’m a Windows user. There’s a wide gulf between the death of a product and the decline of a brand, and my post was about the latter. Thanks to those who e-mailed me pointing out that “Windows is used by over 90% of the population, fool!” but I’m well aware of that. My post questions how many of those people know or care that they’re using “Windows” versus Generic Operating System. If they aren’t aware, then the brand is weakening.
Now, you could argue that the brand strength of “Windows” is irrelevant because it’s still going to ship on computers, but Microsoft is betting on the strength of that name for its products, and the post is questioning the efficacy of that. Not to mention that it’s difficult to convince people to upgrade their operating system when they’re not sure what an operating system is used for or which one they’re using. Google was just one example of a current brand that I believe to be surpassing the Windows brand, and in hindsight the post would have benefitted from a less incendiary example.
On the issue of Windows-only toolkits, I received different and more enlightening responses. To wit: “Windows is used by over 90% of the population, fool!” Yes, yes, I know that. The point there was that even the client development model—where Microsoft holds the home court advantage—has turned inside out in favor of the Web, to the point that it now makes better technical and business sense to embed a browser and code to the Web (which encompasses Windows and all other platforms) than to use a Windows client API. The sooner Google boards that train, the sooner Mac and Linux users can stop waiting for Google Talk and others.
Perhaps the post was poorly written or flat-out wrong, but the demeanor of the responses I’ve read suggests that many people just skimmed it with two biases—”open-source developer: must hate Microsoft” and “young: must be naive”—and fired back a stock post. That’s too bad. I’d be happy to engage someone on the merits.
