Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Let it hit the stores and we'll see.

Dwight Silverman in today's Chron, on why Windows-to-Mac conversions are slowing:

Apple’s a master at getting others to do promotion on its behalf. The fanboy nation is a powerful force — watch for its presence to manifest itself in the comments under the online version of this column at chron.com — and it saves Apple a bundle in marketing costs.
But at the moment, Microsoft is winning the buzz contest because of the impending launch of Windows 7.

Like the title of the post says, let it hit the stores for public use — with all the additional freeware piled on so often depending on where the computers are sold — and we'll see. I seem to recall people ooh-ing and aah-ing over what eventually became Windows Vista, but we see how that turned out. At the risk of repeating myself though, I wouldn't mind if the Mac OS stays more or less a niche operating system as that makes it not so worth the time to come up with viruses for it. Granted, I don't just click on anything — as reader and blog-friend Ted so pithily put it, "Free Download" is Internet-speak for "Open your mouth and close your eyes" — but every little bit of security helps, I'd think, no matter how you can get it. At any rate, I personally am quite satisfied with the Mac OS and don't plan on ditching it for Microsoft's new girl, no matter how many people talk about how pretty she is as she walks down the street. No tellin' how big of a pain in the ass she'll be to live with. If her older sisters are any indication... ;-) No offense intended to the female readers.