Wandering Thoughts archives

Microsoft has another problem

As sort of a successor of a previous entry, here is a thesis:

Increasingly, people use Microsoft Windows not because they want to but because they have to.

(There's various reasons they have to: they're forced to by their employer, they need to use programs that only run on Windows, such as IE or Microsoft Office or various computer games, or even because the alternative costs too much.)

This is a problem for Microsoft, because customers that are only using you because they don't have a choice are extremely fickle customers; they are not a good source of long term success. It is much better to offer your customers something they find intrinsically valuable and actively like, instead of just being something they have to tolerate on the way to their real interest.

Now, this is only a thesis; I don't have enough exposure to the Windows world to know if it is actually true. But it is certainly my perception, and definitely my perception that it is not true of the Apple world, that Mac users are using Macs because they want to and like it.

(It is certainly not true of my own Unix usage; I use Unix on my desktops because I actively like the environment. This makes me rather peculiar, all things considered.)