Microsoft is bleeding power users and PC enthusiasts at an unprecedented rate. This is a great thing for Linux, but they are still absolutely locked into the corporate world and that's where the money is.

The reality is that Microsoft solved management of corporate policy and identity like 25 years ago and nothing else has come close. It has its problems, but Active Directory is an incredible piece of software. The combination of LDAP, with obfuscation of Kerberos to the point where you don't even need to know it exists, combined with policy deployment to endpoints is nothing short of a miracle.

Linux has tools for all those things, but none are easy to deploy or configure. If you have to manage thousands of desktops, Windows is still the clear choice

When recently onboarding for a new job I heard something I never thought I would hear in my life.

Everyone was given a Mac. Eng, design, finance, HR. Everyone. In my onboarding cohort, someone in finance asked if they could have a Windows PC, which has been the backbone of finance orgs for decades. IT said no. They just didn’t want to deal with Microsoft’s enterprise ecosystem.

Lets not forget too that Sony ever only started making video games at all because Nintendo thought they had such strong market share that they could bully Phillips AND Sony. Phillips ended up being a little bitch, and didn't do anything noteworthy. But Sony? Sony bent Nintendo over a barrel, and took their lunch money.

And then waited 10 years to make the same exact mistake.

Every once in a while, Microsoft makes fundamental mistakes which they only survive because of their size. Think Microsoft Bob or Windows 8. Looks like Windows 11 is heading in the same direction.

I don't think Sony intentionally screwed up PS2s to sell more PS3s though so it's not an equal comparison.

they did manage to win the Blu-ray vs hd-dvd format wars

They didn't win them: they bought them. Blu-ray won via payola more than popularity or technical superiority. HDDVD has way better error correction and thus longevity, but you can see why corpos wouldn't want that at the peak of the planned obsolescence / e-waste years.

It wouldn’t be the first time a Microsoft OS was a total disaster.

1. Sony won that generation.
2. The games are still being made for Windows. The time it takes to lose that whole platform would allow them plenty of time to correct their path.
3. Microsoft are crooked AF.... They've been keeping their monopoly status for over 30 years. They won't let that change.

Switched my home PC to Linux (Manjaro) over a year ago and had little issue getting it to run what I want. Steam works great these days. Wine has come a long way but I don’t end up using it.. though might try to run Foobar now that I think of it.

I hear the fleet management argument though. I got a MacBook at work because I couldn’t stand windows 11 and it’s claim on all virtualization (have to disable security features to get VMs access to hardware virtualization), and I don’t envy our IT department having to deal with Jamf.

No way, unlike Windows 11, the PS3 was actually quite a good product.

Every other version of windows flops or sucks. 98 SE, good. 2k/ME, No. XP, great. Vista,no. 7, great. 8, No.

10…probably the last good Windows unless M$oft unfucks itself and makes 12 good. But I doubt it.

And then Microsoft made the same mistake with Xbox One+Kinect.

one can hope, but I think it's a long shot. Most of my normie friends aren't going to switch even if microsoft assigned a live person to sit next to them and monitor their usage. "it needs to just work, and i know how to use it" they say (or something along those lines).

While I run Linux on a desktop, I've always owned a Windows laptop. I decided last week that instead of ever running Windows 11, I'm going to buy a Macbook and dual boot it with Linux. Yes I know I can run Linux on any number of PC hardware laptops, there are occasionally windows only utilities needed to run firmware or some other proprieatry application. If I can know I can always fall back to OSX for system updates and running proprietary commercial software, I'll know I never need to touch Windows 11.

May when Microsoft realizes Windows 11 is Vista 2.0, Windows 12 may be great. With Linux and OSX, I don't see myself coming back to Windows even then though.

Maybe for home computing which isn't their priority. They've always had their bread buttered by corporate business

I think it's more comparable to say the same kind of mistake that Microsoft made with the Xbox One. Sold at a $100 premium over the playstation 4 because Microsoft assumed that everyone would love to get a bundled Kinect when actually nobody did.

Also when they announced the stupid DRM that they wanted to use on the Xbox One (console must be always online to work, games on disk to become single use gift cards that get redeemed to a Microsoft account and can't be used on a different console) Probably Sony won the console war with this single 20 second video even if Microsoft backtracked immediately: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA

With windows 11 Microsoft is doing similar mistakes:

• With x86 processors, assuming that everyone has the money to buy a new computer even if their old one could work perfectly for what they need. Last week I went to visit an elementary school in my country and at the wall in the computer room they still had a poster comparing Netscape and Internet Explorer. They definitely don't have the funds to throw and buy again 30 computers. Time for Linux to shine?
• With arm processors, making it an exclusive for the expensive snapdragon x. Result: those laptops cost even more than comparable x86 ones, while could be cheaper. Look at the recently launched Minisforum R1. A full desktop computer with 32gb RAM and an ARM CPU that is comparable to a core i5-10400F while costing only $500. But because Microsoft chose to support only the most expensive snapdragon processors, this brand new computers can exclusively run Linux. Time for Linux to shine?

And honestly you're not hearing that people in broad swath of numbers are replacing Windows you're hearing in a very echo chamber like here or Reddit or possibly dig that people are replacing windows it's still a small number statistically and while it's slightly growing it's still not enough that's going to matter to Microsoft even in the least bit. The average person is not going to know what to do and the average person is not going to understand or even know that there's an alternative besides macintosh. Nor are they going to attempt to install an alternative version of an operating system. I mean hell I couldn't even convince my dad to buy a $200 laptop over the $900 gaming PC for the 40 minutes of work he does on computers a week. Some people just are going to do what they do out of habit and not even care.

That must of been a long shower thinking about this