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Why Windows Rules: the QWERTY phenomenon?

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f0dder:
Zaine, the analogy would have worked if the de-facto product was flawed compared to the alternatives - QWERTY is clearly handicapped compared to DVORAK, as mentioned previously... for most other markets with a dominating product, this isn't the case.

zridling:
Thanks f0dder for the clarification. I see what you mean.

Ralf Maximus:
Zaine!  I've missed you.  :)

Yes, upon re-reading I didn't get that from the QWERTY article.  I guess I got hung up on the IDEA of switching, and/or debating the value of one O/S over another, which is a discussion that rapidly bores me.  Sure, compare & contrast the differences, promote one over another for particular tasks... but too many of those threads descend into Mac bashing and Redmond hating.  My reflex kicked in, and it blinded me to the core of the essay.  Thanks for pointing that out.

I still stand by my IE/FF example, as it pertains to the desire to upgrade. 

FF 1.0 was released in September 2004.  In that year, Microsoft shipped approximately 100 million XP SP upgrades.  That's *just* XP, and only upgrades from previous XP editions.  One can easily envision that number being x5 or even x10 when all Windows editions sold prior to 2004 are factored in.

If only 1% of 100 million users hated IE and used Opera, Netscape, Lynx (etc) that's a substantial number -- a million people -- and supports the meme that power users wanted something better, but typical users didn't know/care enough to even think about switching.  From supporting a large help desk, I know for a fact many otherwise intelligent adults think of IE as "the internet," as if it's just a drive share or some magical thing on their computer  ("You need software to see the internet?").

That was my point.

Awareness was raised by the FF phenomenon, and Microsoft's monopolistic issues in Europe at that time.  Suddenly open source anything was in the news, and that also boosted interest in Firefox.

But until that time, I think it's safe to say 99% of Windows users didn't even know there was an upgrade path away from IE, and the vast majority would have shrugged anyway had they known.

city_zen:
The obvious remedy would be and EXTREMELY detailed official XP-to-ubuntu transition site where almost any feature in XP can be looked up -- and the Ubuntu equivalent is presented. There are some such sites around (http://www.osalt.com/ is a good example when it comes to software) but I haven't seen one that is comprehensive and simple enough for the imagined target audience.
-Nod5 (November 26, 2008, 01:26 PM)
--- End quote ---

You know, this comment by Nod5 left me thinking. Because it reminded me of what Microsoft itself did when faced with a similar situation, i.e. being the "underdog" in a popular software category. And I'm not talking about the browsers war with Netscape, but the fight against WordPerfect for the supremacy in the word processing category. Do you remember how Microsoft included in every single version of Word a special "Help for Wordperfect users" to ease the transition from WordPerfect? I can't recall which was the first version of Microsoft Word to include that but I'm pretty sure that back then WordPerfect was the dominant program for word processing. And they still have it in Word 2003 (I'm not running Word 2007, so maybe someone else can confirm if it's still there in that version). I'm not saying that that was the sole determinant in Microsoft success in placing Word as the #1 program in the category, but it sure must have helped.
So, what would happen if, say, Ubuntu started including a special "Help for Windows users" as part of the standard help files of the OS? I confess my utmost ignorance about Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular, so maybe this is already there, but I highly doubt it. Such a move would be probably denounced as "sacrilege" by some members of the community, but I think it'd be a wise move on their part since I guess that most first time users of Ubuntu come from Windows rather than another Linux distribution or Mac.

Paul Keith:
If only 1% of 100 million users hated IE and used Opera, Netscape, Lynx (etc) that's a substantial number -- a million people -- and supports the meme that power users wanted something better, but typical users didn't know/care enough to even think about switching.  From supporting a large help desk, I know for a fact many otherwise intelligent adults think of IE as "the internet," as if it's just a drive share or some magical thing on their computer  ("You need software to see the internet?").-Ralf Maximus (November 30, 2008, 11:44 AM)
--- End quote ---

Again, several things went against those browsers you mentioned to make them viable alternatives then:

1. Opera - free version had Ad-ware then which if you don't know, was an even bigger issue for pseudo-power users then who knew no better than Adware = evil. Even if you weren't bothered by Adware, Opera unlike Firefox had a unique interface compared to Firefox/IE. The fact that numerous Firefox add-ons today which Opera has always had still gets much praise is just proof that Opera was ahead of it's time BUT also didn't get the market as the Ad they have for example severely made Firefox look more minimalistic from the get go than Opera. Finally the nail in the coffin was website compatibility, lack of developer support and a familiar help for IE users. All critical areas that were important even for power users.

2. Netscape - same with Opera, people don't like using software that feels buggy.

3. Lynx - text browser.

If you can name me how any versions of those browsers were as easy or familiar to use as Firefox at that time, then you might have a case but the fact is, none of those were as easy a switch at that time.

Awareness was raised by the FF phenomenon, and Microsoft's monopolistic issues in Europe at that time.  Suddenly open source anything was in the news, and that also boosted interest in Firefox.

But until that time, I think it's safe to say 99% of Windows users didn't even know there was an upgrade path away from IE, and the vast majority would have shrugged anyway had they known.

--- End quote ---

The problem is that there was no "upgrade" path from IE at the time. There were different flavors of browsers but none of them were stable, free and familiar.

Here's what the Firefox "phenomenon" pretty much was:

1) Security - Opera had this but how can you develop confidence in ad-ware?

2) Tabs - Again, killer feature but not something that works well if you have a big block of ad on top or buggy software.

3) Ad-blocker - Suicide for companies like Opera and Netscape at the time. You might find this silly nowadays but back then these were all you heard from forums hyping Firefox besides Tabs and Security.

4) Extensions - Let's face it, part of the hype back then was contributed by marketers who thought they could eventually evolve a business model from it. Part of it was also people wanting to get instant net fame by copying Opera's features. Finally part of it was blogs making lists of these that made Firefox looked like Google Chrome as far as how most of the net were talking about it.

Now look how much these word of mouth contributed to Google Chrome's fast market share rise without it even having an ad-blocker and security and you will see that the phenomenon wasn't much of a phenomenon at all as much as "Ad-blocker". Remember part of the whole open source movement at the time was contributed by a rise of Ad-ware applications like Bonzi Buddy that exposed these security risks to users which was also contributed by the strong detection rates of popular antiviruses at the time which eventually got disfigured into ad-ware = evil everything.

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