OS Critique: Windows

It’s been determined that the most addictive games are those that are easy to learn but hard to master. In the OS world, that would be Windows. While not addictive to most geeks, it is hard to argue with its popular (if not critical) success. Let’s take a deeper look at the most prolific operating system in the world.

The Ubiquitous OS

As a nerd, it’s easy to think Windows has really suffered in the last few years, especially after Vista. It’s easy to think that Ubuntu or some other Linux distro is the solution to all our problems. The fact remains, though, that nerds are outnumbered in this world (3 to 1, I’m told). The software that we prefer is not necessarily the software that everybody else prefers. Windows takes a beating from the internet OS crowd, but the rest of the world seems perfectly happy with it.

Even Microsoft’s biggest rivals take advantage of Redmond’s product. Sales reps at the Apple store have mobile check-out devices so people can pay by credit card without having to go though the line at the register. It’s a terrific idea, and believe it or not, the thing runs on Windows Mobile.

Windows is everywhere. It competes with Apple over personal computers and Linux over servers. It competes with Apple, Palm, and Blackberry over mobile devices. There is something to be said for how wide-reaching Microsoft has become, and I don’t believe that it’s because they’ve become a monopoly. The average consumer has a lot of value for Redmond’s OS, even if the average geek doesn’t.

Why?

Why, when the experts are so critical, does Windows succeed? Do people not care what the experts think? Truth be told: not really. The experts are looking at Windows differently than the average consumer. The experts (computer nerds like us) tend to value things like stability, accessibility, and flexibility. Typical computer users tend to value a predictable learning curve.

Windows has done a very good job at being predictable. No, not predictable in its error messages or solutions or workarounds, predictable in how hard tasks are to accomplish. A simple task is easy to accomplish. A slightly more complex task is slightly harder. A much more complex task is much harder. The difficulty of accomplishing a task is more or less what users expect it to be.

Contrast this with Mac and Linux. With Macs, simple tasks are actually simplier than the user expects, which is generally a good thing and one of the reasons they are picking up momentum in the market. The down side is that very complex tasks are far more difficult than the user would like (if not downright impossible). Linux, particularly Ubuntu, makes simple tasks about as hard as the user expects, but tasks even slightly more complex require a quantum leap in know-how.

Windows has found a way to give users what they expect. Albeit, many of Microsoft’s solutions make simple tasks harder than they need to be, and many of the complex tasks much more convoluted than the pundits think is necessary, but on average, people are happy with how Windows works.

Conclusion

Windows has succeeded not only because it caters to every market, but because it works like people expect it to. Nerds may not like it, but for how vocal they are online, nerds compose a surprisingly small part of the general population. Computer companies have to please the masses, not the nerds, if they want to get a significant chunk of the market. Microsoft has done that.