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Comment by melling | Hacker News Reader

9 out of 10 people already use Windows. Are they trying to get that number back up to 9.4 out of 10? I think their efforts are better spent in mobile and building an iPad competitor. It's really going to hurt when Apple and Google lock up the mobile and tablet markets.

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I don't think this is a bad idea for them - I've heard (no sources, unfortunately) that new college entrants are now predominantly using Macs. It takes years for the loss of market share to truly translate into profit/revenue loss.

If it's true that the younger generation is flocking to Macs in droves, then it would be deceptive and ill-advised to say that 9 out of 10 people right now use Windows, and that's the way it will stay.

I think MS is fighting to avert a disaster that will happen 5-10 years from now. This seems wise, though as a Mac user I have to scoff a little bit at it ;)

(Windows can do more than Macs, but lack of integration and poor UI means that most of its users don't.)

This is precisely it. 1/10 are Macs, but among college students, it's 27% (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/08/07/big-macs-on-campus/). This is why MS is worried.

My guess: The brass at Microsoft was probably thrilled when Apple switched to Intel. To them, this meant easy virtualization/dual boot setups, so obviously, more licenses sold for Windows (because, c'mon, everyone needs Windows with that vast library of software that EVERYONE uses!)

Then they realized people switching were happy with just OS X and the cross platform available titles....

Raise your hands if you own a Mac and don't have a virtualization/dual-boot setup.

crickets

I don't, but I have 3 computers

I have a VM solely for web dev (IE testing.) However, of all my friends and family who own Macs (sample size of about 10) one uses a linux vm for dev, and one more uses Crossover for gaming (WINE, basically). The rest have no virtualization/dual-boot whatsoever.

I think you're very wrong if you assume that most Mac users also run Windows.

Anecdotally, the only Mac users I know who run a VM at all do so for IE testing, or occasionally for some other UNIX variant. Then again, i don't know many people who are super hardcore gamers.

I actually don't know a mac user that doesn't at least have boot camp installed.

I don't. Every Mac user I know doesn't. Maybe I'm a weird demographic (I switched back in 2000 - prior to that, I used Windows strictly - from DOS/3.1 up to 2000!)

I've found that any Windows software I need (i.e, some software to capture a stream or a uTorrent-equivalent client before uTorrent was available...), there's an equivalent version on the Mac.

I do still use a Windows machine (and have worked on a Windows machine from XP, Vista and currently Win 7 Enterprise) - but personally, I have no need for it. Although, honestly, I find Windows 7 quite nice.

A huge chunk of their money depends on people using Windows (the Office hegemony depends in part on people being native Windows), so it'd be borderline irresponsible of them to ignore this issue; Microsoft did make a tablet play, which went nowhere, and for all we know iPad-style tablets really are a flavor of the month.

It's hard to argue with tens of billions of dollars.

>9 out of 10 people already use Windows

Is this really true? I was under the impression that Macs constitute at least 15% of the market (at least in America)

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