Our Old Stuff is Junk at Robert Pogson

M$ is trying to denigrate XP, you know, their most successful OS ever, in order to get folks to buy a new PC with “7″. In an advertising campaign in which “Julie” opines that she has all she needs in her old PC, M$ convinces her that new hardware like an all-in-one or a touch screen really do require a purchase of a new PC. The argument is specious. The Wintel treadmill is something you can escape by going sideways. You can keep your old PC longer. You can install new software on it like Debian GNU/Linux. You can make it a thin client to get more performance. You can use cloud services. Likely Julie is doing a lot of that already with GMail, and FaceBook. Touch on a desktop PC is not compelling and she could use a tablet if she cannot type…

In a way, M$ is its worst enemy. As it has convinced people that they must buy a new PC to get anything new in IT, they have also convinced people that a new anything is good: tablet, notebook, smart thingie… and many of these do not come with that other OS. Expect further poor quarters for that cash-cow.

see TheRegister – Microsoft resuscitates ‘I’m a PC’ ads to fight Apple
Alert Print Post comment Retweet Facebook
PCs have come a long way since the PC

How many cycles of the Wintel treadmill does it take to convince the subject that the next revolution is actually the same as the last one? The problem for M$ is that people are not gerbils and can solve the problem of spending years getting nowhere.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.

4 Responses to “Our Old Stuff is Junk”

Feed for this Entry

1 Dann May 10th, 2011 at 6:46 am

It’s ridiculous at best.
I’m using computers that are 4-6 years old running Gentoo with that full-featured and heavy KDE window manager AND desktop effects. I virtualize Windows XP and GNU/Linux servers, I compile code, I watch movies.
I have an old 800MHz desktop I’ll be using for a file server/code repository when I get around to it.

I’ve looked around at best-buy and future shop. They may have one or two laptops I would buy, but I would not throw out an old machine for one.
I’ve always been taught to make good use with what you have, not to waste a perfectly good tool.
2 Richard Chapman May 10th, 2011 at 8:31 am

Microsoft is admitting a problem. I’ll call it The XP Death Grip.
3 ChrisTX May 10th, 2011 at 4:45 pm

“You can install new software on it like Debian GNU/Linux.”

> new
> Debian

Irony.

Iceweasel 3.5.16 – newest FF: 4.0.1
gcc 4.4.5 – newest: 4.6.0
glibc 2.11.2 – newest: 2.13
apache 2.2.16 – newest: 2.2.17
kernel 2.6.32.31 – newest ( 2.6.32.x series ) 2.6.32.40 / 2.6.38.6
4 Robert Pogson May 10th, 2011 at 4:58 pm

XP: 2001

One can install the newest of everything on GNU/Linux including the bugs. By testing software for a year or more, a lot of that stuff is filtered out. New has no particular merit. I was referring to stuff from the last year or two as compared with obsolete stuff that many people have on their PCs, like XP.