So I’m writing this entry on a 5 year old computer which is freshly installed with the shiny new Ubuntu 10.4 Linux operating system, using the even shinier, and still somewhat new Google Chrome browser. Which is all techno-babble for, “the latest and greatest in stuff that doesn’t come from Microsoft”.
And it’s all very VERY impressive. This new operating system is so slick it is the first one of its kind to equal what windows can do in terms of putting something in the hands of ordinary users that can be used, and in some respects do better than anything they have done. Ubuntu is really something my mother could use, and be happy with.
Why does this matter? Well there are lots of technical reasons why this is a milestone, but in my mind the biggest one is the fact that a lot of very vocal people over the last decade said, it couldn’t be done (this being a Linux desktop that anyone could use as easy as Windows). For me though, the even bigger reason is the cultural change this milestone is going to bring about to the worlds masses that use a computer for either work, or for personal use; which is to say, everyone.
To this day, the great technical unwashed masses use Microsoft for everything they do in their online lives, with the big exception of mobile stuff. Thanks to Apple, the iPhone has shown everyone there is another world out there that is exciting and fresh and hip. Apple’s marketing team has been hard at work though getting this message out for quite a number of years though through their series of television advertisements which have become culturally iconic. Justin Long, who plays Mac, and John Hodgman who plays PC, have become popular and parodied and sustaining in their comedic roles as the two friendly rivals on opposite sides of the computer technology fence. It was really a stroke of brilliance on Apple’s part to take the technology out of the tech, and put in it’s place personas that we identify with, and remember. This has been why the last 5 years have seen the rise of the Mac against the backdrop of the Windows behemoth.
So with Ubuntu now adding a new range of hammer and chisels to the mainstream with which to start chipping away at Microsoft’s monopoly, I see real change on the personal computer horizon. We’re still a long way from the days when there isn’t one all mighty powerful company running the global PC show, but a number companies that compete on the grounds of innovation and features for a user base that pays a very modest fee for their personal computing choices. However, like the Berlin Wall, it had to be chipped away one piece at a time over a long period of time before it wasn’t there any more. I liken the fall of Windows to the fall of the Berlin Wall because they both start with an ideology change in the minds of the masses, which takes root and grows, and eventually leads to action, which results in a downfall.
I’m not in any way saying that Microsoft is an evil regime, though many do and probably for good reason. My personal stance is, Microsoft just want to make a lot of money which they do through market dominance. I leave it to the courts to decide if what Microsoft does is done in a legal or good or bad way. However I do believe that we the masses are being screwed by Microsoft because they want to keep prices high for tech goods that are now so ubiquitous and necessary they should be cheaper than peanuts. The only way Microsoft really holds onto its dominance is by holding people to ransom to keep us locked into their business. Which is what they do with a lot of open standards that could free consumers choice; Microsoft buys off companies and governments to make them stay on their side of the fence. It’s legal, but really, it’s not right.
Today I see another avenger of justice on the desktops of ordinary people, and for the first time believe that one day I’ll live to wake up to a world where Microsoft isn’t on every computer everywhere I go.
Andy.
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