PC Magazine Vista Defectors
First PC Magazine's John Dvorak writes Me and My Mac. In it he talks about the Mac he got for his work for Podshow. He says he is not switching to a Mac for personal use, but uses it at that office and has been recommending Macs to friends.
The outgoing PC Magazine Editor in Chief Jim Louderback wrote in his final column Passing the Torch: I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won't bore you with the details. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux.
In a previous blog entry I cited a survey by Patchlink reporting that 87% of the businesses they surveyed said they would stay with Windows XP. I haven't experienced all the problems reported by Louderback and other people. But, I've seen a bunch including the nearly inaccessible network settings and printer driver problems in Vista.
I like a lot of the features in Vista and still use it daily. But, I have to admit that my next "PC" will probably be a new Mac mini to replace my 1st generation PowerPC-based Mac mini running Mac OS X Leopard and either VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop for Mac for Windows compatibility.
Is Vista the end of the line for Windows as the dominant desktop OS? Will web-based applications and Mac OS X or Linux start getting more traction?