My friend once told me " Windows is best OS in the world". I know that he never tried any other OS other than windows. I asked him the reason for which he said that it is the most user-friendly OS at present. I was taken aback. User-friendly ? Does one judge or rate OS based on this parameter only. May be millions around the world who use for general purpose computing like searching the net like his idea. Think of many multi national companies employing their whole business strategies on softwares run on OS. Surely they don't consider OS for user-friendliness ! They certainly want more than that. Ubiquitous servers that running the whole Internet,multi processors,supercomputers, embedded systems,intelligent systems... all need not just ease of use but the power to perform with utmost precision backed with supreme security to data and a repertoire of tools to control it. I am not a expertise to comment on different OS and their suitability etc., but that never stops me putting my own perceptions on it.
Microsoft developed OS that indeed occupied millions of computers around the world. Using this as an advantage it shipped its OS with packages like IE browser,media player... and killed businesses of many companies. Its monopoly in OS market and with its bundled packages proliferated to such an extent, many people (including my friend ) don't know anything outside windows. This is really an awkward point in this information age. A single-vendor supplying softwares to companies will certainly not be helpful in long run in terms of flexible transformation to different business strategies ( A naive thought !). A simple example would be, consider a company expanding its business looking for better security in their network. It has to depend on the single - vendor who might be in the process of developing patches for it or may not be aware of bug at all, the company has to wait all the time it could get the service done and hence it could loose potential business. If this is in case of OSS (open source software ) where one could have software codes to his requirements and best human resource available for development.
Now some socialistic thoughts. I have developed an ideal world in dreams where all six billion people use computers for sharing information,do business,mail friends,play music,networking new people.... so on and so forth (what a dream !).To enable this dream to come true i followed few writeups and gathered few surface points. These thoughts you might heard elsewhere, still i could spell it here. In order to computers to reach all people cut-crossing all socio-economic barriers,to lessen the digital-divide which spawned all over the world, we need different strategies to employ depending on local conditions. Certainly proprietary softwares cannot be depended for developing the new thins of digital-divide because the cost,rights,piracy involved and dependency on single vendors will make transition difficult. Indian government rightly took a decision to go OSS way. It developed fonts,softwares and Firefox browser in regional languages ( so far in Tamil and Hindi versions are released ). By this strategy,with the support from computer hardware vendors the government could - to an extent - help to reduce digital divide and help the reach of technology to rural India. This may not revolutionize Indian computer literacy overnight but it takes time to reach masses as they are many damages done by monopolism . This step is jus a step towards contributing its goal to make computers a tool and not an larger than life machine.
Microsoft developed OS that indeed occupied millions of computers around the world. Using this as an advantage it shipped its OS with packages like IE browser,media player... and killed businesses of many companies. Its monopoly in OS market and with its bundled packages proliferated to such an extent, many people (including my friend ) don't know anything outside windows. This is really an awkward point in this information age. A single-vendor supplying softwares to companies will certainly not be helpful in long run in terms of flexible transformation to different business strategies ( A naive thought !). A simple example would be, consider a company expanding its business looking for better security in their network. It has to depend on the single - vendor who might be in the process of developing patches for it or may not be aware of bug at all, the company has to wait all the time it could get the service done and hence it could loose potential business. If this is in case of OSS (open source software ) where one could have software codes to his requirements and best human resource available for development.
Now some socialistic thoughts. I have developed an ideal world in dreams where all six billion people use computers for sharing information,do business,mail friends,play music,networking new people.... so on and so forth (what a dream !).To enable this dream to come true i followed few writeups and gathered few surface points. These thoughts you might heard elsewhere, still i could spell it here. In order to computers to reach all people cut-crossing all socio-economic barriers,to lessen the digital-divide which spawned all over the world, we need different strategies to employ depending on local conditions. Certainly proprietary softwares cannot be depended for developing the new thins of digital-divide because the cost,rights,piracy involved and dependency on single vendors will make transition difficult. Indian government rightly took a decision to go OSS way. It developed fonts,softwares and Firefox browser in regional languages ( so far in Tamil and Hindi versions are released ). By this strategy,with the support from computer hardware vendors the government could - to an extent - help to reduce digital divide and help the reach of technology to rural India. This may not revolutionize Indian computer literacy overnight but it takes time to reach masses as they are many damages done by monopolism . This step is jus a step towards contributing its goal to make computers a tool and not an larger than life machine.
