Do Operating Systems Matter Anymore?
From a consumer point of view it appears that Operating Systems are becoming less and less significant. Consumers use the same services on every device or operating system and to them it is these services that are important not what they are running on. So do consumers really care about the operating system? To a technologist, developer or IT professional this may clearly not be the case, but herein lies the divide.
Once upon a time consumers got excited about operating systems. 20 years ago the Rolling Stones picked up a rumored $8m payout just for singing “Start Me Up” in ads officially launching the cultural phenomenon known as Windows 95 as the world entered the golden age of computing where software releases were major events.
Midnight launches consisted of tech fans of all ages queuing to get their hands on an operating system, something that will probably seem bizarre to the millennials of today who now have little if any interest in Windows or OSX. Today they pick up a device of their choosing and expect it to work without feeling the need to know what goes on under the hood or the exact version of the OS. I wonder if is this really such a bad thing after all? As an example, I wrote this article on my 15 inch Macbook Pro at home and until a couple weeks back when I read somewhere that Apple had released its new operating system OS X El Capitan, I was under the impression that I was running the latest and greatest which in my mind was OS X Mavericks, the previous version to El Capitan. And truth be known, the upgrade has made no visible difference to my life whatsoever although I did want to upgrade because of the advertised security improvements in El Capitan over its predecessors.
This could possibly be one of the biggest changes in the tech industry as we say goodbye to the days where Windows-based PC's were in our homes, offices, colleges or libraries and the Microsoft Office suite ruled the digital airwaves. These colorful stories of our enterprise tech past are rapidly turning into nothing more than a distant memory.
The writing has been on the wall for a while and the initial warning signs appeared back in 2007 when Apple launched the consumer friendly “It just works” iPhone, only for Google to debut Android the following year. This is the moment that easily distracted users headed towards mobile devices and slowly migrated away from their traditional desktop PC.
Despite Microsoft’s best efforts to remain relevant to the younger generation, they ran into huge problems when research suggested that 6-12-year-olds were much more interested in iPads than a Microsoft Surface. IT departments letting down their infamous guard to allow BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) quickly ensured that iPads frequented boardrooms across the globe, but Apple’s Achilles heel was the reluctance to support Active Directory which has usually been IT’s preferred method of group policy.
However, it is not all about the Enterpise vertical. Education is also an incredibly lucrative market. Google’s Chromebook and its cloud storage might have been a great opportunity for the search engine behemoth to gain foothold in Education, but the truth remains that Microsoft Office still rules the roost for mass audiences in all things Education.
The battleground in this digital age is locking users into an ecosystem of their choosing. Users both young and old simply do not care about the intricate details about operating systems and the reality is that the majority cannot even be bothered to upgrade to that latest version for a few add-ons that they won't probably even use. This should not preclude developers or producers from building apps and software for all three leading operating systems of course since they do need to create apps and software for all major ecosystems.
The fan boy arguments of Windows vs. OS X or Android vs. iPhone are now completely irrelevant due to our heavy reliance on the web browser. Sure Mac has less available software but it attracts users by giving them a free reign. On the contrary, Windows offers a more controlled environment but equally a much more versatile system for consumers of all levels of expertise.
Arguments over which platform is the best are purely subjective and ultimately pointless. It seems we have spent far too much time arguing or judging people on what option they choose, but ultimately we all use the same services on every device or OS.
Whatever your online preference from Office 365, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify or even Instagram, the operating system is completely irrelevant. Right now, it's all about the service and it is important to understand that this is the biggest change in the last fifteen years. We used to look at an OS to show us the way forward, but thanks to the web browser the software itself has now become insignificant.
Maybe, the time has come to realize that getting passionate about operating systems and platforms should be confined to the past because right now it's all about the services that we love and know. Why should any of us care about the technicalities of how all this is delivered? This illustrates the biggest change in mindset and it’s only a matter of time until everyone realizes that blind faith in any technical solution is isolated to the unique perspective of an individual.
We all have unique requirements and choose hardware, ecosystems and software to help us complete our objectives. Right now there is just a much stronger emphasis on services as technology continues to mature and follow through on the promises from our digital past.
From a purely consumer point of view it appears that Operating Systems are becoming less and less significant. To a technologist, developer or IT professional this may clearly not be the case, but therein lies the divide.
Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you. I write a daily blog on leadership, innovation, careers, tech & self improvement. Here are some other articles I have written. If you like what you read, please feel free to follow me here on LinkedIn or via twitter @anuragharsh.
Software Developer at VectorVMS
10 个月I started using Linux at home when I realized I could do everything I wanted and have a system that was not constantly tracking me and lets me choose the type of GUI I want for my desktop, I really like tiling window managers which windows 10 and 11 does not do near as well as Linux UI's do. However I don't think our company would be smart to roll out Linux desktops to all our employees as most would not care for working on linux, some of them would love it but I suspect a majority would hate it. I do think the article is correct though, the OS does not really matter to the end user as much anymore, but I suspect it matters very much to the IT people who have to maintain it and deal with users issues.
Staff Engineer
7 年OS is not matters for consumer through this article what I understood. But that GUI is made a difference compare to android and ios for mobiles and windows, MAC OS, Linux for Notebook and desktop. Is that GUI depends on the OS? How it will be?
--C# Programming Professional
9 年To the consumer, the device they use may not matter, especially if most of the apps they interact with are in fact websites. In order to do native development on any given OS (actually installed on the device) you do usually need a broad knowledge different technologies. For example, I have found that Android (native) is typically programmed with Java programs and XML, etc. Windows is always fun to program C# in, especially with arguably the best compiler Visual Studio. If you need to code something Antivirus related on Windows, then you typically have to rely on C/C++ calls however. IOS, I don't know, do they use objective C? Then there are the other derivatives of off brand OS's, like Linux, and Unix, etc. Those typically don't make it to portable devices, but those would typically be programmed with off brand compilers for C#, I think it's called Mono, as well as C/C++. One has to keep in mind with Linux stuff that typically your C/C++ programs will not be shareable among other devices due to the fact that they use different headers. You have to design for cross platform. When you make the "app" a website, the life of a developer typically gets a lot simpler. Then you essentially get one "project", but you still have to account for differences in browsers which could simply not work at all on other browsers due to differences in Javascript, and HTML, etc. You also have to make sure the page scales correctly for tablet/phone use. There may be other alternatives to native development I don't know, my education thus far has mostly been Windows application/Website related. (An application is not an app, XD ). Point being, this cross platform stuff for the longest time was a myth, and even today I can virtually guarantee you that it isn't easy, but you develop around what the customer requires.
Business & Software developer
9 年docker