S/W Wars and the Consumer Movement
Just like the consumer movements that brought us fast food salads and low-carb options, we are currently witnessing software and computing giants recognizing our needs. It’s very reassuring to see that Microsoft’s top priorities for their new Longhorn operating system are usability and security. Of course, they better take those two things into account because the new version of the Mac OS X (10.4), code name Tiger, was released yesterday and people are raving about it. The main new feature of Tiger, ironically, is the search utility called Spotlight. I can only wonder if Mac developers were laughing hysterically when Google released their Desktop Search for Windows, or if they were taking notes. The pressure is now on Microsoft to include a similar utility with Longhorn. And then of course, there’s still the battle between Firefox and Internet Explorer. Firefox is up to 10.28% usage and has surpassed the 50 million download mark. Yes, Microsoft (and Virginia), people do like tabbed browsing and search engine integration.
My next investment, tentatively slated for the summer, will be a portable Mac with OS X 10.4. I’ve waited long enough.
By the way, good luck goes to TigerDirect and their lawsuit against Apple. My only question, in aggreement with Macworld, is why did they wait until the week the operating system was released to come out with this lawsuit? That is pretty silly if they are truthfully concerned about consumer confusion with the word “Tiger”.
5 Comments