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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

Will Windows Open?

Jayakishore Bayadi
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Jayakishore Bayadi
“I don’t need Windows to be installed in my PC. I get it installed from my friend,” chuckled Dileep K Bhat, a techie working at a leading IT company who was buying a PC from a leading showroom in Bangalore. It saved him a good sum of money, which otherwise might have gone for buying a Windows operating system (OS).

Abhishek Desai, a student of Computer Science and Engineering at BMS College of Engineering says that he is happy with the free Linux operating system. Grippingly, his friend Jagadish Kamath, an Information Technology student at PES Institute of Technology, bought a brand new MacBook sold by Apple exclusively for students.

There was a time when only Windows OS was available, bundled with the PC or laptop you bought. It was the era of Microsoft’s monopoly. Even though the giant still rules the OS market, at least the upper crest of the PC consumer market has started saying NO to Windows in many ways. Many are simply not interested to invest for original Windows when its pirated version is available at a throw away price. Others are joining hands with the open source movement or Mac revolution, which is catching up in India as well. Well, it may not always be that rosy, but people are clearly growing more comfortable using Linux or Mac. Both Linux and Apple are gaining a desktop market share, but the two operating systems have a long way to go to challenge Windows’ supremacy.

Normally, vendors sell computers with operating systems, most often Microsoft Windows. But due to the stiff competition around, the prevalent inclination towards open source among the techie types, and the launching of used computers sale alongside new models by the Web stores like Amazon have made computer stores to sell PCs without operating systems installed in them. A computer dealer at Barton Center in Bangalore says, “We decided to sell the computers without an operating system so that those customers who don’t want Windows could load the OS of their choice. Another attractive element in not offering an operating system is that eliminating Windows considerably drops the cost of PCs.”

Nowadays PC vendors may be flaunting the message that they ‘recommend Windows Vista’ for optimal performance. But there are quite few vendors who display this line just for the sake of it. “Sometimes vendors only help us to install the pirated Windows,” says Dileep. And most interestingly, those who go for the pirated one still prefer XP to Vista.In fact, selling PCs without OS preloaded in it has become a common phenomenon now. Dell has dedicated a website to brainstorm for an effort to build a Windows-less product in its new IdeaStorm site that solicits consumer opinions.


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