Support Windows ISVs Day
December 7th, 2006 • General
Jeff declared December 1st, Support Your Favorite Small Software Vendor Day.
He’s been an avid (dare I say expert) Windows users. I can tell by the software he writes, and his love for Visual Studio. What I find a little disturbing is that he is not a minority in the Windows community, but that goes unnoticed. There are thousands upon thousands of experienced people using Windows, and they do so with passion.
At the risk of repetition, here’s the list of stereotypes being casted on Windows users:
- Windows users like going with the market leader, the “safe” choice.
- Windows users don’t want to spend more for quality, so they buy crapware knockoffs of your idea instead.
- Windows users never upgrade.
- Windows users only use three apps: Word, IE, and iTunes.
- Windows users are afraid to install new software due to the massive amount of craplets and malware saturating the market
I think this list can be debunked by one argument: most people are just lazy. Not in a bad way though; I myself fall exactly under that category.
Windows has 80-90% market share, and a big chunk of it are customers who use whatever is pre-installed. These are people with money, and because they’re either new or still learning, they are very willing to put down the cash to get the best software. They’re not going with the “safe” choice, they’re going with the only choice they know about.
It also isn’t true that Windows users never upgrade, it’s just that many find it either difficult, or simply annoying. Windows hasn’t been particularly safe to upgrade. The slew of crappy shareware, combined with “press Next sixteen times” culture of installation and upgrade, has caused many users to ignore the whole procedure. This took away freelance developers’ appreciation, and left them with Windows’ reputation of being incompetence.
So what to do now?
It’s difficult for me not to mention switching to Linux here. But right now, I’d recommend Jeff’s idea of honoring the “little” unnoticed gems. You probably use them everyday and don’t know about it.