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Add CoolBlue (Netherlands) to that list. Initially a post order-only for consumer electronics, but added bricks & mortar stores because many customers (of all ages, btw) prefer IRL service, viewing and touching actual hardware.
> prefer IRL service, viewing and touching actual hardware. That did Fry's in, didn't it? People coming in viewing, touching hardware in store and then buy it on-line (elsewhere) so that they could save 2.5%. Or worse, buying it in store and returning it two weeks later when they found a better deal or didn't need it anymore.
Here a lot of places has a sort of price guarantee that I guess is supposed to work against this. Basically, if I know Media Markt sells something I want, but the very same thing is available for cheaper in other (big) store, I'll show them their competitors pricing and they'll lower their price to match it.
Assuming by the fact that the physical stores still exists, don't seem to be going anywhere soon, and these companies tend to get rid of stuff that doesn't make them profit anymore, I think it's safe to assume they at least are net positive on having the physical stores.
The long tail of ms Excel does not get replaced easily. For 90% of customers and 90% of workflows you see either no use of a program, or use cases that can be replaced with anything. But eventually you'll find the power users who do business critical stuff in excel sheets that you notice can't be done in any other way, and if you stop doing it then people aren't paid in time or whatever. This doesn't mean it's a good…
In my experience, non-basic formulas are beyond 99% of people and they use it simply for adding stuff up in a grid. This is why Google Sheets is used in many places as a replacement (even if it balloons RAM usage when presented with a large sheet of data), simply because all of the wonderful features of Excel are unused.
The most complex operation some people do seems to be lookup tables.
The real risk to MS here is when people take the plunge and see how much nicer a (well supported, well put together) Linux distro is, compared to Windows etc! Will they want to buy their next laptop at home with MSFT installed? Plus, if countries moving off Microsoft put a fraction of the savings into libre office product development, it might get an even more lopsided comparison!
Firstly, I would wager a large amount of personal computing is now done on a phone/tablet. None of my relatives have laptops for personal use. They may have work laptop (which will be running Windows). I this often with a lot of Linux users where they are still fighting the last war which has long been lost.
Secondly, Every single Linux/DE distro has a bunch of issues. Doesn't matter what it is. There are loads of odd bugs (doesn't matter the DE or Distro) that are present, that simply don't exist on Windows. These are things around device and display handling
e.g.
- My bluetooth mouse needs paired again every kernel update. My solution to this will be to buy another mouse probably.
- One of my USB wireless headsets doesn't work with Pipewire. The solution to this was to buy another one.
- Games while it is great that I could finally ditch Windows for playing games. You have to be using the right DE. This is because Mutter (which is Gnome's Window Manager), completely fucks the frame-pacing in some games. KDE that doesn't happen. This is why Gaming distros exist because all these stupid problems with Gaming are pre-fixed by the distro.
- When I changed from Gnome to KDE, all my browser sessions tabs, logins etc were gone because KDE Keyrings and Gnome Keyrings for some reason don't use the same underlying store.
All of these issues need either new hardware / obscure settings to be enabled via the terminal to fix, or require two large projects to actually talk to each other.
Thirdly, it isn't just the OS. For every application on the computer you have to either see if the program is supported on Linux and/or there is an alternative, or they may have a bunch of stuff tied into the Microsoft Ecosystem. Sometimes there isn't really an alternative.
Finally, Unlike big corporations you get bizarre things happening in Linux-distro land almost weekly due to some personal drama. This is seldom reported on because honestly this happens in smaller enthusiast projects normally, but they have a way of trickling up into the wider ecosystem.
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Lifelong Linux/Unix user here, I love the widespread adoption of Linux. But comments like this one makes me think people don't realize what a MacGyvere'd together hack job a Linux distro truly is. The idea on paper is that a company like Microsoft can offer a more consistent and stable experience, but apparently they're even failing at that these days. But to look at a Linux distro as an alternative to consistency an…
This was an issue, but at this point Microsoft is placing ads everywhere, negative news on my desktop, and update nags with changing buttons in every other start. Nothing about it is smooth or consistent anymore. Seriously I've learned about the death of hundreds of people when I switched on my music PC (the only reason I have one windows machine is music software) - I haven't asked for this, and I removed news befor…
I have one setup with all my media/games and have removed every piece of Microsoft possible.
The real risk to MS here is when people take the plunge and see how much nicer a (well supported, well put together) Linux distro is, compared to Windows etc! Will they want to buy their next laptop at home with MSFT installed? Plus, if countries moving off Microsoft put a fraction of the savings into libre office product development, it might get an even more lopsided comparison!
They are replacing Office365.
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We were neutral, but it's always funny how many US-guys always bring up WW2. That was maybe the last time, the US did anything "good" for the world. But yeah, I think it's useless to argue with you.
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Also I'm not sure people understand what Swiss (or for that matter Irish) neutrality means.