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Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

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Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#91

Post by eyko »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #64
chrisseaton wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Europe myself and it's MacBook Pros where I live. And I go to conferences all around the world and all I see is MacBook Pros everywhere. > And I wouldn't call tech workers here as influential, not at all. Tech works who influence other tech workers. This is important because if everyone you see speaking at conferences is using a MacBook, and all the software available is for MacBooks, then other people are…

By Europe I meant continental Europe, no the UK. The UK is heavily US influenced so there it's more popular. And by devs I mean all SW devs, not just Web Devs who seem to heavily favor Macs. Conferences are not relevant as they mostly draw huge enthusiasts/geeks of various niches who are very self conscious about their perceived status there(since you go there to network) and don't want to be judged by their high-val…

I'm from continental europe but live in the UK now. I've never counted but Macs have always been very present (rough guess would be 50/50 split back home), but here in the UK, or London specifically, I can probably count devs with PCs that I know with both hands. It definitely is very US influenced here, but we still have to keep in mind that we live in a tech bubble so representation is a bit skewed. I also see lots of Linux running on Lenovos and Dells, especially devs and IT folks, but to be honest, when you look at actual global stats, Linux is 1-2% of the overall European market share[1], and just above 2% when you only count for desktop[2], with macOS around 10% and 20% respectively.

Macs right now are seen everywhere. Literally everywhere in any large city, you'll see Macs in cafes and offices. This means that the 20% desktop market share that they enjoy at the moment is probably the highest it has ever been. I remember back in the 2000s, having a Mac was quite rare in Europe. It was also for the most part a nuisance (same as running Linux) when you had to download windows-specific software or maybe use IE specific websites for work or government related things. Anyone who says that it was an even fight back in the 2000s or earlier either doesn't know what they're talking about or has come from a alternate reality.

1. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/all/europe 2. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#92

Post by scarface74 »

unnouinceput wrote: post #55
marbletiles wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it as "rivalry", perhaps. Think of a mass-market car company that outsells a luxury brands 5x or 10x but whose designers still swipe ideas from them.

Rivalry? In 2001? When only 2 years earlier Billy boy had to buy Apple's shares to keep them afloat? I know Billy boy did that to get off the hook with US govt., not like he was any saint - but from that to "rivalry" is a tall order.

Well, that’s also not true.

Microsoft invested a grand total of $250 million in Apple. Apple turned around during that same quarter and spent $100 million on Power Computings Mac license. Apple didn’t become profitable until years later. The $150 wouldn’t have saved Apple.

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#93

Post by Fnoord »

unnouinceput wrote: post #46

Quote: "Microsoft was developing Windows XP during an era when there was fierce competition with Apple over desktop operating systems" I'm sorry, what? Talk about joke of the week. Apple never had desktop world bigger than 10% as market share. Not even today when it's at the highest peak ever, and in 2001 they were more like 1%. Sorry to burst your bubble Tom Warren, you do realize US is like 35 people out of 800. As…

It is untrue. Microsoft kept Internet Explorer and Office for macOS. MacOS was Microsoft's joker card for arguing they were not a monopolist, and that card was valid when they were under antitrust investigations by US, EU, and others ie. when Windows XP was current.

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#94

Post by schwinn140 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #54
unnouinceput wrote: post #46

Quote: "Microsoft was developing Windows XP during an era when there was fierce competition with Apple over desktop operating systems" I'm sorry, what? Talk about joke of the week. Apple never had desktop world bigger than 10% as market share. Not even today when it's at the highest peak ever, and in 2001 they were more like 1%. Sorry to burst your bubble Tom Warren, you do realize US is like 35 people out of 800. As…

> Apple never had desktop world bigger than 10% as market share. Right but you can differentiate markets. Apple may be 10% worldwide, including Asian markets like India. But what is the market for affluent and influential tech workers in the West? Probably like 95% MacBook Pro. Which market do you think they care more about?

My data does not support that conclusion. To the contrary, the vast majority of business decision makers are still on a Windows based machine in the US.

I can validate this directly as we operate the largest library of long-form professional/technical content library on the web. Over 700k professionals per month are registering and downloading content specific to their needs.

Below is the current breakout of their device factor for 2020:

Windows = 97.26% Mac = 8.21% Linux 2.92% Chrome OS = 0.27%

Clearly just one perspective into the market but we've never seen Mac approach any level of critical mass within the US professional marketplace.

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#95

Post by acdha »

unnouinceput wrote: post #46

Quote: "Microsoft was developing Windows XP during an era when there was fierce competition with Apple over desktop operating systems" I'm sorry, what? Talk about joke of the week. Apple never had desktop world bigger than 10% as market share. Not even today when it's at the highest peak ever, and in 2001 they were more like 1%. Sorry to burst your bubble Tom Warren, you do realize US is like 35 people out of 800. As…

There’s an important distinction between what people bought for themselves and what they were given at work. Apple had a big lead on a quality GUI, and things like color matching, which made them preferred in certain fields and generally had more of a premium cachet (the PC market was still shaking the low-end image of things sold without sound cards, slacking on USB adoption, shoddy drivers, etc.).

Microsoft was shooting for 100% market share and was trying to close every niche keeping Apple alive even if the inertia of all of those business sales meant their total market share was never in question.

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#96

Post by unnouinceput »

jeromegv wrote: post #65
unnouinceput wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rivalry? In 2001? When only 2 years earlier Billy boy had to buy Apple's shares to keep them afloat? I know Billy boy did that to get off the hook with US govt., not like he was any saint - but from that to "rivalry" is a tall order.

You seem to have a beef with Apple but regardless of the difficulties of the company in the 90s, it was still a hugely influential company that popularized GUI interfaces and for sure was well known by engineers and designers of other operating systems.

You missed my point. I have a beef with all of them. In my eyes they are all shitty companies, past and present included.

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#97

Post by milutinovici »

sokoloff wrote: post #71
unnouinceput wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rivalry? In 2001? When only 2 years earlier Billy boy had to buy Apple's shares to keep them afloat? I know Billy boy did that to get off the hook with US govt., not like he was any saint - but from that to "rivalry" is a tall order.

“Billy boy” adds nothing and IMO detracts from what is otherwise a good point.

Yes, please use William man

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#98

Post by specialist »

derefr wrote: post #83
cpach wrote: post #63

I don’t really understand why they did this though…? For inspiration…?

XP was a rewrite of the shell window decorations + controls system, to support drawing these as collections of bitmaps with fonts on top. Likely they were inspired to do this by the fact that macOS was doing things with buttons, modal backgrounds (pinstripe!), etc. that Windows couldn’t do at the time with its hardcoded GDI-draw-call based theming. Microsoft knew that they wanted the flexibility to be able to do what…

Microsoft has never understood that appearance (UI) is the last step. They've never been able to understand and therefore seriously address the stuff behind the veneer.

Anecdata:

The 2008 presentation by the guy in charge of the Office Ribbon best demonstrates their organizational blindness. TLDR: They only set out to better organize the complexity, and make it more pretty. They never considered making the underlying products more simple.

One of my classmates worked on Word for ages. One of his subprojects was WordArt. Knowing of my interest in graphics, UI, CADD, he consulted with me. We talked about direct manipulation, affordances, UI flow, etc. Then he went dark. Later, he gave me a preview demo. He was so proud of WordArt. But it was terrible. I was actually angry. To my younger self's credit, I somehow kept my mouth shut and made complimentary grunts. My friend later went on to create EndNote, which wasn't terrible.

One of my early bosses later went on oversee the login and authentication portions of Windows. Whatever that licensing registration step is called. For years. Having been trained as a real world architect (eg buildings, not software), he understood and accepted that he was just putting lipstick on a pig. But the pay was a lot better and he had family, mortgage for a nice house, shorter commute with a newer car. Real world architects don't expect to actually do the work they love and trained for.

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#99

Post by Shinotiy »

I would love if we would stop analyzing every single detail in public.

I wish HN would have a limited amount of articles, news paper have that already and if the internet is 'out' and i would need to be forced to do something else for the day.

Its probably nice to think and discuss something that specific in desktop/computer historian fansub or so but that should be searched and discovered.

I got so fed up with all the nvidia 30x0 rumors. It was a great launch but every peace of rumor was not adding anything to it.

Re: Microsoft had a secret Windows XP theme that made it look like a Mac

#100

Post by marbletiles »

unnouinceput wrote: post #46

Quote: "Microsoft was developing Windows XP during an era when there was fierce competition with Apple over desktop operating systems" I'm sorry, what? Talk about joke of the week. Apple never had desktop world bigger than 10% as market share. Not even today when it's at the highest peak ever, and in 2001 they were more like 1%. Sorry to burst your bubble Tom Warren, you do realize US is like 35 people out of 800. As…

OK, here are the receipts: internal MS emails from just a couple of years after this (in the run-up to Vista) literally saying that they expect to be compared to Tiger and found wanting:

https://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/197001811/microsoft...

Marketshare isn’t everything. You can have outsized mindshare with a tiny market share. You can compete for more than marketshare, too

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