Columnist Stewart Alsop thought Windows XP would make his computing life better, but that didn’t happen, he writes in a new column for Fortune .
The columnist thought XP might be more stable and easier to use than earlier versions of Windows. Plus, “it offered cool new features for photographs and wireless networks,” Alsop writes.
“I wonder why such an amazing giant of technology as Microsoft — which argues vociferously for its right to integrate new technology into its operating system — can’t do better than this,” he said. “XP was supposed to finally replace old-world MS-DOS with a modern, stable platform that can be modified for new technologies without the pain and suffering we all experienced in the past. So why doesn’t XP work a whole lot better?”
Saying that the Windows update is neither “all that new or stable,” the columnist thinks that more folks should give Apple hardware and software a look. Alsop himself admits to increasingly using Mac OS X at home.
“You don’t have to restart your computer all the time,” he writes. “Managing programs and data is even easier than before.”
And Alsop thinks that Microsoft and Windows is so mired in the past that Apple could use the advantages to “compete effectively.”
“And I’m beginning to think that Microsoft looks like a company too wedded to past practices to keep up,” he writes. “Heck, what do they need to worry about with $38 billion in cash and net profits close to 30 percent on every dollar they collect? Yes, indeed, what does Microsoft have to worry about?”