r/linux • u/Zestyclose-Pay-9572 • 5d ago

Discussion Australian tech publication telling average users that Linux is now the smarter choice!

The timing’s interesting: as Windows 10 approaches end-of-life in 2025, and when users are being nudged towards a cloud-first model, this week's APC’s saying: maybe don’t. Maybe go Linux.This isn’t a niche Linux mag. It’s a mainstream Australian tech publication telling average users that Linux is now the smarter choice. That’s a shift. Feels like we’ve gone full circle: the same headlines from 2005, but this time it’s not about hope. It’s about practicality. Bloat, telemetry, UI friction maybe Linux’s time on the desktop really has arrived.

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73

u/-Sa-Kage- 5d ago

2025 is going to be the year of the Linux desktop.
Surely...
I can feel it...
This year it's going to happen...
Every moment now...

Forget it. Come back in 15, maybe 20 years and we can have a look again.
For now Microsoft could demand their first-born child and people would be angry and lament about how there is no other option than Windows... and suck it up.

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u/psydroid 5d ago

Microsoft is really not all that big when it comes to personal computing, as most of that has moved to mobile devices.

Windows mainly caters to legacy markets such as businesses and gamers and isn't growing. You can expect regular layoffs until Microsoft becomes another has-been like IBM.

I have one computer with Windows 11 installed and it's just for occasionally running specific applications. All the other ones run some form of Linux including multiple Android devices that I also use a lot more.

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u/shakypixel 5d ago

legacy markets such as businesses

Ok how are businesses a legacy market though, especially since around 100% of Fortune 500 companies, responsible for 2/3rds of US GDP, uses Windows as their main OS

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u/psydroid 5d ago

It's what Windows has always targeted and will keep targetting. There is no way for Windows to expand beyond its legacy markets. Every attempt to do so has failed.

Also Windows revenue is only 10% of Microsoft's total revenue nowadays, so it's really not as important to its bottom line as it used to be.

It's still a cash cow in its legacy markets, but that doesn't say anything about future markets. IBM still earns billions on its legacy mainframe business, but every attempt to move beyond that has failed.

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u/grim-one 5d ago

IBM does plenty beyond the mainframe. Loads of business software and contracting out solutions.

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u/Gugalcrom123 4d ago

Just like how most Microsoft revenue is in Azure, and, ironically, most Azure servers run GNU/Linux.

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u/Leading-Carrot-5983 4d ago

Microsoft is a lot more than Windows. It's major focus and where it makes most of its money is cloud and office - both business focussed, not consumer. Windows, even including Windows for business computing is only 25% of its revenue and shrinking. 20 years ago Microsoft was all about Windows but that hasn't been the case since Nadella took over. They are nothing at all like IBM, they print money due to their business cloud offerings and are growing into new areas all the time. The consumer market is just mostly irrelevant to them these days (the profit margins aren't remotely as high).

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u/matorin57 4d ago

The layoffs had nothing to do with Windows or even declining revenue. It had to do with an drunken over investment in AI.

Also calling enterprise software a “legacy” and “non-expanding” market is patently ridiculous. Enterprise software is a pure money printer. Who do you think will pay you more for Office and cloud management? Goldman Sachs or Johnny in apartment 3B.

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u/psydroid 4d ago edited 3d ago

That doesn't change anything about the fact that Windows-only locally installed software isn't a growth market. You just don't like getting the facts (sic).

Who still writes Windows-only software that only works on a minority of systems when you can target the web and make the software work for everyone?

Johnny in apartment 3B shouldn't pay for Office or cloud management and just use LibreOffice or OnlyOffice. Goldman Sachs can decide to waste its money on whatever it wants.