kaled - 2:27 pm on Jul 24, 2009 (gmt 0)

I haven't tried WINE but I know enough about Windows to be very sceptical of any claim to being able run Windows programs reliably - hell, Windows struggles to Windows programs reliably! I'm sure developers could get their software to work ok under WINE, but the reality is most won't bother unless there is money in it.

And if money is the motivation for people using UNIX/WINE/Chrome-OS instead of Windows, that means they want free software so that means developers won't make the effort to make their software WINE compatible. Sure, some stuff will work fine and other stuff will work ok, but it's a huge leap to assume that WINE is going to kill Windows.

Chrome-OS will have to kill off all the other versions of Linux before it has a prayer of making major inroads into Windows market share. I could be wrong, but techies tend to use Linux and techies tend to be very aware of privacy issues, consequently they are very suspicious of Google, consequently, they are not likely to switch to Chrome-OS in droves.

Even on netbooks, where Chrome-OS would have the best chance of domination, it could easily fail if Microsoft continue to supply and support XP at minimal cost.

Kaled.

[edited by: engine at 8:04 am (utc) on July 25, 2009]
[edit reason] Tidying up [/edit]