Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. Same for many SE Asian, Eastern European, African and LatinoAmerican countries as well....
For private individuals and small institutions, yes, they would definitely use linux if windows was 100% impossible to pirate.
For corporations and bigger institutions, no, they would 100% continue to use windows just because of the control they can have on their devices, group policies, single sign on, and so on. It’s possible to do that on Linux, but not as easily. They’re already paying 15 dollars / month to microsoft just for AAD/entra/[whatever they call it this week] or even more to have office integrated with that and $200 for a permanent license for a single PC is a drop in the bucket
at work we once bought licenses from Autodesk and one day, when we realized that we didn’t need it anymore and we could use a better alternative, they sent us a letter where they assumed that we stopped paying because we started to pirate. They basically threatened us to allow to run some malware on our computers to check compliance, or someone could tip us off to local authorities. They even tried to bribe the person who read the letter by ending the letter with something like “in case of piracy, the whistleblower could be rewarded financially”. It was a regular mail, so we just ignored it.
it’s a bit disingenuous to think that corporations are using windows just because employees are familiar with that. Unless the work is only using a web browser, you need programs and stuff, you don’t simply switch to Linux. Especially when “familiar with windows” for an average employee it just means “know where the icons are, and open Facebook in a browser”.
A corporation would surely love to save $100k if they could just have a windows skin on Linux and force employees to watch a 1-hour video on training to use the new system. But then if they need to run [PROGRAM X]? and if they need to run [PROGRAM Y]? And what if some quirk of running [PROGRAM Z] on Wine introduces some bug that causes slowdowns and monetary loss?
They intentionally choose windows, and they will pay whatever Microsoft tells them because:
they can have support from less specialized (=cheaper) techs
they can control everything of their computers from a centralized position. If they want, they can force push the goatse image as the wallpaper on each single employee and nobody could change that.
it works well with the programs they use, and they are in a configuration that can be supported by techs
Random thought: Windows is largely successful because of Piracy
Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. Same for many SE Asian, Eastern European, African and LatinoAmerican countries as well....