The idea was built around a simple, yet devilishly clever premise.
According to a clause buried in Microsoft's own End User Licensing Agreement for the Windows OS, users who didn't agree to the company's licensing terms — indeed, who didn't want to use Windows at all — could return the unused Windows CD they'd received bundled with their new PC for a refund. Thus was born "Windows Refund Day."
For weeks prior to the Feb. 15 target date, the buzz on the Net was that this organized mass-refund event would be a major coup for users of so-called alternative operating systems such as Linux and the BeOS. Still, despite such high-profile supporters as consumer advocate Ralph Nader, what actually happened when the Refund Day arrived barely rated a blip on industry-watchers' radar.
Rather than an outraged mob of refund-seekers, news media on hand to record the event captured only the image of some 100 nerdy-looking protesters, shambling their way toward Microsoft's Foster City offices waving badly spelled placards. By some accounts, only 20 or so of these were actually seeking refunds for their unused copies of Windows; the rest were there "in support." Nobody got a refund.
What happened? Where was the foretold consumer backlash against Microsoft's monopoly domination of the operating systems market? Here was an event tailor-made for the little guy to take a stand in favor of OS choice — and seemingly, the little guy blew it.
Or on the other hand, maybe he succeeded; it's just that the point he was making wasn't the one we were expecting. Maybe the real lesson of Windows Refund Day isn't that Windows is really okay, but rather that the era of operating system loyalty as a driving force in the computer industry is itself coming to a close.
And as a result, maybe it's not just Microsoft, but the entire old model of personal computing that needs changing.
Let's face it, almost no one buys a computer system solely for the pleasure they get from using the Mac OS interface, or for the theoretical power they could get from a Linux installation. Where once choice was as simple as "I want an Atari" or "I want an IBM," today's consumers buy computers to read email, surf the Web, compose memos in a word processor, create graphics, or crunch spreadsheets. However well made a toolbox you buy, what really matters are the tools you fill it with.
It's no surprise, then, that so many users look no further than Windows when it comes time to choose a computing platform. Microsoft's OS enjoys a huge advantage in the sheer number of end-user applications available for it. By comparison, the success of other operating systems has been based largely on niche markets: the Mac OS for publishing, the Amiga for digital video, and so on.
When Adobe Systems released versions of its graphic arts software products for Windows which were comparable feature-for-feature to the Macintosh versions, many organizations in Adobe's core market began to consider abandoning their traditional Mac platform.
Not only was the hardware to run Windows less expensive, but Microsoft's operating system provided a wealth of applications better suited to tasks other than graphics than what was then available for the Mac. A computer that could run Photoshop was fine; a computer that could do that, and run a state-of-the-art spreadsheet as well, was even better.
Consumers know that the computer they buy tomorrow is virtually guaranteed to be more powerful and less expensive than the one available to them today. As a result, computer users are dollar-conscious and slow to be sold on dead-end trends.
It's not enough to have the machine that makes the best graphics, or the machine that runs the fastest database. Today's "power users" are greedy. They want to have it all at once. What happens when they're told they can't occasionally leads to some very interesting developments.
Consider the case of the recent lawsuit filed by Sony Computer Entertainment against Connectix Corporation of San Mateo. Sony alleges that a Connectix product called Virtual Game Station encourages bootlegging of CD-ROMs designed for Sony's PlayStation game console.
Connectix, on the other hand, disagrees with Sony's accusation, claiming code built into Virtual Game Station specifically prevents such piracy. Their real aim is to wake up the public to a different idea: simply put, that you shouldn't have to buy a Sony PlayStation to enjoy PlayStation software.
Virtual Game Station is but one entry in the increasingly popular category of software known as "emulators." By simulating the PlayStation console hardware in the memory of a Macintosh with a G3 processor, it lets users run PlayStation games directly on their home computers, rather than on Sony's proprietary console plugged into a television.
Besides the PlayStation, other game consoles to receive this treatment include the Atari 2600, Intellivision, Sega Genesis, Nintendo, and Super Nintendo. A new emulator called UltraHLE even successfully mimics the 3-D intensive Nindendo64 console.
Where Virtual Game Station and UltraHLE differ from older emulators is that they don't just simulate slow, archaic systems on fast new computers. Their aim is to run the software for the latest and greatest game systems that Sony and Nintendo have to offer, with performance equal to the original consoles, on today's PC hardware.
Though neither emulator runs every available game for their platform, that they work as well as they do is an impressive feat. Perhaps, too, their appearance is a telling sign of the direction of the software industry to come.
Emulation isn't just limited to "toy" game consoles. For example, Connectix VirtualPC is but one of three (count 'em) emulation products allowing Mac users to run Windows and Windows applications on Apple hardware. Similar (but less popular) products exist to run the Mac OS under Windows, including Microcode Solutions' Fusion.
Even more interesting are the possibilities for "alternative OSs," such as the BeOS and Linux. WINE and SheepShaver are emulation projects for these operating systems that promise to do any current emulation offerings one better.
Their goal is to run Windows and Mac software, respectively, directly under either Linux or the BeOS. Users won't have to install the Apple or Microsoft operating systems to run applications written for them, unlike Fusion or VirtualPC. Instead, they can just reap the benefits.
Make no mistake, emulation isn't a perfect solution for running software that wasn't originally designed with your operating system platform in mind. Today's emulation technology is often much slower than the genuine OS article.
But it does take the average computer user one step closer to the as-yet-unrealized promise of technologies like Sun Microsystems' Java. A program, written once, could potentially run anywhere, on any operating system. And unlike with Java, improved emulation technology could mean the software wouldn't need to be written using any special language or technique.
That's why the poor turn-out at Windows Refund Day neither surprised or disappointed me too much. I'm not so concerned over who wins this week's round of the OS wars. No, like all the other office chair potatoes who didn't make it out to Foster City on February 15, I'm waiting for the day when it doesn't even matter.
Today the battle lines seem drawn between Microsoft's market dominance and users of other operating systems, like Linux. But in the end, the Microsofts and the Linux supporters of the world alike may find that, like Michael Crichton's dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, computer users will find a way to achieve what they want — in spite of the obstacles their OS throws at them.
Maybe then we'll all be able to stop bickering and get some work done. That, to me, would be really revolutionary.
