Are operating systems important anymore?

I was thinking about Jim Forbes post, and my reply to it. The more I think about it, the more the Windows vs OSX battle really is getting kinda irrelevant.

It’s just coming up for 11:30 in the morning and I have a confession to make. I have only used two applications so far this morning: Firefox & Thunderbird, a web browser and email application respectively. I’m pretty sure I didn’t use anything else yesterday either.

There seem to be two main drivers making my operating system irrelevant:

• A lot of my software is now cross platform. You can get hold of both Firefox & Thunderbird for Windows, OSX and Linux;
• I spend increasing amounts of time using my browser accessing applications on our intranet and out in the cloud. I doubt I am alone.

One of the impressive things that Apple has done, and one of the things that Jim drew attention to in his post, is that when you buy an Apple box you get a raft of high quality software bundled with it.

When those applications are all available online why would I need them bundling with my PC? One of the main benefits of using online apps is that I can use them anytime from anywhere with no installation or maintenance hassles.

It is said that generals are always planning the next war as if it were the last one. I think that Apple is fighting the last war. The operating system really isn’t that important. Where is Apple’s online video editing suite? They have the .MAC service, it’d feel right at home there.