Why do we shovel Windows?

It’s starting to become common knowledge that there are alternatives to Windows, even among the general computing populace. They might not know of Linux or OSX in particular, but they have seen ads or heard someone that they know talk about “another type of computer”. These “common computer users” are, when in a position to purchase their next computer, or order for their schools, likely will order “Dells”. Not because they know anything about what they are ordering – but because that is what they are used to. There is certainly something to be said about that (even super geeks are partial to certain vendors).

I found an article via Digg on CRN that talks about just this phenomenon and suggests that when dealing with children, why not introduce them to Linux – the don’t have the same Windows centric world view that adults tend to have, so essentially they won’t know better. The only trick to doing this is that you need techs and admins that are willing to put in the time for support (likely less than Windows) and explain to parents (who obviously know how to best educate their kids anyway) why the kids are using some flavour or Linux or OSX (both costing less than Windows systems) and not Windows, because for those parents; Windows is used everywhere! Why are you doing this to our children… will someone please think of the children!