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Late Adopters Prefer the Tried and True 383

Posted by Zonk
from the little-flexibility-never-hurt-too dept.
smooth wombat writes "There is a fairly significant portion of the population which does not go out and grab the newest OS, gadget, web browser or any other technology related product. Why? It's not because they're luddites but rather, they are comfortable with what they know. Take the case of John Uribe, a 56-year old real estate agent who still uses AOL dial-up and only recently switched to Firefox after being prodded for weeks by an AOL message telling him that on March 1st, AOL would no longer support Netscape. Why did it take him so long to stop using Netscape and make the switch? From the article: 'It worked for me, so I stuck with it. Until there is really some reason to totally abandon it, I won't.'"

Late Adopters Prefer the Tried and True

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  • by eldavojohn (898314) * <eldavojohn@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Thursday March 13, 2008 @08:42AM (#22737808) Journal
    Ok, so I tried to go to OneStat [onestat.com] which was the site mentioned in the article. The article referenced an "internet population" statistic from OneStat:

    But when I went to OneStat, I found it was merely a paid service offered to monitor statistics on your website. I would really like to see that report. Who's website (or group of websites) did they choose? How did they compile this information? The article shows stats grouping all IEs into one and all Firefoxes into one but what are their statistics for IE6, IE7, Lynx, Firefox 2 & Firefox 3? Surely early adopter rates are just as interesting as late adopter rates and surely obscure browsers are what this story is interested in. Why aren't you asking Lynx users why they stick with a text interface?

    Which leads me to a motive I did not find in the article, the motive of the company I work for that employs several hundred thousand employees. There is no push to go to Vista or IE7 so they don't do it. They're late adopters in almost the same sense as no one's asking for it, Microsoft has not yet found a way to force the enterprise community into this pigeonhole and so none of them will do it. On an enterprise level, there's no such thing as 'early adopter' as companies are too busy taking financial and strategic risks to welcome technological risks or 1/10 of their employees failing to have a computer for a couple days.
  • by yuna49 (905461) on Thursday March 13, 2008 @08:48AM (#22737858)
  • by Lumpy (12016) on Thursday March 13, 2008 @08:57AM (#22737938) Homepage
    Real Estate people and offices are KNOWN for being incredibly out-dated. Also Realtors tend to not be technologically savvy. The BEST Agent I ever met not only adopted technology with a furvor but took her time to learn it. She is selling homes at a good rate even now when you are insane to try and sell.

    But the office there where I support them. It's a nightmare. W95 machines still in use! Old 14" monitors that are dark and almost yellow now running on Pentium 133 processors. They refuse to spend the money to upgrade because "these work, why replace it?"

    The one machine I did convince them to replace with new I at least gave them XP and several people complained about it.

    I also found that this is common in Lawyers offices and accounting offices as well. Incredibly outdated gear and software still in use. It's like they are afraid to spend money.
  • Re:Set in their ways (Score:3, Informative)

    by YttriumOxide (837412) <yttriumox@nOsPam.gmail.com> on Thursday March 13, 2008 @09:24AM (#22738186) Homepage Journal
    I applaud your brilliant analogy, but I think you missed the GP's point to an extent. He didn't say it (which is probably why it could be missed) but I think his implication (from his gripe about being in tech support) was that these people who know nothing about the tech still ASK about it, and that's a problem.

    Clearly, you know at least a bit about home construction. Now imagine if all day every day people who "just own homes and live in them" came to ask you stupid questions about construction instead of going off and learning on their own. Then, when you politely suggest they learn something about it, they act as if they don't need to or just blatantly don't want to.

    The person in the article is probably not one of these people from the looks of it, so if my reading of the GP's post is correct, he's offtopic anyway, but I just thought I'd try to defend his viewpoint a little!
  • by Pope (17780) on Thursday March 13, 2008 @09:49AM (#22738456)

    In other news, I'm considering switching to a digital camera any day now.

    Remember to check dpreview.com for details, and pay attention to sensor size. You can find tiny point & shoot cameras with 12 megapixel resolution, but a 6 MP camera with a larger sensor will give you better results, hands down. Fujis are great for better true low-light performance.

    Unless you want a DSLR, then I know nothing ;)
  • by bunratty (545641) on Thursday March 13, 2008 @10:02AM (#22738602)
    Yes, those stats are true, but only for the W3Schools server. If you want the stats for a more representative sample of web traffic, go with one that aggregates data from thousands of various servers: NetApplications, TheCounter, OneStat.
  • by jockeys (753885) on Thursday March 13, 2008 @10:15AM (#22738738) Journal
    could it be that the Teutonic Tupperware just can't compete with the perfect gun, designed by God herself and handed down to JM Browning? :) But seriously, one factor that keeps the 1911 alive and more popular than the Glock is simple ergonomics. Just the the software in TFA, people dig the "interface" of a 1911. (the most common complaints I get about Glocks are either the odd grip angle, or the very wide grip, neither of which is a factor on 1911s) Additionally, the trigger is how the user communicates with the gun, and I don't think anyone will tell you Glocks have a nice trigger pull, especially compared to a 1911 that is properly tuned.

    Kinda funny how it all boils down to the interface, in both worlds.

Oh, so there you are!