posted 1 year ago
I think Lowes Hardware stores have used Linux terminals as well, although come to think of it, I just replaced a dishwasher and I think I noticed one of the more archaic Windows GUI frameworks. Perhaps. Either that or one of the more distinctive Linux look-and-feels.
Banks and other old-line businesses were long entrenched in the IBM world, and when IBM PCs came out, that pushed them into MS-DOS. But as Microsoft became more prominent and IBM less so, the old "Nobody eer got fired for buying IBM" became "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft". There were a few attempts to use OS/2 in kiosks and ATMs, but I think by now the people who went that route have all been fired.
I think a lot of why Microsoft has held on so long in places where it's not really that good an option is because corporations like a "neck to choke" when things go wrong and there's nothing like a Fortune Company for a good neck. Granted, Linux has had a few major vendors, but management likes simple choices, so if you have a Soviet-style option of one vendor or a confusion of Red Hat, Canonical, and SuSe, for example, Windows, having already been familiar from everyone's desktop won out.
Of course now IBM owns Red Hat, but these days that's more a case of Red Hat improving IBM's presence and image than the other way around.
Sometimes the only way things ever got fixed is because people became uncomfortable.
