Here's my thing: way, way long ago, I had a PC running DOS / Windows 3.1. Yeah, that long ago. But I was also using Unix workstations at my university. Eventually, I did what many people were doing, and installed Linux on my PC. This allowed me to use the same environment and the same utilities as on my work machines. Along comes Windows 95, and everyone in the Windows world has to migrate their world to the new OS; but, I was able to keep rolling along with Linux. A few years later, boom, the Windows 9x line is being scrapped, everybody has to switch to Windows NT/2000/etc. (which finally brings some of the nice features that other OSs, like, say, Linux, have had all along), and everyone has to switch again. Or, like me, just keep using Linux.

At one point, I finally acquired an Apple Mac Mini to see what it was like (especially with the new OS X, based on BSD Unix!). It was nice, but eventually Apple dropped support for the PowerPC. At which point, I (of course) installed Linux, and just kept rolling on.

Then, I picked up an N900, because, you know, Linux.

I'm mostly living in a world where I don't need to keep switching between operating systems, because the OS I like keeps migrating onto my devices for me. I already have the "Internet of Things" going on here -- I'm able to communicate fairly easily to pretty much anything with a CPU in my house, because everything with a CPU is running Linux (or something like it) right now.

This is, I think, an aspect that folks are missing today; as a software engineer, you may constantly be looking for the most disruptive technology. Consumers, though, are more likely looking for the least disruptive technology. That's why Windows has hung on for so long; that's why Apple is so conservative in their UI choices; that's why other mobile manufacturers stick with Android to the exclusion of all other options. If you can offer the consumer something that does what they need, but doesn't disrupt their existing workflow significantly, you'll have a winner.