Because senior management forces workers to use it.
I'm a scientist who analyzes large data sets. I also need to communicate to my co-workers. I need a secure operating system without a lot of eye-candy that makes it look like a tablet and lets me give priority to my data analysis tasks. Windows is not it, but I have to use it.
But you can use things like Excel easily in a VM. Not pull your hair out hard, but easily. Then you can parse Excel or Word with Python in Linux easily.
I just don't get how we still allow closed source operating systems for critical business tasks.
Try deploying and a different OS with easily understandable UI. Make it easy so that companies can issue laptops and upon first login the machines are appropriately imaged per the user needs. Make sure that strong user limits are in place to prevent users from running bitcoin-mining/porn-servers/or-worse on corporate machines and then and only then, you may have a shot at disrupting the Windows enterprise stronghold.
If you were to poll corporate user income and their provided OS, you will likely find that 99% of workers earning low wages (i.e. not trusted by their companies) are provided windows, the more someone earns the more likely they are to have a choice in OS from their employer--just my hypothesis.
I just don't get how we still allow closed source operating systems for critical business tasks.
Maybe I'm a bit behind the times, but some collection of VM, MVS, OS/390 aka zOS, CICS, IMS, DB2, RACF, SNA, Oracle, SAP etc etc is probably running the majority of America's critical business tasks. Did it all get open sourced when I wasn't looking?
Needless to say, Google Docs and Gmail are not open source either....
Because senior management forces workers to use it.
I'm a scientist who analyzes large data sets. I also need to communicate to my co-workers. I need a secure operating system without a lot of eye-candy that makes it look like a tablet and lets me give priority to my data analysis tasks. Windows is not it, but I have to use it.