Robert Scoble talked today about why he thinks Windows users aren’t early adopters in a recent blog post:

So, a new mobile app wins out over one that runs on Windows, I told them. Why? Microsoft Windows just isn’t on a tech battlefront anymore, according to my biases.

Why? And where did those biases come from?

Well, I sit next to people on planes or cafes and I watch their behavior and often I even get brave enough to ask what they have loaded on their machines. I’ve sat next to dozens of people running Windows. In the past year I have yet to find one that’s loaded anything new in the past six months. Compare that to someone who has a new Android or iPhone or a new iPad. Those folks load dozens of apps and are proud of them.

It’s a clever way to play to his core audience – Mac users. As a former employee of Microsoft, he should know better.

Perhaps it’s simply that we Windows users have applications that have worked fine for decades, and we don’t need shiny new ones. 

Seriously.

Photoshop and PaintShop Pro: I’ve had one or the other of these installed on my machines since the mid-90’s. One’s from Corel, one’s from Adobe. They both get the job done. They’re not shiny or new. I don’t need a dozen small single purpose apps like Instagr.am for putting a Sepia filter on all my images. If I want my photographs to look like they’re 200 years old, I can do that with a 20+ year old program.

Sony Vegas: Again, I’ve had this on my machine since around 1999 or so. It’s been around longer. I don’t need a shiny new app to put stupid effects on my video. Video editing is Serious Business. I have a $4,000 machine that I had purpose built for full HD video editing. Why would I cripple my efforts and buy a new piece software for video editing that was written last week?

Productivity Tools: I don’t use many client side “office tools.” I don’t have Shiny New Apps installed either. I use web based versions. Technically, I have a Shiny New Icon on my desktop that loads up Chrome and goes directly to Google Docs. It’s not a client app.

IM and Communications: I have Skype installed. It’s not particularly shiny or new – it’s been around for almost a decade now. Why “upgrade” to a different platform? One in five people worldwide is on Skype.

I could go on and on down the list. Most of my programs are old. I do have a few new programs – like TweetDeck, Spotify and the Hulu Desktop version. My home media server runs on Windows and sports some unusual and new programs – more so than the average Apple-based home media setup, I’d warrant.

Is early adopter behavior a Mac user only phenomenon?

No. iPads, iPhones and the new world of Apple (as well as the Google-verse of ChromeOS, Android, and other whatnot), are, in essence, a nascent world. Nothing works well there – at least not with a multi-decade track record of excellence.

But don’t for an instant think that early adopters can’t be PC users. In fact, most of the innovators who create the toys early adopters love are created by PCs. Folks who need to do Serious Business in a reliable manner use PCs.

Simply put – the PC platform is in an entirely different part of it’s lifecycle in relationship to these newer platforms. It’s also a mainstream device – so when Robert is running around polling random Windows users, he’s asking a lot of mainstream, non-early adopters what new apps they like. Compare that to an Android or an iPad user: they’re running around trying to find programs like mad that do basic functions in an acceptable manner. Of course they’re going to have a bunch of new apps on their phone. They are all new apps.

Take a look, though, at the voluminous repositories for Windows applications already in existence on the web. CNet has maintained Download.com for ages. Tucows.com has been a repository for new apps since the inception of the modern web. There are millions of new apps there. Someone’s using them.

What’s the take-a-way here? Robert Scoble readily admits he’s biased against Windows-centric early adopter trends. That, however, shouldn’t be taken as a signal that there are no early adopters on the Windows platforms.