Royal Navy still plumping for Windows

As reported here back in 2004, the Royal Navy's next generation of destroyers, the Type 45 class, will run a customized version of Microsoft Windows, dubbed Windows for Warships:

Those acquainted with the more foam-lipped Linux fanciers will also be familiar with the position that Windows use is morally corrupt, indicative of sexual perversion, and causes cancer.

A lot of customers keep buying from Microsoft, however. One may want to deploy a particular kind of hardware, perhaps used only by a few organisations. It may well be that you can only get the associated software from the hardware maker, and the vendor in question doesn't provide anything other than Windows-based machines.

One type of hardware where this is happening more and more is warships.

I still think Jon's comment from 2004 is appropriate: "It kind of makes sense, you know. Some wanker at the ministry fired up a Windows box, found the Minesweeper game and realized they could get rid of all those pesky real ships."