In practice, Windows is still the de facto standard in industrial software.

At least in my experience I’m based in Korea and have worked on code that goes into enterprise systems — most MES and related systems are still built around MS SQL. SQL Server is very much alive in that space. It may feel outdated from a modern app development perspective, but the reality is that it’s deeply embedded through vendor lock-in.

What’s often called “legacy” is also, in another sense, a massive accumulation of layers built on top of it. That history has weight.

In most environments I’ve seen, the architecture ends up being hybrid: Windows on one side (for equipment control, MES, vendor tools), and Linux on the other (for backend services, data processing, etc.).

From the perspective of the companies I’ve worked with, there’s also a different way of looking at Linux. I often hear that “there’s no clear owner” — meaning no single vendor they can hold accountable. With Windows-based stacks, they feel like there’s at least a defined support boundary.

In the end, I think it comes down to perspective.