I want competition, though I do like having a clear winner that creates defacto standards. The problem with a clear winner is that they don't create defacto standards. They create proprietary standards. I want standards to be open and either produced through consensus or trade associations.
I remember the days of a wide open industry and it really kind of sucked, seemed then you needed at least two systems to be able to use all the software you wanted because you could garauntee that the best of breed of at least one type wouldn't be made for System X.
With modern compilers and object libraries, it is much easier to cross compile and would be easier still if interfaces were not as proprietary.
Having a standard really helps avoid that, but competition is good, keeping whoever is on the top of the heap on their toes is good for everybody, having alternatives is great.
If one company can patent what becomes a critical standard, then they can shut out the competition. I'd rather not even risk that. It is bad enough having one entity that can tax me. I don't want two. The only way I'd want that level of standardization is if the OS is open (e.g., Linux or FreeBSD).
That's why Bill won, and why things wouldn't be that much different than they are now if Steve had won.
Oh, I agree that Steve winning wouldn't be ideal, either. I don't want a winner. I want competition.
Sorry about bad formatting. I'm sure you can recognize your own comments and mine.
Trade associations setting standards are highly overrated. And a lot of the standards that get set are pretty open even if proprietary. Everybody making word processing software can get a hold of the Word doc standard and can open and save Word docs if they really want to.
It might be easier (it usually takes more than just compiler options, you've got to do some heavy rewriting to port something to another system) but there's not reason to think they would do it. Look at how few pieces of software are available for both the Mac and PC, how many for either platform are written for Linux, there's no reason to think that if we had a wide open space with 3 or 4 standards like in the crazy old days more companies would write to all the standards than did before or do now.
I'm not into open source. I see why it's attractive from some standpoints but I believe in propieretary closed off systems. I would never work for a company that did open source, the software might be better but if you don't own the keys you don't own the house.
There's still competition even with winners. Netscape came 2 bad decisions away from making the desktop OS immaterial. Linux is coming on strong as serious competition for the desktop OS. That's the great part about business, no victory is permanent, there's always somebody else willing to go against you and they might even win.