This article reads like a lot of wishful thinking, to me.
Maybe, maybe not. Amid a strong tech rally, fewer than before are backing this horse.
Posted on 12/28/2003 10:55:37 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Edited on 12/28/2003 12:53:44 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
The good news for the consumer is that I've noticed that software like OpenOffice is getting a higher profile and I don't see it being dismissed like it used to be.
Also, the article is correct in pointing out that MS isn't just sitting back using tactics preemptively to shore up their poisiton in the marketplace.
This article reads like a lot of wishful thinking, to me.
Maybe, maybe not. Amid a strong tech rally, fewer than before are backing this horse.
100% microsoft free and loving it!
Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!
Got root?
I just built a new machine for myself, but I did it because I wanted to, not because the old one was slow or outdated. Few people are like me in that regard. If you need a machine for simple things like entering orders, typing letters, and keeping address books, anything bought in the last 2 years should last ages.
Along came IBM with Microsoft and an operating system standard emerged for software development.
Today, over 85% of all computers around the world are compatible with the Microsoft software standard.
Companies today, are able maximize their profits by creating software that is compatible with the vast majority of computers. No longer do they need to spend valuable man-years in adapting their software toward the lowest common denominator.
No matter how hard you try, the lowest common denominator will always produce software that is unable to exploit new capabilities. The result is poor software for everyone.
How many of you remember why almost all of the early software was text based only? Graphics interfaces were not standardized and ASCII was the only common interface between the multiple operating systems and languages available. Even ASCII was not universal, since companies like IBM continued to insist upon EBCDIC as their binary representation of text.
Love it or hate it, Microsoft created a standard. Today, we see software at very low costs, which would simply be impossible to do without a common software environment.
Instead of creating software chaos once again, we must focus upon fixing the problems within the Microsoft operating system.
Smart way to do it.
A great example of this principle is the layout of the keys on a keyboard. Have you ever wondered why the keys are where they are? It goes all the way back to manual strike typewriters. The keys were layed out to optimize how the metal arms struck the paper. It had nothing to do with the convenience of the typer. This reason for laying out the keys on the keyboard was lost when the electric typewriter was invented (hello IBM) and this was decades before the personal computer.
Even though there have been no metal arms for decades, the keys are still layed out in the same place. Attempts to "rationalize" the keyboard, e.g. DVORAK instead of QWERTY failed miserably. Apple in fact offered this as an option for a while.
ESPERANTO is another example of the failure of the "rational" solution. This was the intellectual's attempt to rationalize the language people speek. Seriously! I bet Howard Dean knows how to speak it. If he becomes the Rat nominee he may even give a speech in it. The elites would go ga ga over this.
But nobody in the real world wants to switch to the 'better product' if the current product works well enough. For those old enough to remember, Technocracy Inc. is another failed effort to replace market choice with a more 'rational' solution. It never works.
Microsoft will not rule forever. They will one day be dethroned by the market place. The economic arguments the author makes have some validity. But only a fool buys the 'Linux is free' argument. It may be free for the geek working at home but not for a serious enterprise. Large corporations may one day pay IBM to support Linux for them rather than pay Microsoft to support Windows. But I don't see this in the near future.
In fact, I bet if we dug deep enough we would find that the author has ties to IBM. IBM is still pissed that they gave 100s of billions of dollars away to Microsoft. Linux is their current attempt to retake the field.
FWIW
Any way you slice it, if even half of the content of this article is correct, Microsoft has become a "sell". The more agressive will sell short.
Which everyone accesses on Windows boxes.
Linux has not penetrated the vast bulk of one of the largest companies on the planet...except to displace Sun with PCs running Linux.
However. I visited Fry's yesterday and they still want $200 for a "full version" of XP, and $90 for an "upgrade version". Outrageous.
--Boris
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