GUI

[Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill]

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003, Keith Mastin wrote:
> consider this. What the courts have effectively done is tell other
> vendors not to do what M$ is doing or has done to get where they are,
> effectively sealing M$'s position as a market leader.

If you are talking about business practices, that's the message.
As for sealing Microsoft's business position: it was sealed anyway.
The trend in hardware prices over the past few years clearly indicates
that consumers want cheaper machines.  There is no way that could
happen if vendors had to pay for two operating system licenses, or
if they had to pay a higher price per unit.  The only way to get
around that problem was to build the system from scratch, which
isn't an option when consumers want to buy brand name products.

It was too late by the time the DOJ sealed a deal with Microsoft
to stop that practice.  Most consumers wanted Windows at that point,
because they equated computers with Windows (that was Microsoft's
biggest triumph).  It didn't matter how much press OS/2 recieved,
just as it doesn't matter how much press Linux and Macintosh receive
today.  The only inroads will be with the computer literate segment
of the market.

<rant>
Seeming as everybody likes to bring up their mother when it comes
to usability, why don't I bring up my mother when it comes to
marketability.  She knew what OS/2 was, and I made sure that her
software ran on it almost flawlessly.  Every problem she bumped
into was blamed on it not being Windows.  (Even though I could
reproduce every problem under Windows.)  She knows what Mac OS is
and has used older versions, yet she thought that Linux was Mac OS
the first few times she used my computer -- which had IceWM at that
point!

Now this is a person who had OS/2, then Linux, then Mac OS, then
NetBSD, then FreeBSD, rammed down her throat for the last seven
years I lived at home.  To this day she uses a Macintosh for her
cookbook, and she was using a FreeBSD box for the internet just a
couple of months ago.  She didn't simply hear about this stuff, she
lived through it.  Yet she still identifies computers with Windows.
</rant>

Byron.
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