Microsoft ...

[Tracy Woo]

Originally posted by Shura Balaganov:

But big companies are usually too politicized and not innovative enough to develop a killer OS.

But that's not because of Microsoft, right?

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Tracy Woo:
It has the potential to develop and market an OS

IBM used to market OS/2 Warp as a consumer OS. It had a small following, was actually supposed to be pretty good, but all-in-all never made much of a dent.

[Michael Ernest]

TW: So what are consumer tools?
ME: The premise here is that M$ is the "big winner" for consumers, i.e., end-users, average users.
TW: Different consumers need different tools. There is not just one set of tools that can be called consumer tools. For some, Excel, LotusNotes, Word, WordPerfect are consumer tools. For some, IDEs, Compilers etc. are consumer tools. For some, only a Browser is a consumer tool.
ME: If you say so. I've been posting on the premise that that there's a big distinction between people who use computers 'just' to get things done -- since this seems to be a major rallying cry for M$-aligned rhetoric here -- and people who use computers to help other people get things done -- developers, service providers, etc.
I have not meant 'consumer' in the more general sense of everyone who consumes something.
TW: You seem to catagorize tools as consumer tools that suit your purpose.
ME: As do you, so that's a wash.
TW: However, the point is, IBM is well into developing s/w.
ME: Well, that's a point, anyway. The point has been whether IBM stakes its survival on income from software development. I claim it doesn't.
TW: [IBM] has the potential to develop and market an OS and MS cannot stop IBM from doing that.
ME: Don't look now, but IBM has an OS; it's called AIX. If you mean that M$ cannot stop IBM from developing and marketing an OS with mass-market appeal, so what. The fact is IBM's taken two bites at that apple with PC-DOC and Warp. The facts are that M$ did manage to push Warp out of the market,. They announced "competitive software" they never created (Remember Cairo? Remember multi-user Windows? Remember Win 3.x and NT being merged into a single codebase?) and they "bundled" Windows with several major mfrs as I described above.
M$ at the time also revised its ISV contracts to make it more difficult for a software development company (most of which are very small) to write a single program for multiple platforms. Their "validation and certification" program at the time was essentially a smokescreen for rooting out generic traps into 3rd party source code that would make the software easier to port. If you could threaten a developer with losing access to M$'s good graces by thinking about Warp, you could essentially keep them in line.
That, again, is not M$'s right. It's an attempt to control the market by inhibiting other providers from producing and selling competitive products.
TW: I am not sure which OS would you call as the dominant OS if not the one that is most widely used. However, what has this got to do with the current discussion???
ME: You tell me. This is what you said above:
WebShereAS, VAJ, ViaVoice etc. are not consumer tools??? Give me a break. VAJ and ViaVoice are probably used more on windows than any other platform.
You seem to be suggesting that those applications are consumer tools because they're used more on Windows that anywhere else. I was just trying to make sense of that non sequitur.

[Shashank Tanksali]

If you could threaten a developer with losing access to M$'s good graces by thinking about Warp, you could essentially keep them in line.

Surely, MS is not threatening developers to use Windows or write applications for Windows at gunpoint. You don't have to use MS products if you don't want to.Surely, there are other options out there, if you don't want to use MS products.It is the developers themselves who are choosing MS products for writing/deploying their applications NOT because of fear of losing access to MS resources, but because their products are good.
Besides, other players like IBM could also employ similar tactics (and some of them do). Use AIX or lose premier access to developerworks,alphaworks etc.
-Shashank

[Michael Ernest]

Originally posted by Shashank Tanksali:

Surely, MS is not threatening developers to use Windows or write applications for Windows at gunpoint.

That's all very dramatic and irrelevant. Businesses don't think about threats of violence from other legitimate businesses; they worry about being able to make money at what they do. M$ doesn't need a gun to make a threat; all they need is control of the marketplace.

You don't have to use MS products if you don't want to. Surely, there are other options out there, if you don't want to use MS products.

Are you talking about developers or end users now? Developers do have a choice about their target platforms, of course. But if they want to make money selling applications to the end-user market, they don't really have the kind of choice you seem to be suggesting. And they don't have that choice precisely because people who buy computers 'just to use them' don't have many choices.
Java might have been a very credible equalizer for targetting your platform of choice with one language. That model is not perfect, but it's still far more cost-effective than porting C/C++ applications to differing hardware targets. Even so, M$ has tried to make it harder to use Java. It seems to me only after that clearly wasn't going to work did C# emerge on the scene.

It is the developers themselves who are choosing MS products for writing/deploying their applications NOT because of fear of losing access to MS resources, but because their products are good.

The software development industry from my window looks fairly large; that view of course includes Silicon Valley a couple miles down the road. People there develop for Windows for all kinds of reasons. Surely some of them think Windows is a high-quality environment, unless you're just saying that for fun. I personally haven't heard anyone say how much fun it is to write and maintain an MFC-based program. But some people do like three-legged races, so it stands to reason there's a kind of person who would enjoy coding win32.
In my experience -- which includes three years selling computing systems and software from Los Angeles to San Francisco for (at different times) Sun, Cisco, Veritas, Allaire, BEA, and Oracle -- I see the industry perception of Windows as a reality that needs competition. We on the server-side compete against other solutions providers all the time. In the Microsoft world, everyone's selling variations on the same tools, so the only real competition is price.
In the server world, the fight is between Coke, Pepsi, and the occasional trendy hard lemonade or 'ice' drink. In the desktop world, the fight seems to be over where you get your Pepsi: at Sbarro, Subway, Taco Bell, or Burger King....oh, the choices!
Some people in the Valley may in fact believe, like yourself, that M$ has won the desktop on merit. Those people must be there...somewhere. You're also of course free to ignore suggestions that M$'s anti-competitive practices had anything to do with inhibiting innovation and new products in the marketplace, but it's simply a matter of public record.

Besides, other players like IBM could also employ similar tactics (and some of them do). Use AIX or lose premier access to developerworks,alphaworks etc.

I think you're confused. What is it about AIX that locks a customer into IBM's product line? I've seen lots of AIX customers looking at Solaris. They don't always buy, of course, but they have the luxury of checking out the competition any time they want; IBM knows it. IBM, Sun and HP have to play nice to customers and and bare fangs at each other precisely because the server-side market has choices. Can't quite say that about the desktop world.
[ August 22, 2002: Message edited by: Michael Ernest ]

[Laudney Ren]

Hey, I'm just wondering, does any of you have any idea of the uniqueness of OS compared to other software?
OS is far far more than a software. It's a platform. It provides API used to write all kinds of applications.
MS, due to certain strange history coincidence, seized the dominant share of popular OS. MS Windows is target at average users. Over the years, more and more people begin to use PCs, thus, begin to use Windows. More and more software companies are developing products based on Windows API thus Windows dependant. Then, here comes a cycle. More apps available for Windows, more users are driven to Windows and thus more and more apps.
So, it's not that simple that you just write a better OS or killer OS. There are already! Linux is great. So is Solaris 8 (haven't tried Solaris 9). It's the fact that the OS game is nearly mutual exclusion!! OK, get it?? It's a different game!! Once you dominate the game, it's so hard for you be driven away!!
So, just don't be so foolish to say that Windows is best because there is no better OS or killer OS. That's stupid!!
Linux is popular. Why?
1. Linux is targeted at PC and personal use.
2. There are a incredibly large number of developers out there writing a incredibly large number of apps of a incredibly large number of kinds. Just take a look at www.sourceforge.net and you should find some clues.
3. Linux is open. It can't be easier for you to write apps using its API or system calls. And, you can even be involved in the improvement of it!!
So, that's why Linux is threatening Windows.
Once you entered the enterprise domain, say, you got a job at Sun, you would see a completely different scene. You see Solaris, big, big servers with over 100 scsi harddiscs linked by optical cables, with 100G mems and over 100 CPUs. You see no trace of MS. They just can't play in this different game.
So, don't feel that we are hating MS because we are envying MS for the fact that we just can't be as good as MS. Nope! MS is disgusting simply because it's bringing darkness and unfairness to the popular OS game. That's its fault.
BTW, why is Java so popular?? One of the main reason is that Java is OS-independant!! So, you can see how enthusiastically people are reacting to lifting limits emposed by one OS.
We need more openness and co-operation to make our world better. We should unite instead of depending solely on one particular entity.

[Jason Menard]

Can anyone give any reason why they feel, at the general consumer level, that it is *not* mostly beneficial to have one standardized (or at least vastly dominant) OS? I'm speaking specifically at the general consumer level so I don't want to here about running your own server or any use that only impacts an extremely minute portion of the consumer market. And by consumer I mean like you, your mother, your grandmother, friends, etc...

[Tracy Woo]

Originally posted by Laudney Ren:
MS, due to certain strange history coincidence, seized the dominant share of popular OS.

Couldn't have put it better. I agree with that completely. Whether Windows is the best OS doesn't matter. MS got that unique opportunity (by an act of God or whatever ) and they capitalized on it. If IBM had selected some other company XYZ's OS, XYZ could as well have been today's MS. They got the opportunity and made the most of it, and that I think is fair enough. Just imagine, had MS stuck to DOS and had not worked on Win3.1 then 95, 98, NT, 2000 and then XP, would it still be a succesful company? I don't think people would have stuck using DOS today. Some other OS (may be Mac) would have been today's Windows. So it's not like MS got every thing for free. They did work hard at each crucial junction. They came up with new and better products, may not be revoluionary but certainly evolutionary, as they progressed.
I have not worked on Mac before, but I truely love the ease of use of WinXP. It is so easy to use for the people that Jason just mentioned above.
There has been so much criticism about the bugs in Windows, which is not wrong, but the reason is there is a huge number of people using it, so they get noticed quicker and get exposed wider. Over the time, people have started expecting a LOT more from the products...and MS has delivered them. Bugs are definitely possible in such a complex code. People talk about the supiriority all the time ...I agree that it may have less bugs, but then it doesn't have all those 'ease of use' features either.
As far as crushing the competition charge is concerned, I don't believe that MS has power to clobber IBM. If OS2/Warp failed, it did not fail because of MS.
[ August 23, 2002: Message edited by: Tracy Woo ]

[Shura Balaganov]

Originally posted by Tracy Woo:

There has been so much criticism about the bugs in Windows, which is not wrong, but the reason is there is a huge number of people using it, so they get noticed quicker and get exposed wider.

Good point, actually this might be one of the reasons it will be very difficult to compete with M$. Because what they develop gets so much exposure, that their UI gets cleaner, and bad bugs are mostly fixed by the time Service Pack 2 comes out. Granted, it would be cool if some Joe-hacker could look at source and find problems himself... However, can you imagine how many "imperfections" would be exposed to attackers if Windows code is open?
Linux, on the other hand, is a baby. Look at it this way: how many people you know that worked/tried Linux vs. Windows? I actually know more people using Mac. :roll: Company I work for has about 5-6 machines with different OSs to test our software on. Mac is one of them, but Linux is not.
Shura

[Paul Stevens]

Another reason they get bad press is the security problems. They like to blame everyone but their own code for these. It is all either the users fault, hackers or whoever found it.

[Michael Ernest]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:
Can anyone give any reason why they feel, at the general consumer level, that it is *not* mostly beneficial to have one standardized (or at least vastly dominant) OS...by consumer I mean like you, your mother, your grandmother, friends, etc...

Choice is good; choice always favors the consumer, in competition over quality, price, features, you name it.
Virtually every market has a dominant "standard," followed usually by second competitor that has size or its own following or something going for it. Coke and Pepsi, Hertz and Avis, Dell and Compaq, you get the idea. All these competitors provide a thing in their markets that serves the preferences of their customers.
So why on earth would it seem reasonable to presume that one "standard" OS is a good thing?
Interoperability? Please. Uniformity? Markets prove time and time again that one overwhelming dominant force in the market is good for profits, not customers.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Michael Ernest:

Choice is good; choice always favors the consumer, in competition over quality, price, features, you name it.
Virtually every market has a dominant "standard," followed usually by second competitor that has size or its own following or something going for it. Coke and Pepsi, Hertz and Avis, Dell and Compaq, you get the idea. All these competitors provide a thing in their markets that serves the preferences of their customers.
So why on earth would it seem reasonable to presume that one "standard" OS is a good thing?
Interoperability? Please. Uniformity? Markets prove time and time again that one overwhelming dominant force in the market is good for profits, not customers.

But coke and pepsi are interchangeable. If I drink a pepsi today, I can still drink a coke tomorrow. Once an OS is chosen you are stuck with it and the potential problem of exchanging information with those using another OS exists.