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Date:      Thu, 29 Nov 2001 00:08:26 -0500 (EST)
From:      "Mark Yeck" <y3k@gti.net>
To:        anthony@freebie.atkielski.com
Cc:        y3k@gti.net, questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?)
Message-ID:  <3642.208.216.122.52.1007010506.squirrel@y3k.shacknet.nu>
In-Reply-To: <018601c1788d$09eb4520$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
References:  <018601c1788d$09eb4520$0a00000a@atkielski.com>

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> Mark writes:
> The obvious question, then, is:  How did Microsoft ever come to
> dominate any market, if its dominance depends on already being
> dominant?

From what I saw during the years of Microsoft's rise, the came to dominate
the market through a combination of their own wise business decisions and
unwise decisions of their competitors, mainly Apple and IBM who made a
plethora of poor decisions, and the UNIX vendors who mostly chose to target
a completely different market than Microsoft. Microsoft dominated the PC
desktop and UNIX vendors dominated high end RISC workstation desktops. As PC
hardware became more powerful and their price remained about the same, they
began to compete very well with lower end RISC workstations, moving
Microsoft into markets that were solidly dominated by UNIX. Technical
superiority or desktop usability had almost no role in their rise to
dominance. 

[arguement 1 snipped]
> At least 99.9% of desktop users are just like your mother.
> 
> That's one argument in favor of Windows.
[arguement 2 snipped]
> That's two.
[arguement 3 snipped]
> That's three.
> 
> For someone who seems to doubt the superiority of Windows on the
> desktop, you certainly are arguing persuasively in its favor.

Indeed. Three somewhat powerful arguements. None of them related to any sort
of technical superiority. I'm no FreeBSD zealot, but in almost all technical
respects including usability on the desktop, I find it superior to Windows.
There are plenty of reasons to use Microsoft products. My point is that
these reasons are all directly related to market dominance and not superior
design. 

In fact, here's another one that I forgot: because of the dominance of
Windows, all hardware vendors make sure to have Windows drivers for their
products when they are released. Most wont provide a UNIX driver until
later, if at all. This has nothing to do with who has the superior design,
and everything to do with market dominance. 

-mark


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