Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 00:22:38 -0500 (EST) From: <doug@safeport.com> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0111290008060.85635-100000@pemaquid.safeport.com>
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This was so convoluted I thought I had cut too much. I no - I only wanted to respond to this one point. On Thu, 29 Nov 2001, Anthony Atkielski wrote: > Mark writes: > > > Every advantage I've seen with Microsoft is > > directly related to its overwhelming domination > > of whatever market its in. > > The obvious question, then, is: How did Microsoft ever come to > dominate any market, if its dominance depends on already being > dominant? > Microsoft was paid by IBM to develop (or be a partner in developing) OS/2. So IBM trained MS. I think IBM could never view itself as a software company and thus completely underestimated (if not totally discounted) the PC software market. In the mid 80s a PC cost ~$2500. To run OS/2 on the average PC it cost another $1500 in memory and what not. On top of this IBM wanted about $1500 for OS/2. Not likely when the first three releases barely worked and each brought forth a new (if not better) API. The company that made billions on the concept of hardware compatibility did not apply that to software. The first version did not even have DOS support When MS and IBM split, MS introduced windows which was designed to run on the PCs of the day. As it did not, he gave the software away until you get to 3.5 which worked okay (at least by comparison). Apple was having a hard time with the corporate market so MS had a pretty long window to get things working. That was a lot of words to say Bill Gates was an order of magnitude better a marketer than the Watsons (TJ 1 & 2). He recognized a market and conceived of a way to capture it, certainly a marketing genius. I am not sure what in the development of windows has ever spoken to technical superiority. At the end of the day what is the best Desktop OS is a silly (but entertaining) argument. The best OS for a Personal Computer is defined by the name. _____ Douglas Denault doug@safeport.com Voice: 301-469-8766 Fax: 301-469-0601 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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