Date: Sun, 19 Jan 1997 13:45:53 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: dufault@hda.com (Peter Dufault) Cc: terry@lambert.org, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cursing the sky (was: Commerical applications ...) Message-ID: <199701192045.NAA14114@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <199701191038.FAA19064@hda.hda.com> from "Peter Dufault" at Jan 19, 97 05:38:52 am
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Well, after I quit laughing at the new subject, I finally read the message. 8-). > There is one main reason that MS is where it is today, and that is > that until the oops-the-horse-is-out-of-the-barn-close-the-door > agreement with the US Department of Justice every manufacturer of > PC class computers had to include DOS and/or Windows with every > computer they sold if they wanted to sell any copy of DOS and/or > Windows without paying retail. MS now sits on a US$9e9 dollar cash > cache and 85%+ of the computer market courtesy of a decade of > anti-competitive practice, assisted by a group of ostriches laughing > at PCs. Anyone who thinks that Unix couldn't have been a lot more > successful at the low end wasn't working with microcomputers in the > mid 80s. This makes a lot of sense, but I won't go so far as to attribute their whole success to it. Many companies are successful, yet remain one trick ponies. Microsoft has had a higher percentage of winners because of insightful management. Sometimes they are insightful because they choose to do "smart" things like engaging in anticompetitve practices (despite their long term destructiveness, you can't argue that they aren't an effect short term success strategy). Other times, they are Just Plain insightful because their horizon is further away, and anyone who can predict what's coming better than you can looks comparatively insightful. > Lest I spend too much time crying in my beer and shaking my fist > at the sky and Bill Gates, keep in mind that the sea change of the > last five years came out of our corner. Yes... I totally agree. But the question is whther or not that corner is just another one trick pony, or whether we can be insightful, too, in some of the same ways, with similar ongoing successes. Maybe we can if someone is willing to brow-beat us into doing the right things. 8-) 8-). Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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