[PLUG-TALK] What Windows Is _Really_ Like

[Michael M.]

Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 26, 2006 at 03:42:41PM -0700, Michael M. wrote:
>   
>> And yet, computer use didn't take off until the industry (writ-large:  
>> hardware and software) settled on a standard, and that standard 
>> coalesced around Microsoft. ...
>>     
>
> Er, uh - Apple?  IBM? 
>
> Microsoft is very good at claiming that they invented the mass
> market computer.  Oh well, perhaps if Gary Kildale had been willing
> to sign IBM's legal papers, then Digital Research would be globally
> dominant and making the same claims.  
>
> The "standard" was designed by IBM, both for hardware and software.
> The standard would probably have been OS/2 rather than Windows 95,
> if IBM had taken ruthlessness to the same level.  And they still
> might;  they have more clout than Microsoft, and after selling off
> the PC division to Levono, they are far less vulnerable to Microsoft
> machinations.  IBM is practicing their bug-squashing techniques on
> SCO, there is a good chance Microsoft is next.
>
>   

But IBM dropped the ball, or wasn't interested, or bungled the marketing 
and management.  And "if IBM had taken ruthlessness to the same level," 
then it would've been something very much like Microsoft, which was my 
point.  (What I wrote, that you snipped, was:  "Microsoft or something 
very much like it.")  I'm not trying to say that it was inevitable that 
Microsoft would become the market leader; I'm saying I don't see how we 
could've had commodity computing anywhere nearly as quickly as we have 
without something like a market leader as pervasive as Microsoft was.  
If it had been IBM instead of Microsoft, that doesn't change anything, 
except that everyone still would be complaining about IBM now like they 
used to.  Surely you remember the days when IBM was the Big Evil?

When has Apple ever been interested in computing for the masses?  The 
cheapest box it sells is no DVD writer, no monitor, no keyboard, no 
mouse, let alone any peripherals like printers, and runs $500.  Compare 
that to the bundled deals  on low-end machines offered by big box 
retailers and direct sellers like Dell.  And that's not even considering 
what it costs to maintain and update an Apple machine with Apple's 
software, nor the wider availability of free open-source OS'es and 
software for an older x86 box vs. an older Apple box.  An Apple has 
always been a much more expensive proposition at the outset and over the 
long term, no matter what the fanbois try to claim.  Apple pitches 
itself as a luxury brand; it's not in the low-end market.

-- 
Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." --S. Jackson