It is interesting to note the discussion about netbooks. Netbooks seems to be for M$ as PC was for IBM.
Netbooks are so cheap that price of the operating system matters. If you buy a PC for $1000 then the price of the operating system is not such a huge part. When we talk about a netbook for $200 then the operating system could be an issue and seems to be. Linux for free is suddenly much more popular than before. Another issue for M$ is that you can not run Vista on Netbooks. You have to use old version of XP and when W7 comes around it will only allow 3 applications to run. It is like deja vu all over again. When the MIPS came 20 years ago the big Unix vendors only allowed initially 1 user to run on thier new fast machines so as not to cannibalise their customer base. I would sure like to know how to let APL/J make money as well as me personally using the systems on cheap machines. IBM did change from being a hardware vendor with less than 1% for software over to mostly a service company. It looks like M$ will need to change and they have recently needed to dismiss 5000 people. Many say it is because of competition from the Netbooks and Linux. One idea would be to sell netbooks with APL/J applications prepacked. It is interesting to be able to run J on my telphone as well as my BIG laptop. 2009/5/27 Don Guinn <[email protected]> > Back when there were only large and expensive mainframes software was a > small cost compared to the hardware. So software was "free". Even the cost > of the programmers supporting the applications on the mainframes was small > compared to the cost of the mainframes. Interesting that some of those > smaller mainframes had only 4K of memory! > But that has shifted. Personal computers with power many times the largest > mainframes of that time are dirt cheap! Software now is the expensive part. > But now the costs of software must be distributed over many users rather > than just a few users. I really don't understand how a company can sell a > software package for a few hundred dollars and spend hours supporting a > user > with a problem. At the same time it is hard for one to justify spending > money on software comparable to the cost of the personal computer. > Microsoft > gets away with it because they get PC building companies to include Windows > etc. as part of the cost of the hardware. If people knew how much the > Microsoft products added to the cost of the PC, how many would look to > things like Linux etc.? > > Unfortunately, Microsoft and all companies are geared to maximizing profit > before quality or facility. People doing it for fun or whatever have that > reversed. > > Now to multiple sources. J is only supported by one company - JSoftware. > APL, C, BASIC and Windows-like interfaces are supported by many companies, > or at least very large companies. This gives management of companies buying > software the appearance of alternatives if the supplier fails. It is false > because moving software from the APL of one vendor to another is not as > easy > as the vendors would lead people to believe. Same for C compilers and > others. But do large software companies provide security? Look what is > happening to the auto companies. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > -- Björn Helgason, Verkfræðingur Fugl&Fiskur ehf, Þerneyjarsundi 23, Hraunborgum Po Box 127,801 Selfoss , t-póst: [email protected] gsm: +3546985532 Landslags og skrúðgarðagerð, gröfuþjónusta http://groups.google.com/group/J-Programming Tæknikunnátta höndlar hið flókna, sköpunargáfa er meistari einfaldleikans góður kennari getur stigið á tær án þess að glansinn fari af skónum /|_ .-----------------------------------. ,' .\ / | Með léttri lund verður | ,--' _,' | Dagurinn í dag | / / | Enn betri en gærdagurinn | ( -. | `-----------------------------------' | ) | (\_ _/) (`-. '--.) (='.'=) ♖♘♗♕♔♙ `. )----' (")_(") ☃☠ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
