Your inference suggests that hardware would have stayed expensive without Microsoft. I don't buy that. In my view, hardware would have dropped regardless because the price of the components dropped over time, completely independent from the PC's relationship to Microsoft. In fact, I would maintain that competition in the OS/Office productivity space in the 90s would have eventually resulted in making these items commodities, which would have reduced the overall cost of ownership dramatically. Proof of this is the number of free office productivity and operating systems that have developed in today's more open environment. These products would have developed sooner had Microsoft not been allowed to artificially control pricing and the market.
I would agree that there it would have created a more difficult environment for us as tech writer to produce documentation, but I have the feeling it would have worked itself out, just as it has with browser-based help that works regardless of the operating system in place. As for Apple, people continue to buy the product in spite of its higher price because it isn't a one for one comparison. There is a quality factor, ease of use and stability that I've yet to see matched in a PC. And I speak as someone who is relatively recent Mac owner, but has used PCs since 1985 Ron Ron Miller Freelance Technology Writing Since 1988 Contributing Editor, EContent Magazine email: ronsmiller at ronsmiller.com blog: http://byronmiller.typepad.com web: http://www.ronsmiller.com Winner of the 2006 and 2007 Apex Award for Publication Excellence/ Feature Writing On Oct 19, 2007, at 2:50 PM, Chris Borokowski wrote: > I'm somewhat thankful they did, as the result was a standardization of > hardware that allows $500 to buy a better quality machine than a $1500 > Macintosh or $2500 custom UNIX. Sometimes aggression in business can > produce very fortunate results for us little people. > > --- Ron Miller <ronsmiller at comcast.net> wrote: > >> In my view, the only reason Windows has dominated personal computing >> is because Microsoft bullied hardware company into selling its >> products. It told computer manufacturers throughout the 90s when it >> built its domination to either use only Windows or to have to pay >> more for each copy if they didn't. > > http://technical-writing.dionysius.com/ > technical writing | consulting | development > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > > > You are currently subscribed to Framers as ronsmiller at comcast.net. > > Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com > or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/ > ronsmiller%40comcast.net > > Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit > http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
