Hi Charles and all, Yes, I take your point, but comparing something like Chess to a piece of computer software like XP isn't a fair comparison in my opinion. What it really boils down to is simple economics and making money. You are totally looking at this from a consumers point of view. You want to save money while Microsoft and other software developers is in the business of making money. That obviously seams like a conflict of interest as both sides can't get what they want in a case like that. For example, let's assume I am the head of a major corperation. I have hundreds of employees like programmers, secretaries, engineers, whatever at my command. We create a certain software product in 2010 and then sell it to various PC manufacturers like Del, Compaq, HP, Gateway, etc. Soon several people buy those computers with our software preloaded on it. Ok, we made a very good take from that initial point of sale, but how are we going to continue making money off of that product after we have reachd the maximum market potential? At that point everyone who wants or needs our software already has it.If we offer a life time worth of free upgrades and patches we are not going to make any more money off of those free upgrades through our free update service. We have two choices either create a completely new version of software to sell you, or we have to charge for yearly updates or subscription to our update service. We can't continue to pay our employees, pay the electric bill, and continue to give millions of people a life time of free upgrades. We have to make money somewhere some how. So while I agree XP shouldn't be thrown away just because it is "old software" Microsoft can't make much money off it any more either. The way they force you to pay for an upgrade is by releasing new versions of their Windows product and designing them to run on newer computers only and dropping technical support for older Windows releases when they have reached a certain age. It is not really fair to the consumer, that is true, but I don't think companies like that know of a better alternative that will continue to make money for the company and their employees like the current method does.
HTH On 7/7/10, Charles Rivard <woofer...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > Chess, too, is ancient history. Has it been discarded because it is over a > thousand years old? No. It has evolved, but not thrown out. Why? Because > it does what it was designed to do, and it still works. So does XP, and it > should be updated rather than just thrown out because it is old software. > > --- > Shepherds are the best beasts! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
