Hello! On 2002.06.25, at 22:43, robin wrote:
> Franki wrote: > >> Don't laugh.. it might be a good thing if they bring this in.. >> >> Then you'll have Palladium users, and the rest of the world.. >> >> Sorta like the "microsoft network" when it first started.. >> they wanted their own internet, unfortunatly noone else did. >> >> besides.. they'd end up in court again so quickly... >> > True - it's tempting to be overawed by the MS Empire, but we should > remember their "revolutionary" projects which went belly-up almost > immediately: MSN, active desktops, Windows ME .... MS relies on its > being a de facto standard (as opposed to a real standard): people want > to exchange Word documents, share data with Access, share viruses with > Outlook and so on. Splitting that "community" by creating a new > "standard" would remove Microsoft's only advantage. Not necessarily. I guess if they build a Mac-like close environment, and also sell the hardware, they have many advantages: - They cannot be accused anymore of monopoly practices (1) because they build software for their own hardware. - Of course, they will ensure backward compatibility with formats like word, powerpoint, excel, etc. And build the corresponding software tools, so it will make sense for business. - As they have a huge market share, they can build very cheap hardware which will be hard to compete with (therefore get it build in China, put a MS stamp on it and sell it, like Mac does). - They will also build IE and Outlook products with an option "secure mail only". This way, they ensure backwards compatibility with existing mail, but because people get fed up with spam, the move towards secure mail will be done. You're talking of a new standard? yes, they will. With the well known "embrace and improve" technique. At the beginning, it is not a standard, or it is the standard plus a little more. After 2 years, since most of the computers are equipped, move to the nonstandard stuff (secure mail) and you lock everybody else out. One thing is sure: they have been thinking (spending thousands of man-month study) about it and you cannot judge the eventual effect just because you spent 5 minutes reading an article or a mail about it. And one of the basic rules of "the art of war" (Tun Tzu): never underestimate your enemy. Especially if your enemy is 9 times stronger than you (in a 90% windows world). (1) I mean the practices that aim to put exclusively MS products on OEM hard. They can still be accused of monopolistic practices by keeping their data format secret. Pascal
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