On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 06:31 -0700, Richard L. Hamilton wrote: > > > At what? > > > > Little old me probably can't help you if you are > > oblivious to why Windows is the most successful > > personal computer software system of all time. You > > might want to start looking at developer community > > and support, user community and support, usability, > > system compatibility, and hardware support. > > Windows ease of use is lame compared to OS X, and not much better than > Solaris or Linux. Community is mostly a bunch of clueless MCSEs and such. > The big points are: preinstalled to the point that one has to go to some > trouble to get a system where one isn't paying for Windows being preinstalled, > more apps (mostly commercial, but shareware, freeware, and open source > too) than anything else, and certainly runs on most reasonably modern > x86 systems (and just about every device vendor for same either uses > chipsets supported by a generic driver or provides a Windows driver). > Windows is neither particularly reliable, nor particularly well designed for > ease of use, nor does it excel at anything else technical. What it has is the > result of MS's aggressive business practices, far more than of their > developers. > > Go back as far as DOS, which didn't originate with MS; they bought it off > of SCP after Digital Research blew off IBM. They've invented a few things > (assuming Bill didn't rip off the core of MBASIC from someone else), but > they've been sharp and aggressive businessmen with a ferocious approach > tolerated in the new guy but hardly welcome for a near-monopolist, _far_ > more than they've been any sort of innovator (except in dirty tricks, like > their embrace-and-extend of Kerberos, so that MS authentication servers > could serve non-MS systems, but not vice versa). > > I don't say they haven't contributed anything, nor (give or take the results > of various lawsuits), that their practices have necessarily been illegal; > but don't look to them for leadership in innovation, excellence, or > good citizenship. > > OTOH, they (or indeed almost anyone) could probably teach Sun something > about marketing - as long as the wrong lesson (i.e. not repeating their > arrogance: see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Korn#Korn_shell_and_Microsoft > for a minor example that nevertheless typifies the attitude) isn't learned.
Basically Windows maintains its share through superior hardware support and software availability - unless Sun is willign to splash around money to software vendors to get them to port their software, its going to remain in the same state for ever and ever. Matthew _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
