__/ [ Dave Kisilman ] on Saturday 01 April 2006 20:36 \__
>
> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:2820687.4YFfUoOOBa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> The corporate desktop battle can officially begin
>>
>>
http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1177452,00.html
>
>
>
> "To date, this has largely been the delusional fantasy of religious
> fanatics that are hell-bent on venting their frustration at Microsoft's
> ability to create two seemingly unstoppable cash cows out of this market
> opportunity," he said.
>
>
> He has you pegged.
Seemingly, to an innocent reader, this would make perfect sense. One would
be convinced that Windows and Office are such formidable applications that
can be surpassed by none else.
Upon closer inspection, it turns out that Office is merely a package which
involved floating objects. It completely neglects standards and inter-op-
erability and its inertia is dependent on the fact that many people have
it installed (i.e. purchased a licence). Those who have not got it in-
stalled can get punished when interaction from outside comes into play.
I sometimes joke with/about Windows user about utterly useless the content
of their hard-drive actually is. With so many binary files, it becomes ap-
parent that all is useless without some closed-source packages to inter-
pret the files. Such files may be penetrable 5 years down the line, but
what happens decades ahead? Will one still use Windows? Vista makes is ap-
parent that Linux and OS X are by all means better tools for technical
jobs. *Even* if Windows was clung onto like a woman's baby, mind you, Mi-
crosoft struggle with backward compatibility. Wait and see the conse-
quences.
The success of the cash cows, either using obscure executables or urging
third-parties to do the same (also using false figures from OEM's to infer
platform diversity (or lack thereof)) will not endure. What it boils down
to is a lockin which drains people's pockets as they fumble for their
spectacles. Open Source awareness helps them wake up. Even Joe Sixpack
drops his beer when he finds out to what extent Microsoft rip him off.
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "This sig seemed like a good idea at the time..."
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