__/ [Mark Kent] on Saturday 04 February 2006 07:29 \__
> begin oe_protect.scr
> nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> "...For 25 years, Microsoft has defined the computer industry. Its
>> MS-DOS operating system powered the first IBM PC in 1981, and its
>> successor, Windows, has become even more dominant....
>>
>> "Microsoft has on occasion overstepped the boundary between sharp
>> marketing practices and illegality. It has used its dominant market
>> position to bully competitors and resellers. Various anti-trust
>> actions have exposed it as an ethically challenged company that will do
>> whatever it takes to improve its market position...
>>
>> "...we could say that there are two big threats to the Microsoft model
>> - the open-source model and the Google model....
>>
>> "Open-source software, as exemplified by the Linux operating system and
>> the Apache web server, is everywhere. Major vendors such as IBM and Sun
>> have embraced it, on the basis that the pie will be bigger, and revenue
>> will come from other areas...
>>
>> "But perhaps an even bigger threat to the Microsoft way of doing things
>> comes from Google and other internet-based outfits.
>>
>> "In many ways Google is proving to be the Microsoft of the 21st
>> century, growing at an astounding rate by adopting technologies and
>> business models suited to an online world light- years away from the
>> environment that nurtured Microsoft and other conventional software
>> companies.
>>
>> "Bill Gates famously missed the importance of the internet, believing
>> until the mid-'90s that a proprietary Microsoft network could compete
>> (Apple made the same mistake).
>
> I'm not sure that he missed it per se, I think he believed that MS's own
> networking stuff would beat it (not compete, eliminate). This failed
> miserably because the internet was global, so real innovation (ie., not
> the copying stuff) was taking place everywhere. Who could've predicted
> gopher, or a year later, the www evolving on Microsoft's proprietary
> stuff?
Firefox is changing much of that, especially with vendors like Dell that ship
Windows with Firefox as the default browser (only in the UK, as yet). I
still install Firefox on merely many Windows computers that come my way.
It's the least an individual can do to prevent the Net from becoming .NET.
Also see: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/53126/index.html
>> Microsoft may have won the browser wars
>> - with inferior technology and dubious marketing practices - but
>> it's a relatively small internet player. If it weren't for the fact the
>> MSN is the default home page on the default browser on most PCs shipped
>> - courtesy of Microsoft's near- monopoly of PC operating systems -
>> it would be even further behind...."
Very true. Let us not forget Outlook's (Express) inclination to refer its
users to Hotmail (MSN).
>> http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3559848a28,00.html
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: 21978 x 4 = 21978 backwards
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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