asj wrote:
> On another subject, i am still vehemently anti-microsoft - not because
> microsoft uses proprietary software, but because its monopoly (or near
> monopoly) stifles competition and hinders innovation. Monolithic
> entities are almost always less innovative than a very diverse
> environment with many competing entities.
where would computing be now if Microsoft hadn't achieved monopoly status?
Hopefully, we'd have had masses of innovative new systems over that
period... remember how fast home computers evolved in the 80? I'm thinking
stuff like ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum... three years apart, massive
differences in capability. Or who remembers the Sinclair QL? That should
have taken off if he'd used real disk drives and hadn't been facing the
start of the IBM clonopoly in the Office desktop arena... Who remembers the
Atari ST. That was mindblowing compared to the early IBM's and the Clones
of it's period.
Of course business would have been in a pickle... nothing to standardise
on... and businesses don't like that, they require a herd to follow as they
want to feel safe in their decisions. They don't like being different as it
means if things go wrong, then they get the chop for it, whereas if they
were using the "industry standard" then it's just shit happens... you don't
get fired for choosing the nice safe "Industry standard".
Hopefully Linus would still have messed around and created Linux. Mind you,
he might have had a far, far more powerfull computer to play with at first
for his money than that 386 he did get.
One of these days, people will get fired for having chosen Microsoft... Then
there'll be a big shift.
--
XP, unsafe on the information highway at any speed
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