Microsoft tipping

[David A. Bandel]

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On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 16:48:01 -0600
Alma J Wetzker <almaw at ieee.org> wrote:

[snip]

> 
> I have deep concerns about a computing world without Microsoft. 
> Without a standard to emulate and exceed, I fear that the open source
> community would fail.  I am also much more in favor of Bill Gates
> running the computer movement than, say, Larry Ellison or Lou Gerstner
> (I think Linus would make a bang up job of it).

M$ is a follower, not an innovator as you would have folks believe.  A
standard to emulate and exceed ... M$ has set many things, but never
standards.

> 
> I use linux for reasons of my own that are not really connected to
> hatred of M$ or seeking an alternative.  I just need a system that
> works.

Yep, always nice to have that.

> 
> I think the article makes some astute points and that M$ is currently 
> threatened.  No one has ever won betting against the nimbleness of M$.
>  They 
> are capable of moving drastically and quickly, if they feel a need to.
>  (I 
> hold up the change to embrace the internet and ???/IP when the net
> burst onto the scene.)  I just want to see how M$ moves to get out of
> this one.

The net burst onto the scene _many_ years before M$ had the wits to
patch 3.1 so it could communicate via other than the "sneaker net".  I
know, I've been using the Internet since 1978 (10 years after it was
implemented by (D)ARPA).  That's a _long_ time before Windows 3.1.  The
nimble moves you point to are knee-jerk reactions to the myrmidom
finding out something exists that they might want.  In fact, the
"Internet explosion" you allude to happened after NCSA created HTML
documents and a browser folks could read them with without understanding
how to run a CLI FTP program and read a bland text file.  But that was
1990 for Pete's sake.  Or does e-mail, FTP, Gopher, and all the rest
just not matter?

No, the net did not burst onto the scene thanx to M$.  Only all the
morons of world finally found they could read something not on their
local computer without any particular effort.  M$ gets no prize for
that, IE was the late comer.  Check your history.  The first browser
(other than NCSA's, which I believe only ran on UNIX) was Chameleon or
some such.  This is a real strain on my memory being over 10 years ago. 
Hell, that was about the time I first started running Linux.  I really
liked the way it looked, felt, and acted like Ultrix.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
- -- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
		Nemesis Racing Team motto
GPG key autoresponder:  mailto:david_key at pananix.com
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