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RE: [OM] ES-10 Update, and I'm angry!

Subject: RE: [OM] ES-10 Update, and I'm angry!
From: Chuck Norcutt <norcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 08:01:22 -0500
Several of you wrote the list to express your surprise and unhappiness
with Olympus not supporting the ES-10 under Windows NT.  However, this
should come as no surprise if you understand the different architectures
and markets of the various Windows products.  They DO have different
markets which is why there are different products.

Windows 95/98 is designed for the consumer or home user market.  It is
sold by the tens of millions.  Windows NT is sold for the business
market in dramatically smaller volumes.  While we can all have a laugh
over whether NT is really reliable and secure it IS much more reliable
and secure than Windows 95/98.  The reason for this is that it has a
totally different internal architecture including a totally different
device driver architecture.  (device drivers are specialized software
that communicate with and control hardware devices such as disks,
printers and yes,  ES-10's)

Now look at the ES-10.  It is also a consumer or home user device and a
fairly specialized one at that... which means it will be sold in
relatively small numbers.  But how many home users are running Windows
NT?  Not very many.  I would hazard a guess that it doesn't exceed 1
percent.  The ES-10 would need a different device driver to run under
NT.  It would cost just as much to develop this driver as one for
Windows 95/98 but you could only ever sell a very small number of them. 
Simply put, the development cost can't be justified against the
potential sales.

So, the lesson is, if you want to use low cost, consumer devices on your
computer, you are going to have to accept the consumer operating
system.  Anything else is not cost justified on the part of the
manufacturer.  There is absolutely no reason for anger at Olympus.  Had
they promised support for NT and then failed to deliver then, yes, feel
angry.  However, I doubt that they ever promised such support nor even
implied that it might be developed.  Those who feel betrayed should have
asked the software support question before buying, not after.

There may be many reasons why it is preferable for you to run NT at home
but, as we've discovered here, there are also reasons not to.  If you
are running NT at home then perhaps you should consider a dual boot
system to support such things as ES-10's.

Chuck Norcutt
Woburn, Massachusetts, USA

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