Chuck,
As far as most of your observations re developing drivers for NT goes, I
concur. NT = business/professional, 95/98 = home/consumer. Consumer
device (ES-10) = 95/98, etc. I've been dual/triple/quadruple booting for
years now, and I'm understanding & accepting of drivers not working under
NT.
As far as developing dual device drivers for 95 and NT, while it would be
more work, it would be far less than double. Figure the logic, then
address your code & API calls to your target OS. Besides, with the poor
quality of the Olympus driver software, let's hope they didn't spend too
much on it!
Other than film, which has become pretty standardized, the photo systems
made by Olympus are stand-alone systems. If Olympus is going to sell
devices that interface with a computer and are therefore dependent on the
computer's OS, they should be planning on keeping up with the rapidly
advancing technology reflected in the OS market. Microsoft has made it
clear that the OS path is going to be 95 -> 98 -> Win2K, with Millennium
(or 98v2) being a small intermediate step designed to allow 3rd party
vendors time to write drivers for Win2K. Millennium will not be sold for
very long, and Win2K will be the single integrated OS from Microsoft. That
is until they change their mind. <g>
My take on this is that if Olympus intends to market, sell and profit from
a computer device, they have an obligation to support it through <x> years
of computer OSs they are targeting. If the ES-10 is actively marketed on
their web site and is sold as new equipment from their resellers, this
should be a device that can be used for many years after it's purchase,
with the people making the profit from it's sale responsible for keeping up
with it's target OSs and hardware. My take on it is that Olympus is not
used to having outside influences determine whether they should continue
development work on one of their products.
I purchased this scanner as *new* equipment three months ago, and I believe
I have a right to expect at least 5 years of service from it. I doubt
whether W98 will be available in a year, and whether Millennium will be
available in two. Which leaves us consumers requiring dual boots to
obsolete, unsupported OSs simply to run a scanner.
Ain't fair in my book.
Dave
On Sunday, January 16, 2000 7:01 AM, Chuck Norcutt
[SMTP:norcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] wrote:
> 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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