> From: Scott Gomez <sgomez.baja@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> ... Windows' huge installed base
> guaranteed that they would not seriously muck with the design in the
> interest of backward compatibility...
I'm not sure I really buy this. Apple has changed *processors* twice, and has
had better backward compatibility through it all. It's only recently (Snow
Leopard or Leopard?) that Apple has stopped support for Mac OS 9 on Motorola
68000 processors! And they've since been through Power PC and on to Intel, with
hardly a bump. I'm generally unaware whether I'm running a Power PC or an Intel
application.
When I go to download a driver or software that's available on multiple
platforms, there's generally one or two versions available for the Mac -- and
generally five or six for Windows.
I think any "backward compatibility" you find in Windows is due to benign
neglect, rather than by design. Or if they are giving much thought to backward
compatibility, they seem to be pretty bad at it!
> However, times have definitely changed; the old model--and Windows with
> it--is increasingly broken. While all the tools may not yet be there for all
> the things that many people are used to doing via Windows, more often than
> not they are there, they're just *different* tools. The same thing that
> drove Microsoft forward then (user-feedback, no copy protection, a
> willingness to be innovative) and allowed them to help kill off the
> Ashton-Tates and WordPerfects and Lotuses of the world are now driving the
> Linux world, only with a twist: that of open source code. Meanwhile
> Microsoft retrenches, adds increasingly burdensome copy-protection, and
> hopes that they've got enough folks bamboozled that they'll survive.
I see the computing world as increasingly tri-partite:
1) Those who just want it to work, and to work simply: Apple
2) Price sensitive, and willing to experiment and tinker and get
"brother-in-law" support: Linux
3) Those who use what they perceive everyone else is using: Windows
Of course this is a gross simplification, but I think the number #2 box is the
"interesting" one -- one that has taken folk out of both the Windows and the
Apple camp. And sooner or later, the #3 crowd starts to look up and notice that
there are more people in the other rooms than in theirs -- that's all it takes
for them to move.
There is absolutely no doubt that Windows is losing market share. It's
certainly too early to start planning Microsoft's funeral, but I think Apple
and Linux are increasingly dividing up the Windows share.
----------------
Independence is not supreme. Nevertheless, the current social paradigm
enthrones independence... as though communication, teamwork, and cooperation
were lesser values. -- Stephen R. Covey
:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality Co-op ::::
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