[Info-vax] Maybe a bit OT, maybe not.. in any case an interesting article

[John Wallace]

On May 14, 5:48 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber... at comcast.net>
wrote:
> On 5/13/2012 7:12 PM, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>
>
>
> > In article<0rCdnXNUn4uPfTLSnZ2dnUVZ_qedn... at giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert"<rgilber... at comcast.net>  writes:
> >> On 5/13/2012 6:20 AM, Michael Kraemer wrote:
> >>> Arne Vajhøj schrieb:
>
> >>>> DEC/CPQ/HP did not ruin your career.
>
> >>>> The guy that told you 25 years ago that it was a good approach
> >>>> in the IT business to learn one technology and stick to that for
> >>>> life did.
>
> >>> And what if he'd recommended Weendoze?
>
> >>>> It is not the case. Technologies come and technologies go all
> >>>> the time.
>
> >>> So when can we expect M$ to go away?
>
> >> When you write better software and charge a lot less for it!
>
> > Micro$oft: premium priced shite software.
>
> > There is much better software and, in many cases, it's free; so why _DO_
> > people want to pay for Micro$oft crap?
>
> Because it's ubiquitous and it works.  You may complain about "click and
> drool" interfaces but they work and millions use them.  The alternatives
> are????????????????  If there are any, they are hard to find, expensive,
> . . . .  It's practically a given that Brand X is
> not compatible with Brands "Y" and/or "Z"!
>
> You have available the three "Killer Applications": Spreadsheet, Word
> Processor, and Database.
>
> Then there is the fourth "Killer App"!  Turbo-Tax will never make the
> "ides of April" bearable but it beats hell out of wrestling with Form
> 1040 Schedules A, B, C, D, E, F. . . . by hand and then Form NJ1040, and
> schedules. . . .

I don't know if you remember, or were aware at the time, but windows
were around before Windows(r). So were spreadsheets, word processors
and databases.

None of those were Microsoft's most significant invention. Microsoft's
most significant invention was probably not Windows, it was probably
semi-compulsory volume licencing deals with PC manufacturers,
culminating in the "Windows tax" of the last decade or two, and just
as importantly, building a commercially-motivated ecosystem around
things like that.

I don't know where Nomen Nescio is, but in this part of the world
there are already Linux-centric folk willing to be paid to get phone
calls at 2am in the morning, in sectors varying from SME to corporate.
Customers of these folk probably get better answers than the vast
majority of MS customers ever get from a support call. Also, it'll be
a long time before Linux users are vulnerable to scamsters like Nerd
Support, one of whose reps spamcalled me the other day and who was
puzzled when I asked him where the Start menu he wanted me to click on
"to clear the errors he'd seen on my computer" could be found on an
Ubuntu computer (I don't use Ubuntu but wondered if he might at least
have heard of it and realise his MS-dependent scam was doomed to
failure).

Bob's assertion earlier on that MS will be around for a long time
rather depends on the continued success of the ecosystem that Bill
built.

MS's dependence on computer vendors, x86 hardware, and the general
ecosystem that Bill built could also be a contributor to their
downfall, because these players are all interlinked, and once enough
of them realise there is more money to be made without MS than there
is to be made with MS, there is an interesting risk of a domino
effect. It may or may not happen soon, but the phone market, where the
commercial deals with manufacturers have never favoured MS, is an
obvious example of how MS struggle outside their comfort zone. As are
datacentres, "the cloud", and probably anything which isn't a
combination of Wintel desktop inextricably linked by things like MS-
proprietary authentication mechanisms with Wintel server. That sector
has been a big part of the market for a long time. Before that, VMS
was a big part of the market for a long time. All things must pass.

Have a lot of fun.