From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 28 21:28:34 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from freebie.atkielski.com (ASt-Lambert-101-2-1-14.abo.wanadoo.fr [193.251.59.14]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D15E237B41B for ; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 21:28:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from contactdish (win.atkielski.com [10.0.0.10]) by freebie.atkielski.com (8.11.3/8.11.3) with SMTP id fAT5SQx01909; Thu, 29 Nov 2001 06:28:26 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from anthony@freebie.atkielski.com) Message-ID: <01cb01c17896$abb81500$0a00000a@atkielski.com> From: "Anthony Atkielski" To: "Mark Yeck" Cc: , References: <018601c1788d$09eb4520$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <3642.208.216.122.52.1007010506.squirrel@y3k.shacknet.nu> Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 06:28:25 +0100 Organization: Anthony's Home Page (development site) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Mark writes: > From what I saw during the years of Microsoft's > rise, the came to dominate the market through > a combination of their own wise business decisions > and unwise decisions of their competitors, mainly > Apple and IBM who made a plethora of poor decisions, > and the UNIX vendors who mostly chose to target > a completely different market than Microsoft. I fully agree. Not only did Microsoft make some smart decisions, but Apple made one mistake after another (and they are still making mistakes). I watched as Macs initially invaded desktops, only to be replaced by PCs a few years later. IBM was completely clueless, still thinking in mainframe terms, and UNIX vendors weren't interested. > Microsoft dominated the PC desktop and UNIX vendors > dominated high end RISC workstation desktops. As PC > hardware became more powerful and their price > remained about the same, they began to compete very > well with lower end RISC workstations, moving Microsoft > into markets that were solidly dominated by UNIX. > Technical superiority or desktop usability had almost > no role in their rise to dominance. Yes, but Windows still has the technical advantage of being purpose-built for the desktop, whereas UNIX does not. Thus, someone choosing a desktop for the first time today would be well advised to choose Windows even on a purely technical basis alone. > Three somewhat powerful arguements. None of them > related to any sort of technical superiority. Neither is your explanation above of UNIX domination of high-end workstations. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message