On Wed, 21 Nov 2007, Tim Cutts wrote:
It didn't work for Mac OS X's previous incarnation, though, in the form of NextSTEP, did it? Selling that platform as an OS and abandoning hardware manufacture did not save NeXT.
Yeah, but that's because it was too late and everybody knew that while NextStep was a great UI, its systems management back end sucked and was globally incompatible with just about everything. And it's Unix was broken, and... But what if they'd STARTED by selling NeXTStep as a Unix for PCs back before Linux was really born, for $50 a seat. OS/2 and Windows BOTH would have been stillborn, and Jobs would be Gates today.
And with open source operating systems not far behind in many respects, I don't know how much future there really is in basing a business on operating system software unless, as in Microsoft's case, you already have an effective monopoly.
No, it is probably too late for them. And eventually Microsoft, too, shall fall. No matter how they try to specialize interfaces and patent things, they face the paradox that if they ever eliminate all competition they lose their next antitrust suit bigtime and get broken up. If they fail to, eventually open source becomes functionally equivalent at a fraction of the cost. The only way they can survive is to suborn the standards process (which they are trying hard to do with their document type before the ISO or IETF or whatever) and get somebody to approve an "open" standard that is really closed and hooked to patents. And software patents have yet to be really and truly tried in court -- there have been both successes and failures there. But we'll see. Nothing will happen quickly because the companies have far too much money to go away all at once regardless. rgb
Tim
-- Robert G. Brown Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone(cell): 1-919-280-8443 Web: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb Lulu Bookstore: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=877977 _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
