Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 23:36:50 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>, <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Non Windows users may ignore this...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

At 8/13/2006 07:31 PM, Michael Walsh wrote:
> > kfl at KeithLynch.net 8/12/2006 2:08:42 PM >>>
>
> >And if it was for NetBSD or VMS, it would be front page headline
> >news.
>
>Probably not, since I suspect most computer users do use Windows and
>probably either haven't heard of Linux, NetBDS, or VMS or think of them
>as complicated geek toys.  Sort of like a car with a hand crank and
>manual transmission.

The techno-peasants, sure.  They know nothing but the small patch of the
computer industry they inhabit, and they are so uneducated that they think
that's the whole world, so anything that isn't a part of it seems small to
them.  Sort of like that New Yorker view of the US.  They forget the server
market, the embedded computer market, and the market for mainframe
computing and large data repositories that MicroSoft isn't a big part of.

I heard a rumor a few years ago that MicroSoft ran their accounting systems
on OpenVMS...I never confirmed it, but it makes sense. ;-)

>Which is not to say they are such a car, just that I suspect most
>computer users view it that way.

If by "computer user" you limit yourself to home users and non-technical
office workers, you are probably right.  On the subject of computers, their
opinions hold little value though...unless you are selling home-use
software, such as games.  In any other market you are more interested in
what business managers and computer professionals think, and at least the
later tend to know a bit more about the available options than Joe Sixpack
does.

>OTOH, there seems to be some growth in the non-Microsoft world, witness
>the growth of Firefox.

Yes, there has been, but Firefox isn't the best example...though probably
the most visible to a home user.  Check out the server market sometime.  Or
check to see what the web servers you access are running on...it isn't
likely to be IIS.  It's much more likely to be Apache running on Linux, or
some flavor of Unix.

>A further OTOH... remember when the wordprocessor of choice was
>WordStar, when the databse of choice was dBase, when the spreadsheet of
>choice of Lotus?  Things do change, sometimes slower, sometimes faster.

Check out Open Office...if you need all those tools, don't want to pay any
money, but still want some compatibility with MS Office files.  It will
even run on Windows...

-- Mike B.
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