Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 09:36:05 -0400
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Non Windows users may ignore this...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

> omni at omniphile.com 8/13/2006 11:36:50 PM >>>
>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 don't think they forgot, as you said "They know nothing but the small
patch of the
computer industry they inhabit".

>
>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.

Well.... yes.  It's my guess that's where most of the Windows users
are.

>  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.

Perhaps.  But, consider... someone wants to buy a computer, they
probably want something compatible with what they have at work.

>
>>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.

There you go... talking about stuff most home users have no idea about.
 Again, I suspect what they want is, if nothing else, the *appearance*
of something that you take out the box and plug in.  Note theword
*appearance*.

>
>>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...

But the bottom is the ... the bottom line: Microsoft has built a very
profitable business on people not using (for whatever reason)
non-Miscrosoft products.

mjw