Re: tlug: Success of Windows

[Jonathan Byrne - 3Web <jq@example.com>]

On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Alan B. Stone wrote:

>You know, I think we would all agree that the only reason there are more
>people running Win95 on the machines, and not running something else is
>advertising.

No, we wouldn't all agree that's the only reason.  It helped.  Apple's
gross business negligence helped, too.  But Windows 95 is just plain
better than MacOS.

>  If Apple had adobted an agressive advertising plan early
>on (and probably released the source code) I don't think they would be
>in the shape they are today.

If Apple had ported to Intel years ago like some people were telling
them to (including inside of Apple), they wouldn't be in this mess.
They'd  be where MS is now.

>The number one problem as I see it, people use Windows at home which is
>fine by me, but don't come to the workplace and tell me that this is the
>best OS for an office environment, because it's not.

Actually, I will.  Why?  Applications.  The best OS for an office
environment, or  a home environment, is the one that runs the apps you
need to run.  If that's an equal point, other factors come in.  Factors
like stability (Win95 beats MacOS), factors like pre-emptive
multi-tasking (allegedly coming to Mac in late 1999 or sometime in
2000), better memory management, etc.  These are areas where MacOS falls
flat.  These are also areas where Linux beats Windows 95 easily.  So why
isn't Linux (yet) the best office OS?  It comes down to two things:
applications (there aren't many in that area, and they aren't as good as
what you get on a Mac, Windows, or even OS/2 machine), and the ease of
use problem.  My first exposure to Linux came the best part of a year
ago, and I think I've still only scratched the surface of what there is
to know, and I'm a person with 10 years of professional computer
experience.  What's this gonna do to an average user, one who (as
someone recently stated very well on this ML) is not a computer
professional, but does use a computer professionally?  It's really going
to knock them for a loop.

All they want to do is turn on their computer
and use it.  They don't want to have to configure anything that can't be
done from a checklist menu.  They don't want to worry about file
permission problems, they don't want to have to hack their .steprc file
to get a program onto the menu, they dont' want to have to manually copy
the icon into an icon directory to get that on the menu, etc., etc.  If
these issues get worked out - if Linux gets the standard, easy-to-use
GUI that it needs (the thing that made both MacOS and Windows 95 the
powerhouses they are), and if the applications situation improves, Linux
has a shot at becoming the best business OS.  And don't forget that MS
also wants to put NT into that slot and is working very hard and
spending tons of money on it.  They probably spend more money on NT in a
day than all Linux distributions spend in a year.  With very small
resources, Linux needs to be brought up to an ease of use level pretty
near NT, and leverage its strong networking abilities, stability, and
good multi-tasking under heavy load to become the best business OS.
It's not there yet, though.

>If you want to see a window manager that has the potential to put
>Linux/Unix on the average user's home desktop, seriously take a look at
>KDE.

I will check that out, but I think someone said that it can't do
Japanese because it was built with Qt, which has no Japanese support.
Is that right?  If it is, that's a real problem with KDE, becauser we
need a GUI  that will put Linux on everybody's desktop, not just
desktops belonging to English speakers.

>it really does stand a chance.  Furthermore, it runs on Linux, FreeBSD,
>Solaris, and several other Unix platforms.

This is good.  What about CDE, which also runs on lots of UNIX
platforms?  It doesn't seem very popular with the Linux community, but
why is that?  Does it really have some shortcomings, or is its lack of
popularity more rooted in the fact that it isn't open source?

Cheers,

Jonathan Byrne
Media and Content Section
3Web - Your Internet Solution! <URL:http://www.threeweb.ad.jp/index.en.html>

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