[plug] Linux vs Microsoft

[James Elliott]

Hi all

The might be some analogy between this operating system debate (Linux vs
Microsoft) and the bids by various manufacturers to dominate the hardware
market about 30 - 40 years ago.

I am nowhere near as computer literate as most of you PLUGers, but I have
been around computers for longer than some of you have lived, and witnessed
something similar to the Linux vs Windows situation happen in the hardware
arena - even been affected by it at the time.

As even the youngies among you would know from your textbooks, "In the
beginning there was the Mainframe ......"  The first serious attempt to
capture the home market, the first commercially available personal computer
was the Commodore, unless I am mistaken, and I am sure I am not (if you
ignore non-commercial, research type devices).  Then the big boys saw that
home computing was a popular market and not too far behind that came the
small office demand - word-processors for lawyers' offices, etc.

To choose from at the time, circa late 70's, early 80's  (I know because a
friend and I had a mobile computer bookkeeping service - self-contained
computer offices in vans) were IBM, Apple, NEC, in the lead and several
others near behind.  Even when all using DOS you could not take a disk out
of an IBM and read it in an NEC or Apple machine because of the differing
computer architectures.

This was a major headache for the clone manufacturers and for the component
manufacturers (motherboards, sound cards, video cards, etc) - who was the
best one to go with? ... where was the best potential market?

A worldwide committee of 'cloners' formed and IBM were clever enough to say
"if you guys want to copy all our stuff, that's okay - in fact we will
license you to make the printed circuit boards and buy them off you instead
of making them ourselves, and you can have cheap license to build
'compatibles' as well".

Apple, like Microsoft, said "Copy any of our gear and we'll see you in
Court".

Who has the bigger share of the market place? - IBM and its compatibles or
Apple?  NEC had a superior architecture to IBM, and also to Apple, but could
see the way things were going to evolve and wisely albeit sadly,  chose to
become IBM compatible, as did most of the other hitherto proprietary brands.

IBM was the undisputed leader in PC's in the early days, cooperated with the
market place and kept significant market share.  Microsoft is the undisputed
leader in the current O/S  marketplace but will not let anyone else in and
is charging as much as the market can bear - more in the case of some
private users.  So in the long run, who will win, Microsoft or Linux?
(Apple or IBM?).

Just some thoughts of mine that I felt like sharing.

James Elliott

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Jones" <ajones at clear.net.nz>
To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: [plug] suggestion: PLUG 4 Schools


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> On Monday 06 May 2002 22:49, Arie Hol wrote:
> > What happens when you have Linux established and operating successfully
in a
> > school, but all the parents of the kids at this school have Windows PC's
at
> > home.
> >
> > What happens when these kids move on to another school or educational
> > institution (like uni)?
>
> I don't see this as a problem. Most of the Unix tools also work on
Windoze -
> this means that anything you can do on Linux you can also do on Windoze
with
> Cygwin, for example.
>
> Are you suggesting that we shouldn't be teaching people how to use Linux
> because not enough people know how to use (and use) Linux?
>
> > Will they be capable of handling the change of software environment - it
> > would be great for the kids if they can learn to use two operating
systems
> > and their respective software environments - but I think our kids are
> > already under enough pressure with the current circumstances in our
> > education system.
>
> The OS really makes very little difference. Windoze isn't really that
> different in the way it operates to Mac or Linux. You are also
> underestimating the rate of change of Windoze. M$ keep on releasing new
> versions of Windoze which are totally different from the last. This
requires
> completely re-learning everything every 2-3 years.
>
> > What happens when the kids move out into the work force - will their
Linux
> > skills be what is required by their employers ? A great win for
employers if
> > they are running Unix and/or Linux systems - but maybe a loss for the
kids.
>
> Who knows what the future will bring. I would say that Unix has been
around
> for more than 40 years and Windoze has been around for about 10. I suspect
> that in five years the computer world will be totally different again (as
it
> has done in the last five years).
>
> > I do not condemn Microsoft totally - I think that there are many people
who
> > are now Linux devotees who may not have even been computer literate if
it
> > hadn't been for DOS & Windows. Microsoft needs to be brought back to
sanity
> > - they have become the "Ogre in the forest". They need a big, loud
wakeup
> > call and I believe that Linux will be that call.
>
> I do condemn M$ totally. They are rotten to the core.
>
> Anthony
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