Posted by: Edward Macnaghten
on June 22, 2004 11:51 PM
This article IMHO is excellent and presents the real facts well.
One of the reasons why Microsoft has done so well in the market place is their insistance of supporting legacy applications in their new operating systems. A cost to this has been technical flaws appearing (and sometimes being ported to) Microsoft's Windows product, but the market cost of this has been insignificant to users not having to re-purchase third party applications while "enjoying" the Windows OS latest "features".
However, one thing the Open Source systems has done is to raise expectations as far as reliability and scalability of operating systems, and what with Microsoft's stratergy of DRM'ing as much as possible the backward compatibility component is getting broken.
This is creating an enormouse opportunity for Open Source, and other MS competitors, to knock Microsoft off the number one spot: when people have to upgrade/change their third party software anyway there is less reason to stick with the same OS vendor.
Redmond are well aware of this, so we can expect FUD and marketing behaviour comparible to a fish bouncing and bashing about in the bottom of a boat after being caught.
I consider it part of my responsibility to see it does not bounce back into the water...
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Relevance of Legacy Apps
Posted by: Edward Macnaghten on June 22, 2004 11:51 PMOne of the reasons why Microsoft has done so well in the market place is their insistance of supporting legacy applications in their new operating systems. A cost to this has been technical flaws appearing (and sometimes being ported to) Microsoft's Windows product, but the market cost of this has been insignificant to users not having to re-purchase third party applications while "enjoying" the Windows OS latest "features".
However, one thing the Open Source systems has done is to raise expectations as far as reliability and scalability of operating systems, and what with Microsoft's stratergy of DRM'ing as much as possible the backward compatibility component is getting broken.
This is creating an enormouse opportunity for Open Source, and other MS competitors, to knock Microsoft off the number one spot: when people have to upgrade/change their third party software anyway there is less reason to stick with the same OS vendor.
Redmond are well aware of this, so we can expect FUD and marketing behaviour comparible to a fish bouncing and bashing about in the bottom of a boat after being caught.
I consider it part of my responsibility to see it does not bounce back into the water...
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