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From: bogstad@rhombus.cs.jhu.edu (Bill Bogstad)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.bsd,comp.windows.x.i386unix,biz.sco.general
Subject: Re: SCO market share
Date: 12 Dec 1993 15:23:58 -0500
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University, Computer Science Department
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <2efuku$4vj@rhombus.cs.jhu.edu>
References: <WAYNE.93Dec8164902@backbone.uucp> <hastyCHsyEG.Mun@netcom.com> <1993Dec11.012449.99@kf8nh.wariat.org> <2ec989$knu@vanbc.wimsey.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: rhombus.cs.jhu.edu
In article <2ec989$knu@vanbc.wimsey.com>,
Stuart Lynne <sl@vanbc.wimsey.com> wrote:
>...
>This is a fact that is *not* lost on application software vendors. People
>who don't like to pay money for the OS also don't usually like to spend
>money on application software. So the vendors don't worry about the number
>of users of Linux/Minix/*bsd/?? simply because they don't view them as
>potential customers.
Please. Nobody ever likes paying money for anything if they can get
the exact same thing for free. ("same thing" includes support, future
updates, compatibility with the rest of the world, etc.) Except for hacker
types (myself included), most computer users really don't care what operating
system they use AS LONG AS IT LETS THEM DO WHAT THEY WANT WITH THEIR
COMPUTER. The operating system doesn't do that for most of them and is
essentially worthless to those users. For most people what they want is word
processing, spreadsheets, and databases. A small, struggling company with
good desktop publishing software for Unix systems might consider some kind
of joint distribution with one of the even smaller companies that distributes
packaged Linux or *BSD systems. Get a couple of companies together with a
good product in each of the 3 catagories above and who knows what would
happen. Or maybe not...
Bill Bogstad
bogstad@cs.jhu.edu