PJ - your post makes some fundamental errors - common in the discussion about MSFT - which confuse cause and effect.
re: You have to work real hard and be somewhat experienced to order a PC today (or the recent few years) that did not have an MSFT OS and Office product pre-installed!
You also have to be somewhat experienced to order a PC without a hard drive or a monitor card. Does this mean there is some conspiracy between the manufacturers of those products and the OEMs? No - the reality is that it is a lot cheaper to make a unit that works, and to manage the support costs (the real driver of "standard configurations) with a small number of tested configurations. The days of "roll your own" PCs are long gone. People want products that work, and don't want to have to learn all the tricks of setting up and debugging. The OS and a couple of "bundles" are just additional components in that mix.
re: One question - if Windows was not on 95% of PCs, would MSFT applications be as successful?
No - and neither would any of the other applications which depend on a standard OS platform. Kind of like the electric power industry at the turn of the century - power came in 25, 50, and 60 cycles, 50V, 110V, 220V, even DC power (still used in parts of New York City until the late 1980s). That meant that your lights, appliances, and other electric devices had to be manufactured differently for different areas of the country, sometimes different parts of the same city.
Have you really read the particulars of for instance, the Caldera suit and the evidence presented there? Do you even know who Caldera is?
Yes - a company whose primary property is a lawsuit. Give me a break... |
