How many people would be using computers today if there had never been windows? Is this a good or a bad thing?
This was a *good thing. I was talking about this over breakfast last week with a brainiac friend who extended that out to the web. That is, if it weren't for the pervasive Windows PC, the web would not be what it is today.
It is though, past tense. Windows could fall off the planet, and nobody but MSFT investors would mind. 'Web centric' is the antithesis to 'Windows Everywhere'. The browser, as envisioned by Netscape and Sun has displaced the M$ desktop. It's happened.
For the past 2 months I've been accessing the web exclusively through my ISP *nix shell, from a DOS terminal program (Commo). The text Lynx browser btw, doesn't do SI's Javascript currently which is the reason I use "---" instead of line breaks. Right now, I'm using my wife's PC running Netscape on Corel Linux. With web based email, WordPerfect and PySol Solitaire <g>.
Personally, I'm about to 'upgrade' my PC to a low end Sun Workstation, in some part for the coolness factor. It's a superior web platform, but mostly I'm getting it because I've become a *nix fan (and a Sun fan). I think most folks next PC isn't a PC at all. I have no problem keeping all my stuff (and applications) on somebody elses HD. After 13 years of being a PC owner, I'm sick of the BS involved in keeping one.
In any event, you or I will next year be posting to SI from whatever, wherever, and it won't really matter what OS our device of the moment is using.
In my opinion, my fellow indy investors should be aware of that dynamic if they're holding MSFT equity.
-JCJ |
