<1. The Unix workstation market as well as servers and other distributed components has a number of viable competitors who all adhere to POSIX and other standards (HP, IBM, SUN to name a few).>
From a technician's point of view, but in actual practice the guys who sign the checks feel the various Unix flavors are just as proprietary as any other vendor.
<There is no real comparison between SUN and Microsoft until MS decides to develop its own hardware.>
Someone should tell that to Scott McNealy! Sun in the software business, MSFT is in the software business. I see a definite comparison, and so does McNealy.
<3. The contention that Windows got to the market first and that is what the common user wanted is wrong. If the "common" user wanted Windows he would have bought a Macintosh long before.>
Far from true. Apple did not market to the masses, which is why they were blown away by the tornado. Apple got too greedy and decided not to allow third party vendors to produce software for thier platform until it was too late (not to mention they did resisted a hardware clone market). MSFT encouraged this 3rd party development from the beginning, which is the true source of thier power - overwhelming third party developer support. Therefore the common user could not buy a Macintosh with true variety. The market wants variety, Apple failed to provide - thereby causing a vacuum which was filled by a competitor. Like Gates said, if you don't make your own product obsolete, someone will do it for you.
<By the time Windows 3.0 received mass distribution (say 1990) MS had already achieved a dominant position with DOS. This allowed them to leverage Windows quickly. Its not what the market demanded, however it was accepted.>
This is wrong. Dos apps have no real advantage in Windows. Dos apps also ran smothly on OS/2. IBM failed to bring OS/2 to market as a "whole" product, thereby getting dominated by MSFT. MSFT begged teh dominant software vendors of the period to write apps for Windows, they denied and instead chose to go with OS/2, which was not marketed in force until after Windows gained momentum with its own GUI based productivity apps. This is a case of mgmt. execution and not the dominance of DOS. The only thing DOS did was give MSFT the cash to compete against the likes of industry leaders like MSFT and Lotus. |
