Good articles, Carlos, both the booksellers one and the OS/2 article.
The booksellers article reminds me: Haven't Compaq, Dell, HP and IBM been increasing market share at the expense of smaller PC OEMs? Does this smell of a cartel? Consumers must be being harmed. It's ironic that Compaq, the world's largest seller of PCs is getting a larger market share each quarter, yet they were one of the first to cry of unfair contracts. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the Texas state AG suddenly backed down on suing Microsoft? Perhaps he saw that it would be possible in the not-so-distant future that Compaq and Dell would be themselves being sued by disgruntled competitors.
The OS/2 article: I remember when OS/2 was "THE" next big thing. It was practically a given. Leading edge IT career people were diligently reading up on the Presentation Manager manuals in their spare time, like while their clothes were tumbling in the apartment complex dryers.
I wonder where the oppressed Mark Andreesens and Scott McNealies were then? James Barksdale? Larry Ellison? Where was their interest in operating systems then? Where were these people, back when software utility companies were happily running full-page glossy magazine ads that said "Man has hair fall out waiting for DOS". Evidently Mssrs. Andreesen, McNealy, Barksdale and Ellison weren't very interested in PC OSes back then. DOS was scorned.
But now, now when Microsoft has seen the fruits of its labor return many-fold, NOW the Andreeson's of the world are suddenly interested in the PC OS. And they're wimpering that they don't have a chance to fairly compete because of that big bad bully Microsoft. Correction: You had a chance to compete, but you weren't interested. Tough. |
