Dvorak is wrong on this one.
Regarding Dvorak's 5/28/96 PC Mag column, "MSFT will beat NSCP": I like Dvorak's shock jock, shoot from the hip style. He's humorous and creates controversy, or at least he likes to take part in controversial discussions. He often shows insight, but he also just like to stir things up for the fun of it. He knows that saying "MSFT will beat NSCP" will fire people up, create an emotional response. That's what he's good at.
His argument is too one dimensional, and he sounds jealous of NSCP's success. His prediction of NSCP's fate sounds like a dooms day cry from someone who's out of his element. He's a PC guy with MSFT shock syndrome. He misses a couple of huge points. The issue is not low end computing, or desktop apps. It's open networking, open architectures, the spirit of the Internet community. The "UNIX geeks" from NSCP that he refers to are "TCP/IP geeks", ie. open networking people. Dvorak's attempt to paint NSCP as a bunch of snobs is weak. NSCP is leading the way and working with many other companies that know how to create products on the Internet, making use of the open community nature of the Internet.
Sure, MSFT will do fine. Why not? So will IBM. They're hugely successful companies. But I doubt that MSFT will ever defeat NSCP via the web or any Internet wars. As Gates said about IBM's too late attempt to unseat Windows with OS/2 after Windows 3.0 took the world by storm, "The market has already decided that issue." MSN is just another web site. Besides, Internet forums will beat Dvorak's columns. |
