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To: RagTimeBand who wrote (4611)	11/1/1997 4:17:00 PM
From: Troy Shaw	Respond to of 7685

Emory, << >>... but they (INTEL) retain backward-compatibility.<< And this is a good thing? IMHO Part of the reason WinTel users suffer is because Intel makes products backward compatible.>> You are showing a complete lack of understanding of the entire Hi-tech industry with a statement like that. The reason why Intel DOMINATES their market, is that they maintain compatibility. Every time you change the "standard" you are giving your competitors a tremendous opportunity to step in and replace you. After all, if as a customer you have to buy all new stuff anyway, why not consider switching brands. Imagine if Microsoft had abandoned the PC and along with it backward compatibility with existing applications, when they went from DOS to Windows. What are the chances that Microsoft would still dominate? Apple, at the time had a clearly superior operating system. Also, how many would argue that OS2 wasn't a better platform than Windows 3.1? It is not "WinTel" that is making "users suffer" because they are maintaining backward compatibility. It is users that are demanding backward compatibility that drives what "WinTel" does. Don't you think Microsoft and Intel would love to abandon all the old legacy apps and architectures? It would make their work much, much easier. Backwards compatibility is what makes Windows 95 the dominant operating system, even though Windows NT is much more robust.

To: RagTimeBand who wrote (4611)	11/2/1997 1:19:00 AM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 7685

>>IMHO Part of the reason WinTel users suffer is because Intel makes products backward compatible.<< Emory - You are absolutely right. Intel has had to make numerous performance compromises because they have always believed backwards compatibility was paramount. From a technical viewpoint, maintaining backwards compatibility is not necessarily a good thing and can even be quite bad. But just look what it has done for Intel's market share, which is what I was talking about. - Allen