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To: X-Ray Man who wrote (7924)	1/22/1998 1:33:00 PM
From: Sowbug	Respond to of 213173

I guess my problem with your analysis is my belief in what is very different about the Mac user base compared to Wintel. I believe that a large part of this user base are people who aren't sophisticated but don't want to rely on technical support organization or professionals. You precisely hit on why Access is cr*p for the low-end user: you gotta hire someone with specific skills to use it. We successfully have our secretaries maintaining DBs in FM Pro. Yes, I agree, and call me a cynic, but I think that has to change. What IS professional would recommend Macs if a "mere" secretary could develop a database for them? Or, worse, if users knew enough to tinker with the company-wide database, or modify their own workstations? The corporate world thrives on compartmentalization, and it's going to take a whole lot more than some "Think Different" billboard campaign before entire corporate departments are going to recommend systems that have the potential to cause them to be downsized out of existence. Believe me, I know about compartmentalization. I'm a lawyer, and if you think about it, the entire industry of law thrives on self-legitimization -- lawyers make the law, lawyers enforce the law, lawyers police themselves. It's one big positive feedback loop that's destined to grow bigger and bigger. So, we have one group -- Mac users -- that from a Darwinian perspective is doomed to shrink, because the fundamental tenet of the Mac is to eliminate the infrastructure that (in the present universe of computing) would ensure the platform's survival. Another group -- Wintel -- stratifies the technical knowledge, enabling entire mini-industries to sustain themselves by becoming masters of little niches of that knowledge, feeding the loop that makes the industry grow bigger. Questions for you: (a) which one's survival do you want to bet on? (b) which one might want to think long and hard about starting to emulate the other?